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GitHub has received a DMCA from MPA about torrent tracker nyaa.si

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Re: GitHub has received a DMCA from MPA about torrent tracker nyaa.si

#41

Post by La1n »

ratww wrote: post #36
bitcharmer wrote: post #3

Can someone knowledgeable explain to me how a tracker source code violates DMCA? What's next, hard disk manufacturers? Internet providers?

> What's next, hard disk manufacturers? Internet providers? You're joking, but in some countries there are taxes on blank recording media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy

And in the Netherlands those used to make sense. As downloading copyrighted material was legal for personal use

https://mashable.com/2014/04/10/downloading-pirated-content-...

Re: GitHub has received a DMCA from MPA about torrent tracker nyaa.si

#42

Post by francis_t_catte »

erk__ wrote: post #15

Seems that it is something that MPA have gone after for some time they tried to shut down the website late last year. https://torrentfreak.com/mpa-lawyers-are-trying-to-shut-down...

yeah, this reads as more of an attempt against the torrent tracker site, rather than the tracker software itself.

Re: GitHub has received a DMCA from MPA about torrent tracker nyaa.si

#43

Post by Nextgrid »

voidwtf wrote: post #16

I hope GitHub is willing to put a stop to this, seems like a stretch. Where this thread of logic end? Should python be blocked by DMCA because it is used to compile code that facilitates copyright infringement?

This nasty industry tried to make the VCR illegal back in the day so you're not that far off.

Re: GitHub has received a DMCA from MPA about torrent tracker nyaa.si

#45

Post by toomuchtodo »

fartcannon wrote: post #37
toomuchtodo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Github needs to go on the offensive and begin to take action against fraudulent DMCA notices, including justification to seek damages for these claims.

Microsoft would never do that unless their hands were forced. Too much potential business with them. We could try forcing their hands by removing all our code from Github?

More effective would be those who are at orgs paying for Github Enterprise to express to their account managers they'll take their business elsewhere if Github is unable to defend it's platform from malicious actors.

Github don't care if you take your code elsewhere. They most definitely care about revenue (and developer mindshare a somewhat close second).

Re: GitHub has received a DMCA from MPA about torrent tracker nyaa.si

#46

Post by jitendrac »

bitcharmer wrote: post #3

Can someone knowledgeable explain to me how a tracker source code violates DMCA? What's next, hard disk manufacturers? Internet providers?

Torrent trackers are responsible to introduce Peers to each other who are downloading/uploading the same files[torrent]. Its basically the backbone of torrent.

say for example, you have a torrent file or a magnet link. And you start downloading the file using client application, it will go to known trackers and ask them the address of peers who are uploading the file based on unique hash of it. Torrent breaks files in the chunks with size of few MB referred as pieces, Tracker will get the current status of downloaded and remaining chunks from you and give you the list of peers with same file available, at same time it will register your address for the other new peers to connect. now connecting peers have knowledge of one anther's address they will share pieces to others and download remaining from other peers to complete the download.

so, basically peer is backbone of system, its a tool which can have multiple use legal or not, one cannot simply call its source code violating the IPs, that's just an absurd argument.

Re: GitHub has received a DMCA from MPA about torrent tracker nyaa.si

#47

Post by sodality2 »

wilshire_nc wrote: post #17
bitcharmer wrote: post #3

Can someone knowledgeable explain to me how a tracker source code violates DMCA? What's next, hard disk manufacturers? Internet providers?

I never saw the repo, but to play devil's advocate it's possible that there's a unit test or something that downloads copyrighted material. That's what got youtube-dl taken down.

Doubt, there would be no reason for it to be copyrighted material, it would just be a torrent test

Re: GitHub has received a DMCA from MPA about torrent tracker nyaa.si

#48

Post by slg »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #14
mmastrac wrote: post #9

The MPA seems to be getting braver with these takedowns, considering how quickly the youtube-dl one got flipped around. This one seems particularly shaky as you could not use it to explicitly download anything - rather to host data of your own (with no explicit requirement for it to be unauthorized copyright violation). EDIT: perhaps just a ploy to unmask the authors of the torrent site?

Github needs to go on the offensive and begin to take action against fraudulent DMCA notices, including justification to seek damages for these claims.

IANAL, but I am pretty sure Microsoft has little recourse here. The requests would need to be knowingly fraudulent for recourse and that is a huge hurdle to prove that the MPA is knowingly acting in bad faith rather than just being overaggressive.

The DMCA desperately needs to be reworked at the very least.

Re: GitHub has received a DMCA from MPA about torrent tracker nyaa.si

#49

Post by DCKing »

fartcannon wrote: post #37
toomuchtodo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Github needs to go on the offensive and begin to take action against fraudulent DMCA notices, including justification to seek damages for these claims.

Microsoft would never do that unless their hands were forced. Too much potential business with them. We could try forcing their hands by removing all our code from Github?

> Microsoft would never do that unless their hands were forced. Too much potential business with them.

The upside of Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub (and the entire strategy that resulted in the acquisition) is that Microsoft has created incentives for themselves to have GitHub being regarded as a truly open platform that you can depend on. Having repositories exposed to flimsy DMCA takedowns is not part of that.

Microsoft, very transparently, wants to make money by being important in how people develop software. If exposure to flimsy takedowns is a part of GitHub, then people will be more motivated to send their money to GitLab, Atlassian's stuff, or a bunch of other options. They have legitimate competition here.

Developer's opinions of GitHub and Microsoft in general may be of more longer term importance to them than the MPAA's opinion of them. I'm not saying that that is definitely the case (maybe they're still getting there), but it's worth acknowledging that Microsoft has legitimate actual cold money reasons to fight this. No need to rely only on personal convictions of the people at GitHub.

Re: GitHub has received a DMCA from MPA about torrent tracker nyaa.si

#50

Post by jitendrac »

password321 wrote: post #32
jitendrac wrote: post #13

Torrents were great threat in past years, but now in world with streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime,Hulu and all others torrent is not a serious threat. So,that's a baseless argument, Its like don't sell knives they can be used to murder. Torrents are also useful for many others purposes, like distribution of big opensource software, downloading files with unreliable connection and slow speed, to distribute…

They were never a great threat. People actually do like to spend money and throw money even at free content.

yup, I agree. They just can't wait for duration and want instant access to released content.
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