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YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

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Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#51
post #7

I hope they did counter claim? RIAA should get a strong kick for this.

The history of that github repo shows that counterclaims would be listed in that particular repo, along with the original DMCA request. There is no PR for a counterclaim for youtube-dl as of this comment.

That's not good then. There were some concerns before that the project wasn't active anymore, so I hope it's not a sign of maintainers deciding to pull the plug.

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RIAA taking down all of GitHub would instantly pit them against all of Microsoft, and make every developer who already hates their guts to pick up the pitchforks and march. They won't try doing it.

I doubt they'd fear the PR backlash. They didn't fear it before SOPA, and even when SOPA was defeated, it was largely because the backlash was driven by efforts by sites like Wikipedia, Facebook, and Google advertising counter-SOPA messaging, and that drives far more traffic than sites like GitHub.

Taking down GitHub would instantly make millions of developers at thousands of companies unable to do their work.

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#53

Heh, I didn't expect to get much attention for this. I thought it would be funny to push a merge commit between the 2 repo's latest commits. As a result, the git history is accessible from the dmca repo if you know the commit hashes. Since I didn't rebase, all the commit hashes were preserved with signatures. Another fun discovery is that deleting my fork of github/dmca didn't affect the PR like I thought it would, s…

And if GH deletes, and anyone else opens a new PR like you did, then those commits would remain until a second GH admin intervened, and so on?

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt they'd fear the PR backlash. They didn't fear it before SOPA, and even when SOPA was defeated, it was largely because the backlash was driven by efforts by sites like Wikipedia, Facebook, and Google advertising counter-SOPA messaging, and that drives far more traffic than sites like GitHub.

Taking down GitHub would instantly make millions of developers at thousands of companies unable to do their work.

I am well aware of that. But RIAA likely doesn't care one iota about that damage. The injunction they'd write would be along the lines of:

"It's necessary that the entirety of GitHub be shut down until this case is decided. As noted here, they have persistently failed to adhere to our DMCA take-down notices, and continue to knowingly host content that circumvents our copyright protection schemes. Furthermore, it is not sufficient to just remove this content, because it has been and will be repeatedly readded, and GitHub has taken no action to remove these extra copies. We are likely to succeed on our merits because . We are irreparably harmed because ."

That doesn't mean they'd necessarily win on a broad injunction, but they can still push for one (see Apple v Epic for a recent example). And stunts like this one make it more likely that a judge might agree that a broad injunction is necessary instead of a narrow one.

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#55
post #48

Heh, I didn't expect to get much attention for this. I thought it would be funny to push a merge commit between the 2 repo's latest commits. As a result, the git history is accessible from the dmca repo if you know the commit hashes. Since I didn't rebase, all the commit hashes were preserved with signatures. Another fun discovery is that deleting my fork of github/dmca didn't affect the PR like I thought it would, s…

Why github/dmca? Why not e.g. tensorflow or numpy or some other package that people actually depend on?

Ironic.

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#56

Heh, I didn't expect to get much attention for this. I thought it would be funny to push a merge commit between the 2 repo's latest commits. As a result, the git history is accessible from the dmca repo if you know the commit hashes. Since I didn't rebase, all the commit hashes were preserved with signatures. Another fun discovery is that deleting my fork of github/dmca didn't affect the PR like I thought it would, s…

The end result will be GitHub taking down this repo and possibly blocking PRs. Congratulations on making life difficult for other people.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#57
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The history of that github repo shows that counterclaims would be listed in that particular repo, along with the original DMCA request. There is no PR for a counterclaim for youtube-dl as of this comment.

That's not good then. There were some concerns before that the project wasn't active anymore, so I hope it's not a sign of maintainers deciding to pull the plug.

The claim was filed on Friday. It's been less than 48 hours, almost none of it during business hours. Filing a counterclaim is literally saying "see you in court," and given both that RIAA is known for being litigious and that youtube-dl's defense here is (to my reading of the law) merely decent and not slam-dunk, I would not want to take that step without seeking the advice of a lawyer first.

So even if a counterclaim were to be filed, I would not expect it to have been filed yet.

Edit: the most recent counterclaim I see filed was done on 2020-10-08 (https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/5dfed34cdb3774fcb10cb294...)... for a claim filed on 2020-09-16 (https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/951b7ba132fd6bafab2401a7...). That's almost a month later.

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#58
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that a hack is not a fix. All of you, write to your representatives about that if you care. In EU when they were going to put some similar laws we all organized and wrote massively to the parliament and they backed down. It is a lot of effort but it works.

And what should we ask for? There is stuff to complain about with the DMCA, but the core process is reasonable. Someone claims copyright infringement by a user, and the website takes the content down. The user claims no copyright infringement, the website restores the content. The website is immune from liability, the alleged copyright owner can settle things in court with the user if they want to.

You missed the relevant part of the DMCA for this takedown, which makes bypassing "anti-circumvention' measures a crime. That section has caused nothing but problems.
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