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Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

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Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely. The open source movement in software was still relatively recently and quite radical. The hardware companies are still stuck way in the past.

“The hardware companies are still stuck way in the past.” You wish they were stuck in the past. People like Steve Wozniak often designed new stuff only based on the manuals that back then had complete schematics in them. They didn’t have enough money first to buy anything but that information later on resulted in sales.

And in turn the Apple II manual included schematics and ROM listings.

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#72
post #29

I once got a DMCA takedown request (well, Wikipedia did because of my edit) from Texas Instruments for the following numbers: p = B709D3A0CD2FEC08EAFCCF540D8A100BB38E5E091D646ADB7B14D021096FFCD q = B7207BD184E0B5A0B89832AA68849B29EDFB03FBA2E8917B176504F08A96246CB d = 4D0534BA8BB2BFA0740BFB6562E843C7EC7A58AE351CE11D43438CA239DD9927 6CD125FEBAEE5D2696579FA3A3958FF4FC54C685EAA91723BC8888F292947BA1 which can be used to s…

Just wait till GAN neural networks are more wide spread and refined. Is someone liable for copyright violation if their GAN neural network was trained on copyrighted images? The a refined version of the resulting GAN model can be used in reverse to generate false convincing variations of the original copyrighted media. Is anyone liable?

Should not be different than a human artist producing something after looking at other media. The purpose of copyright is supposed to be to allow people to profit from their works by prohibiting their distribution by others. It seems to me the question of whether one work is a copy of another would be made on the basis of the works themselves, and should be independent of who the artists were. There is also a right to parody, and no inherent reason parody can't be produced in an automated fashion.

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#73
There need to be automatic steep fines for filing fraudulent DMCA requests. The process is totally asymmetrical, rampantly abused, and there is no realistic recourse for victims. In practice people rarely sue afterward, due to further asymmetries. If not an automatic $1k+ fine for false claims, we badly need some ambulance chaser style law firms who solely seek out copyright victims and charge fees only as a fraction of damages awarded.

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard not to view this sort of stuff as saber rattling (or, more accurately, whining) from the OSHW community. TI is more than happy to work with you on their most cutting edge designs if you're shipping in appreciable volume. Talking a quarter million chips or more per year. That's just the way the wind blows in their business. Gotta recoup as much R&D expenditure as possible up front. I've worked with them on t…

I can understand hardware vendors not actively working with you on designs unless you're buying in volume. That's fine, they're a business, they have to make money and not lose money. What I don't understand about the hardware industry is the extent to which they actively restrict access to information on how their product works unless you're buying in volume. Why is it necessary to have layers of NDAs on a product d…

Why is it necessary to have layers of NDAs on a product datasheet? Many of the people who might write software to integrate with some hardware are not the people manufacturing high-volume products based on it!

Because obscuring the use case and the customer of a cutting edge chip is a semiconductor company's most reasonable moat these days. If you telegraph what big customers are buying by freely sharing your most cutting edge product portfolio, someone else will copy it. (Probably someone in China with a hefty dose of subsidy from the gov't.) Classic case of "Your margin is my opportunity."

ADI or On Semi can, and will, catch TI after 18-36 months of development effort. The longer TI can keep them off their tail by making it hard to see what customers are buying, the more profit they can make without a reasonable competitor on the market.

Software is a commodity that TI distributes as a compliment to the thing that actually makes them money, which is selling chips. For analog circuits, this is completely irrelevant, and doesn't affect their operating procedure. For processors and peripherals that require drivers, it's a cost of doing business for them - not an enabling feature.

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope someone takes care of this.

never uploaded anything to libgen, but i am setting up a http mirror of this and will also provide a .zip file, to make it easy for others to download the whole collection. posting the link here when its done, then someone else can submit this to libgen and other places.

my mirror is here: https://mirrors.deadops.de/ti/

zip file (8gb) here: https://mirrors.deadops.de/ti.zip

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand hardware vendors not actively working with you on designs unless you're buying in volume. That's fine, they're a business, they have to make money and not lose money. What I don't understand about the hardware industry is the extent to which they actively restrict access to information on how their product works unless you're buying in volume. Why is it necessary to have layers of NDAs on a product d…

That’s always weird to me. Other companies do the same by hiding specs and documentation from people who aren’t paying big money. I always thought it was supposed to be better to spread your information as widely as possible so people can familiarize themselves with your product resulting in potential future sales.

I always thought it was supposed to be better to spread your information as widely as possible so people can familiarize themselves with your product resulting in potential future sales.

That makes a lot of sense - if you're building a software platform.

If you're building a chip, it makes sense to be the first mover on the cutting edge. By obscuring specs, your competitors won't know what specs are the most valuable to your customers. That sort of thing is critically important to semiconductor business.

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#77
post #33

I’m going to post the unpopular opinion here and say that this is OK in my book. This archive is distributing out of date documentation without making it clear that it’s out of date. This could cause a major problem for someone that uses it. The documentation for the same chip is perfectly available on TIs website, although to get older datasheets you’ll need to dig further (by design). There’s a ton of sites mirrori…

It's a perfect example of the general shittiness of life. Just little things that, in of themselves, aren't bad, but they add up to make everything more difficult.

Once an IC is designed, the datasheet doesn't substantially change. It isn't a computer program that gets continuous updates every couple of months. They might add some errata for some corner cases or clarification. What happens when the IC is discontinued? I still need the datasheet, so I can understand the circuit when finding a replacement IC.

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good choice on ST. I can only recommend their products. While some tools are still wonky and quite archaic (which is sadly pretty much the standard in the industry) their tools are the lesser bad ones.

Unfortunately their IDE doesn't work at all on OSX, their support crawls, and it's obvious they are internally French as in bureaucracy .

Considering OSX is a niche market, why not dual boot?

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#79

I received a takedown demand from them because I had one of their documents on space grade parts on my site. The main reason I put it on my site was because they made the document hard to get, otherwise I would have just put up a link to it. It was clearly a Bot. A human would have seen it as a promotion for a line of obscure TI products.

hey, i set up a mirror here: https://mirrors.deadops.de/ti/

and a zip file (8gb) here to download in bulk (or for others to make their own mirrors): https://mirrors.deadops.de/ti.zip

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait till GAN neural networks are more wide spread and refined. Is someone liable for copyright violation if their GAN neural network was trained on copyrighted images? The a refined version of the resulting GAN model can be used in reverse to generate false convincing variations of the original copyrighted media. Is anyone liable?

Should not be different than a human artist producing something after looking at other media. The purpose of copyright is supposed to be to allow people to profit from their works by prohibiting their distribution by others. It seems to me the question of whether one work is a copy of another would be made on the basis of the works themselves, and should be independent of who the artists were. There is also a right t…

In the eyes of the law it might not be different, but in the practical upshot it is. Running the program may well produce a copyright-violating image, and you'd never know. An artist would have a much harder time doing that without knowing he was doing it. So then somebody sues you for using their copyrighted work and shows you their original, and you're left scratching your head, pointing at the computer.
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