Qualcomm Takes Down 100+ GitHub Repositories With DMCA Notice 349
An anonymous reader writes Qualcomm has forced GitHub to remove over 100 repositories due to "unauthorized publication, disclosure, and copying of highly sensitive, confidential, trade secret, and copyright-protected documents." Among the repositories taken down were for CyanogenMod and Sony Xperia. The issue though is that these "highly sensitive" and "confidential" files are Linux kernel code and reference/sample code files that can be easily found elsewhere, including the Android kernel, but GitHub has complied with Qualcomm's DMCA request.
On this 4th of July... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:On this 4th of July... (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom, in the land of the just.
And you can blame every bit of it on the DMCA.
This is a great example of how the takedown process established by DMCA is inherently abusive. Lots of perfectly legitimate information is taken down with no proof of anything, just because some copyright troll wants to say so.
That ain't America.
Re:On this 4th of July... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is America. This is how the legal system has always worked.
A does action X.
B objects and threatens to sue A if the doesn't stop X.
A agrees.
GitHub is a distributor. To distribute they need to be properly licensed. They are now asking for assurance of licensing given that Qualcomm is contending they are the copyright holder. That's all that is happening. Qualcomm is factually wrong and under the law they can be sued for being wrong by the licensees (the people about whom they made false complaints).
That is in no way different than what would have happened 100 years ago if someone was distributing a book and someone else complained that the distributor didn't have license to the material.
Re:On this 4th of July... (Score:5, Insightful)
Qualcomm is factually wrong and under the law they can be sued for being wrong by the licensees
Yeah good luck with that.
Re: (Score:2)
I understand. But the inequality between rich and poor in court ain't something new which is what GP was claiming. :)
There are other justice systems where wealth is less of a factor which have other different minus.
Re: On this 4th of July... (Score:3)
I'd think that any company selling Android based mobile phone, tablet or other Linux based device built from GPL code they received directly from Qualcomm would have good standing to take this to court. End users not so much.
Maybe Qualcomm really have made the decision that they only want their chips used in Windows Phone devices from now on, because this is the signal they are sending to manufacturers that rely on their hardware support for Linux and Android with this move.
Re:On this 4th of July... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. It's not sufficient to be "factually wrong" -- the claims must be "knowingly false". You can issue all the "accidental" takedown notices you want without any fear of being sued over it. Which is nothing like 100 year ago.
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Before the DMCA you could issue a Cease and Desist in good faith that was factually wrong. That hasn't changed.
Re:On this 4th of July... (Score:5, Informative)
An accidental take-down notice is fine. File the counter-notice to have the content restored, at which time if they persist and file a lawsuit in court it no longer is considered accidental and the standard is moved much more into your favor if they are simply trying to file thousands of these kind of lawsuits. Judges don't like class-action lawsuits where the defendant is a class of people of mostly "John Does".
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As an individual, once you're in court, you lose. A DMCA counternotice is an invitation to sue -- literally, you tell them where you can be sued. Inviting companies with lawyers on staff to sue you is a great way to lose all your money. Regardless of merit.
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If Qualcomm after careful examination still believes they own copyright that isn't the situation everyone is complaining about but another question. You are asserting you are properly licensed. Qualcomm would be asserting they have copyright. Given this is GitHub you are talking open source software. That should be an easy suit. This is exactly what people are asking for, that Qualcomm look carefully.
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If Qualcomm in this situation filed a copyright violation lawsuit over GPL'd code posted on Github, they would need to pay legal fees for that lawsuit and other costs.... something that has current legal precedence as similar lawsuits have already happened and the big guy lost against a couple of college students.
If you automatically assume judges are corrupt, I suppose that you disagree with the entire notion of the rule of law, so just go get a shot gun and fire it through the eye sockets of the guy filin
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No, it is not. It sounds like a great way to earn a whole bunch of money from somebody who is having repeated brain farts about what the law actually says.
Even if you win (and that's a big if, considering you are an individual vs. a company with armies of lawyers on staff) the most you will ever see is that your copyright gets upheld and you MAY recover attorney's fees. Unless you can prove Qualcomm maliciously and purposefully filed an false DMCA claim you aren't getting jack. If you are a contributor to an open source project are you really going to give up hundreds of hours of your life and thousands of dollars out of pocket to defend your portion of the
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This is America. This is how the legal system has always worked.
NO, IT ISN'T.
Prior to DMCA, copyright law worked the same way as most other areas of law: in order to make somebody stop doing something, you had to show they were actually doing something wrong.
DMCA takedown provisions made it so that anybody -- almost ANYBODY -- can "claim" a copyright infringement without ANY evidence, and force other people to remove their "speech" from public view, until they give evidence that it's NOT infringing.
That is directly contrary to the concept of "innocent until pro
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Prior to the DMCA most distributors demanded proof of licensing prior to distributing. The DMCA establishes a process for a distributor (like GitHub) to distribute without a strong claim of license in their possession prior to distribution.
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What glorious, gloroius nonsense! I mean, do you really think no one here remembers the world before 1999?
Actually, in many cases I do. College-age kids who are posting in reply here today likely didn't care about stuff like legal codes, what it was like to set up a website with a text editor, or the level of paranoia that existed among at least the more intelligent folks who cared about stuff like copyright. Remember, you are talking the era when Unisys was suing everybody simply for putting a GIF image on their web page (simply because it was encoded with the GIF data format.... that had nothing to do with
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The legal process in the USA starts with negotiation between the parties. That's how it always works. Courts don't intervene in contracts until the parties can't come to agreement.
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I completely disagree with you, and it shows you know little of what lawyers actually do for a living. 90%+ of all legal matters are handled without even involving a judge at all, where the lawyer simply explains what the law allows or doesn't allow and resolves the whole matter without going to court. We don't need to have a judge involved each time a little kid gets a scrape on a playground or gets taunted by a bully.
The other problem with your assertion that you need to go before a judge to get the con
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I completely disagree with you, and it shows you know little of what lawyers actually do for a living.
What lawyers do to is irrelevant to me, and wasn't what I was speaking of to begin with. What is relevant, however, is the DMCA, and what happens to your safe harbor status if you don't abide by DMCA takedowns.
The point of the DMCA was to make it more expensive for the copyright violators than it was for those who were trying to enforce copyright laws in the first place.
No, that's a *bad* thing. Just because 'justice' is expensive doesn't mean we should make it easier for them to abuse their powers just so there can be more 'justice.' That's not how any truly free country should work. I'm sure police would find it easier to go after the 'bad guys' if we simply let th
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I'd like to note that I earn a professional wage off of copyrighted content. I depend upon copyright working in order for me to support and feed my family (not very lavishly either I might add).
Therefore, it's right to try to circumvent the courts and streamline copyright enforcement? No. That's not how it should work in any truly free country.
When I say that I think it is a stupid thing to have each possible copyright infringement go to a judge for review, I think it is not only a waste of time for that judge but also for me as well.
I don't think it's a waste of time at all, because it'll force copyright thugs to have to see a judge.
but that is essentially what the DMCA take-down notice actually is in the first place, going to the ISP instead of the actual person first.
If that's what it is, then I guess you can stop using DMCA take-down notices then, yes? But they're not the same. You can lose your safe harbor status over it.
Again, under your system of strictly using judicial orders for removing content, how is copyright even going to function for somebody like me?
Once again, we're supposed to be 'the land of the free and the home of the brave.' 'Sacrifices' are
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Not a chance. The DMCA is set up so the chance of winning a countersuit is so small that no lawyer would take such a case on contingency. You'd have to pay yourself. And that's after paying to defend yourself from the original suit, however meritless it may be.
Re:On this 4th of July... (Score:5, Interesting)
You really have a warped sense of the law here. Note, you aren't filing a countersuit here, you are filing a counter-notice and expecting them to file a formal lawsuit against you if they want to continue. They, the guys who filed the original DMCA notice, need to spend their money filing the lawsuit and going before a federal judge to explain why they want to see you in court.
Where do you get this notion that the law doesn't apply to you, me, or anybody else other than some special elite? Are you really serious about this belief that laws don't matter and don't actually protect anybody but somebody with seven+ figures in their bank account?
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You really have a warped sense of the law here. Note, you aren't filing a countersuit here, you are filing a counter-notice and expecting them to file a formal lawsuit against you if they want to continue. They, the guys who filed the original DMCA notice, need to spend their money filing the lawsuit and going before a federal judge to explain why they want to see you in court.
Their goal is to get people to stop posting stuff on websites. They win as soon as their lawsuit makes headlines. Whether they win the court case doesn't matter to them.
Their risk is basically limited to the cost of litigation - something fairly predictable. The defendant's risk is that predictable cost of litigation plus statutory damages (up to $150k per work, though usually much less).
So, Qualcomm gets to decide if spending $50k on a trial is worth the resulting chilling effects on everybody else. Th
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Sure, you got to compensate with something! :)
Counter-notice! (Score:2)
Re:Counter-notice! (Score:4, Interesting)
I am. I'm just fine-tuning it at the moment.
(github.com/qca/qca_open_hal_public)
*sigh* and I wanted to enjoy my weekend..
-a
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What fine tuning?
"My name is X, and legal service may be made to Y. Acting on behalf of the information identified at Z I assert under penalty of perjury my belief that the material does not infringe a copyright as claimed. I request and require that the material be restored until such time as any dispute regarding infringement is resolved at law. I respectfully remind you that only timely compliance with this put-back notice absolves you of liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
That's it. T
Two week downtime (Score:3)
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DMCA requires that the service provider wait no fewer than ten and no more than fourteen days after forwarding the counter-notification and then put it back up if the service provider has not received notice of suit in that period.
Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure about the section in bold requiring the ISP to wait 10 days. The phrasing is weird. Here is the relevant section of the DMCA [copyright.gov](emphasis mine):
Under the knowledge standard, a service provider is eligible for the limitation on liability only if it does not have actual knowledge of the infringement, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent, or upon gaining such knowledge or awareness, responds expeditiously to take the material down or block access to it.
The statute also establishes procedures for proper notification, and rules as to its effect. (Section 512(c)(3)). Under the notice and takedown procedure, a copyright owner submits a notification under penalty of perjury, including a list of specified elements, to the service providerâ(TM)s designated agent. Failure to comply substantially with the statutory requirements means that the notification will not be considered in determining the requisite level of knowledge by the service provider. If, upon receiving a proper notification, the service provider promptly removes or blocks access to the material identified in the notification, the provider is exempt from monetary liability. In addition, the provider is protected from any liability to any person for claims based on its having taken down the material. (Section 512(g)(1)).
In order to protect against the possibility of erroneous or fraudulent notifications, certain safeguards are built into section 512. Subsection (g)(1) gives the subscriber the opportunity to respond to the notice and takedown by filing a counter notification. In order to qualify for the protection against liability for taking down material, the service provider must promptly notify the subscriber that it has removed or disabled access to the material. If the subscriber serves a counter notification complying with statutory requirements, including a statement under penalty of perjury that the material was removed or disabled through mistake or misidentification, then unless the copyright owner files an action seeking a court order against the subscriber, the service provider must put the material back up within 10-14 business days after receiving the counter notification.
Penalties are provided for knowing material misrepresentations in either a notice or a counter notice. Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that it was removed or blocked through mistake or misidentification, is liable for any resulting damages (including costs and attorneysâ(TM) fees) incurred by the alleged infringer, the copyright owner or its licensee, or the service provider. (Section 512(f)).
I believe the last paragraph does allow for penalties for deliberately false take down notices. The problem is that you would have to actually take the case to court and discover that they knew the notices would be false. IANAL but if I read this right, if you file a counter claim to get things put back up claiming misidentifica
"Good faith" (Score:5, Insightful)
"I did a Google search for [term] and have a good faith belief that there's no possible way any of the results could be non-infringing. Because I can't believe that any of the results could possibly be non-infringing, I'm not going to examine any of the results more closely. I require you to remove all these results I came up with or be subject to liability under ridiculous laws if it turns out my head isn't *completely* up my ass. In addition, unless you can *prove* that I'm not acting in good faith, through a time-consuming and expensive process, there's absolutely nothing you can do about it! Have a nice day! ---Jackass-in-a-suit"
Re:"Good faith" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's too bad that there's not a higher bar for "good faith." It'd be nice if it could be more readily disproven, in some cases.
"I did a Google search for [term] and have a good faith belief that there's no possible way any of the results could be non-infringing. Because I can't believe that any of the results could possibly be non-infringing, I'm not going to examine any of the results more closely. I require you to remove all these results I came up with or be subject to liability under ridiculous laws if it turns out my head isn't *completely* up my ass. In addition, unless you can *prove* that I'm not acting in good faith, through a time-consuming and expensive process, there's absolutely nothing you can do about it! Have a nice day! ---Jackass-in-a-suit"
Screw good faith. Places need to start charging to process DMCA notices, and then when they get fake or bad, or just plain wrong notices like this, you then charge them 1000x the price. They don't pay? Then you don't process any more DMCA notices from them.
I thought we were about capitalism, this is capitalism at it's finest. Money is the only thing these people/corporations understand, so speak their language. They want to not be responsible about DMCA notices, then make it cost them.
Re:"Good faith" (Score:5, Informative)
The DMCA does not allow you to refuse to process notices due to unpaid processing fees. Therefore, if they refuse to pay the fee, you are still required to process all their notices anyway, or you lose safe harbor.
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The DMCA does not allow you to refuse to process notices due to unpaid processing fees. Therefore, if they refuse to pay the fee, you are still required to process all their notices anyway, or you lose safe harbor.
Okay, then let's do this the way. If you don't pay the fines, then your DMCA notices are put in the low priority queue. You pay your fines, we put you back in the high priority queue.
That works for Netflix & Comcast, so I don't see why it shouldn't work for DMCA notices.
Re: "Good faith" (Score:5, Interesting)
There also need to be rules for overturned requests.
If Company A issues a takedown request against something on my website, and I successfully appeal the claim, that needs to be a strike against Company A.
Three strikes and Company A is barred from making DMCA requests (either permanently or for some set timeframe). This would instantly stop these companies from issuing mass auto-generated takedown requests.
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The DMCA process is the law. ISPs don't get to charge. They have two choices
a) Accept liability
b) Get a statement of license from the person distributing the content
If DMCA continues to grow what is going to happen is ISPs will just need license ass
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Re:"Good faith" (Score:5, Insightful)
No. They don't.
The penalty of perjury only applies to a very small part of the takedown notice -- that the person making the request is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder. The rest of the takedown notice is not under penalty of perjury.
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Yes. The RIAA got their head handed to them for these sorts of claims. In a sort of related ways banks have paid 10 digit fines collectively for false foreclosure notices.
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Incorrect. The only part under penalty is that the notice is filed with authorisation of the copyright holder. There's no requirement the rest of the information be accurate. This is what makes it possible to, say, google every site hosting a file with the words 'justin bieber' in the filename and extension '.mp3' and send automatic takedowns. Sure, there will be a few errors - but it's prohibatively expensive to actually manually download and listen to every one of those files.
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Not the copyright holder of the claimed infringing material. The copyright holder of the claimed infringed work. Different thing entirely.
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To win any lawsuit (including copyright) the burden of proof is on the person suing. The last thing America needs is easier ways to make money suing people.
Trolling (Score:5, Interesting)
Kind of ironic one of those repositories is owned by Qualcomm Atheros. Guess they are copyright infringing themselves?
Oh the world we live in.
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I remember the original VCR lawsuits, where the principal complainant, Sony Entertainment, sued manufacturers of VCRs to try to somehow disable them from copying tapes. The principal defendant? Sony Electronics, the largest manufacturer of VCRs at the time. Then we got to see the whole show play out again a few years later with CD burners.
Re:Trolling (Score:5, Interesting)
It's pretty funny indeed. Except when it's not.
I'm the guy that got that through the internal Qualcomm open source review process .. and now they've done this. Grr.
Dump MORE Snapdragon? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does Cyanogenmod need even more encouragement to dump Qualcomm processors? [androidpolice.com] Odd that the Nook Color is still supported, when many faster Qualcomm chips have been shown the door.
I already have to run an unofficial release of Cyanogenmod on my vivow. Now what is the likelyhood that I'm going to get a Towelroot patch when you are nuking the source repositories?
I still won't buy Motorola products because of their past behavior. Am I about to add Qualcomm to that list?
Re:Dump MORE Snapdragon? (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is, dumping support for Qualcomm processors basically means dumping support for nearly every phone capable of doing LTE in the United States or Canada. Even now, you can count the number of top-shelf best-of-breed US/Canadian-LTE-compatible Android phones with non-Qualcomm baseband processors on one hand & have fingers left over when you're done.
In the meantime, if you're trying to find restricted documentation for things like Qualcomm's MSM8960 chipset, try Baidu. The Chinese internet is LITTERED with Qualcomm datasheets (not to mention other chips whose documentation is kept firmly under lock & key in the United States).
Go to hell Qualcomm (Score:2)
And stay there.
Luuuuuucy! (Score:2)
You got some 'splainin' to do. rickyricardo.jpg
There need to be costs (Score:5, Interesting)
There needs to be a cost for issuing overbroad DMCA takedown notices.
If a court finds out later that a company had no standing or no good reason to make a DMCA claim that resulted in a takedown, there should be statutory damages. Let's start at $10000 per infraction.
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There needs to be a cost for issuing overbroad DMCA takedown notices.
I have a proposal: civil forfeiture of copyright assets spuriously alleged to be infringed, if the number of legitimate uses affected by wrongful DMCA letter exceeds 10 per work per calendar year.
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There is no possible fix for the DMCA. It is working exactly as designed. The better solution is to elect people who will repeal the law. Aside from that, the fine should be a million per infraction. $10000 won't stop the big offenders. And aside from that, we need an internet that can better resist censorship and tracking. As long as it is possible to vote away our rights, we need technical solutions to make it impossible.
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Now that's the kind of talk that makes me want to swap retroshare keys.
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if a court finds out later that a company had no standing or no good reason to make a DMCA claim that resulted in a takedown, there should be statutory damages. Let's start at $10000 per infraction.
won't work. many of dmca trolls have no problem in shelling out 10k, even several times a day. this would just alienate the guy or small company that may have a legitimate claim but can't afford it and also has reasonable fear that he will get trampled over in court. it's the same problem with patents: the rich will almost always win. patent fights nowadays only make sense between megacorps.
the only real solution is going full underground. free source simply cannot depend on private companies' goodwill, wit
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If a court finds out later that a company had no standing or no good reason to make a DMCA claim that resulted in a takedown, there should be statutory damages. Let's start at $10000 per infraction.
Alternativly if the claimant does not represent the copyright holder treat their actions as copyright infringement with statutory damages according to how many times the file could have expected to be accessed whilst it was unavailable. Bas
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Now we just have to beat Qualcomm's campaign contributions so that this will be made into law.
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Now don't be crazy... if a company can get $10,000 by successfully fighting a DMCA request, frivolous requests will vanish overnight. Instead of the one-sided way it is now (comply, or get nothing but liability). Also, if you did it based on % of revenue, you'd end up with penniless companies issuing takedown requests.
Github overtaken by thuggish government (Score:5, Insightful)
Github FAILS the requirement for reliability due to being subject to DMCA horseshit. Will somebody please start the next github in a jurisdiction untouchable by DMCA and other thuggish regulations.
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...a jurisdiction untouchable by DMCA and other thuggish regulations...
does not exist, not on this planet. You can bet that, if it came down to brass tacks, nuclear weapons would be used to enforce copyright when more conventional methods fail.
Who do you trust? (Score:2)
Will somebody please start the next github in a jurisdiction untouchable by DMCA and other thuggish regulations.
The geek is forever looking for some safe haven.
I don't know where you will find one when the stakes are high enough.
I do know I'm not going to be looking eight to twelve thousand miles from home for a KIm Dotcom to protect my interests.
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Basically you want Github hosted in Canada.
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Get a repository some place outside the US. Where there is less of this nonsense.
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To get that, I think you'll need a distributed peer-to-peer replacement - something like freenet [wikipedia.org] but without the enormous overhead incurred from the secrecy requirements there. Basically, parts of each repository would be stored redundantly on all clients, and these would all take part in push/pull requests etc. There is nothing preventing you from including the other, non-git features of github in such a program also, including bugtracking etc. But building it would not be trivial.
All centralized architect
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That would help projects like CyanogenMod how exactly?
World of Mirrors (Score:2)
Comply first. Litigate later. (Score:4, Informative)
but GitHub has complied with Qualcomm's DMCA request.
Comply first. Litigate later. This is the smart thing to do most of the time. For GitHub, it is not like they are being forced to give the keys to the kingdom or to hand over sensitive data customers entrusted to it. No no data is lost or compromised. It is simply inaccessible while GitHub tries to litigate hopefully with sponsorship by those GitHub users that are being affected.
Not githubs fault (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to handle DMCA requests. We got thousands per day. You get them via email and there's no way to verify that the sender is who they say they are, the sender is actually the owner of the content, that the content can even BE owned, or that the contents of what's being complained about has anything to do with the complaint. DMCA requests are a logistical nightmare. You have a user thats hosting a file... Music.mp3 and you get an email from joesmith@lawfirm.com or whatever... How do you know they represent the content owner? Or are even really lawyers? Or that the claimed content owner owns the song in question? How do you know it's not just a recording of the guys kid singing the song in the bath? Maybe the person sending the complaint is just his ex-wife. There's very little you can do about any of it, so you have to make a wild ass guess. You're almost always wrong, but the one thing you can be sure of is that if someone like Qualcomm sends you a complaint, they can certainly follow through with a lawsuit, where-as the an open source project likely cannot. So which side would you err on?
This is a problem with the law, not with Github or even Qualcomm. Fix the damned law.
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How do you know they represent the content owner? Or are even really lawyers? Or that the claimed content owner owns the song in question?
They have to state under penalty of perjury that they are or represent the content owner. And they have to give you a contact address. As they make a statement under penalty of perjury, they are either right or criminals. If they are criminals, that will get sorted out.
Re:Not github's fault (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not github's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
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There is a reason USA laws usually favor bigger companies: they wrote them.
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The president has a pen.
I'm sure he'll be right on this.
Perhaps before tee time.
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Sounds like there's a simple solution to DMCA. Start a Kickstarter project for a system to send everyone DMCA requests for everything. Either a website takes their entire website offline, or they start ignoring DMCA requests.
Qualcomm, but not really Qualcomm. (Score:5, Interesting)
From the Phoronix site: (Score:5, Interesting)
That C file is part of the Android MSM kernel source tree and does contain a "Qualcomm Confidential and Proprietary" line while noting it's now under a Linux Foundation copyright.
Well, that could be just a tiny little problem for Qualcomm then. In a DMCA takedown notice, there are mistakes that you are allowed to make and mistakes that are criminal. A DMCA takedown notice against material that is not the one you own, or that has a license which you didn't notice, that's harmless. But you state under penalty of perjury that you are the copyright holder or represent the copyright holder of the item that you believe to be infringed. So if the Linux Foundation is indeed the copyright holder, that should be fatal.
Re:From the Phoronix site: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:From the Phoronix site: (Score:4, Informative)
I'm a Qualcomm employee working on the Linux kernel. Qualcomm has a very thorough vetting process for publishing open source code. I would have to see the file in question to be sure, but it appears that someone in Qualcomm messed up and allowed that C file to be published. It probably should have had the Proprietary line deleted, although I have a suspicion that the file was copied from some actual proprietary code and should never have been submitted.
Cyveillance (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh that DMCA was issued by Cyveillance - the incompetent company Hollywood and music labels hired for policing P&P by string matching filenames and then carpet bombing service providers with DMCA requests, even though the content was not infringing at all. I bet they simply crawled Github for Qualcomm copyright notices, something that is often left in source code, even though it was relicensed long time ago already. Unfortunately, their bot is not that smart.
Some references:
https://www.techdirt.com/artic... [techdirt.com]
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po... [arstechnica.com]
etc.
These bozos are known and someone at Qualcomm should get fired for hiring them. This is going to backfire at Qualcomm in a spectacular way, IMO.
Re:Cyveillance (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh that DMCA was issued by Cyveillance
Wow, I haven't heard of those assclowns in a LOOOOOONG time.
I even have a firewall rule for them them that I added at least ten years ago, so it's probably way out of date:
$IPFW add 100 deny ip from 63.148.99.224/27 to any
$IPFW add 100 deny ip from 65.118.41.192/27 to any
Yep, I see there's a more recent list here: http://www.vk2qh.net/blockedip... [vk2qh.net]
Appears elsewhere? (Score:2)
I don't know enough to comment on the validity of the claimed copyrights in general. But I do know one thing: The fact that material appears elsewhere online is not evidence that it is not copyrighted.
The important question is not whether the stuff appears elsewhere. The important question is only whether Oracle's claimed copyright is real/valid.
Re: (Score:2)
Getting your villains confused?
Linux licensing canary? (Score:3)
Location? (Score:2)
I wonder if the DMCA sharks would have a more difficult time issuing this if github were not hosted within the United States. Anyone know more about this?
I can understand why github would comply first, debate later -- they have many employees who could be at risk. I agree with a previous poster, in that there should be a "cost" for filing DMCA complaints, especially if they prove to be baseless. This process seems to be always associated with bullying or some form of abuse, rather than genuinely protec
I gotta ask (Score:4, Funny)
Is it still not legal to shoot copyright trolls on sight?
And if not, WHY THE HELL NOT?
A suggested addendum for the GPL (Score:2)
If you issue a DMCA takedown notice against a product licensed under GPL, you no longer may use any products under the GPL. You have shown that you value milking software for money over its free distribution, and hence you obviously have no need for software that can be distributed openly.
What else is safe ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Any vendor can issue DCMA on any file online as "violating" whatever IP / Copyright / Patent that it holds, and normally the ISP (or gate keeper) complies and remove those files
In light of this, anything can be accused of "violating" something - and that makes everything online liable to be taken down, if DCMA is not reigned in
Re:What else is safe ? (Score:5, Informative)
While anybody can issue a DMCA take-down request, you can also fire a counter-protest to any such action as a content holder. All it takes is to send a formal letter to the ISP and demand that the content is restored. The ISP is then found blameless and if the person who issued the take-down notice wants to go further they need to take the whole issue to a judge and resolve it through a normal legal process rather than getting the ISP caught in the cross-hairs.
If you do file a counter-protest though, make damn sure you really do have copyright licensing on everything you are asserting is legal, or that you are on the very sunny side of fair-use (such as a legitimate parody or even a review/commentary.... as appropriate) for whatever content you try to issue the counter-protest.
You don't need to roll over and play dead claiming you are helpless with the onslaught of stupid DMCA requests.
While not about GitHub, this article about the DMCA and its application of take-down notices done on YouTube (which is notorious about such things) and what you can do in a similar situation is very informative:
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/StephenMcArthur/20140624/219589/ [gamasutra.com]
You really don't need to roll over, especially for something really stupid like a take-down request applied on Linux Kernel code.
Re: What else is safe ? (Score:3)
Re:What else is safe ? (Score:4, Interesting)
The dumbest thing about this is that we're talking about it instead of doing something effective about it.
Re: (Score:2)
Proposals, then? I have two:
- Lobby for copyright reform that actually makes it harder to bring false accusations or imposes a penalty for notices sent in error. Problem there is going up against some of the best lobbyists in the world: By the time they are done rewriting any such proposal, it'd make things worse.
- Turn to crypto-anarchism and set up communications systems that are resistant to takedown, like freenet. Problem here is that such systems come with nasty overheads and would be just as popular w
Re:What else is safe ? (Score:5, Interesting)
A third:
- Join them. Since you need no legal standing to actually FILE a takedown notice on a site, start a distributed clearinghouse to file takedown notices on website holdings of all companies who are seen to file such notices. Basically, if they're identifying similar content but it is obvious that they don't own the copyright, then that indicates that THEY are likely in violation of copyright, so THEIR pages should be taken down.
I think if someone set up a forum with automated takedown system using the original takedown notice against them (also filing the standard challenge response regarding the original notice), this kind of thing would stop pretty quickly. If every major corporation ran the risk of having its assets removed from the internet every time it issued a takedown notice, that SHOULD give them pause.
Re: What else is safe ? (Score:3)
the current Internet is popular with the criminal element but we're not going to stop using it for that reason. Same for cash, guns, and safes.
So's Ketchup... (Score:3)
the current Internet is popular with the criminal element but we're not going to stop using it for that reason. Same for cash, guns, and safes.
So's Ketchup...
For the love of God, can we at least do something about ketchup?
Re:No validation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone can simply announce ownership of a part of the code and claim it is stolen property. "Hey, I used a for loop once and that looks a lot like mine."
No, this is not possible.
Re:User Beware (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
They are in everything that has to do with mobile technology. Want to boycott them? You have to go completely offline.
Re: (Score:2)