So distributing copy of VLC with lots of malware added but still conforming with the GPL is okay?
Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC
11–20 of 80 posts
Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC
#12Disclaimer: VLC dev and VideoLAN chairman I think the worse part of all this mess is that Google refuses to act and stop those. This was requested quite a few time and Google told us to go away because we didn't own all the trademarks in the US (even though we still have copyright). Moreover, the safe-browsing initiative, used in Chrome 12, is a complete joke. Reporting one of those websites make the safe-browsing re…
How likely is it that these sites serve up clean binaries to Google's spider?
Quite unlikely, tested with different user-agent, and notably the Google Spider one, but the binaries are almost empty and download other binaries, which might not work for them...
Another explanation is that Google doesn't consider those adware and toolbar as malware... I truly don't know.
Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC
#13I wonder if there are any SEO people out there, doing pro-bono (is that even the right term?) work for open source projects like this? It should be possible to fight back (or, as was discussed/suggested before, search engines are just broken).
~2 minutes of pro-bono work:
http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/
Put in name of the bad guys. Find the blogs who blogged about their sites.
http://webylife.com/design/top-10-brand-logo-mistakes/commen...
http://www.dragonblogger.com/entertainment-television/
etc, etc. Contact them, ask them to change the link to the spam site with a link to your site.
It's stupid gruntwork, you'll need lots of it, and it will be like playing whackamole -- but it will probably work at getting them off the front page.
The other alternative, rather than de-ranking their sites, is to rank more of your own, or parasite off of high authority sites. For example, notice Wikipedia ranks for VLC right now? You know who else would rank for VLC with a trivial amount of effort? Github (&etc -- just has to be on any domain other than yours). Is there an OSS industry mag that you guys like? Have they written a review of it? Get your community to link to that review, with whatever anchor text you're having trouble with.
OSS projects shouldn't have really serious SEO issues for branded keywords -- you practically swim in link equity -- and wouldn't if marketing were treated as a priority worth addressing.
Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC
#14So distributing copy of VLC with lots of malware added but still conforming with the GPL is okay?
Yes, this is ok, as long as VLC copyright is concerned.
However:
- Claiming that you are the original Author is not OK, because of copyright laws.
- Adding restrictions on the usage of the software is not OK, because of the GPL.
- As the VLC installer is GPL, the modified installers must be GPL'd too.
- Shipping VLC commercially means shipping all the source code of all external libraries, which they usually don't. (Still GPL)
- VLC, VideoLAN, x264 and VLC media player Trademarks are registered. (depends on the countries)
- Scraping the website and the images is not ok. (copyright)
- Wrongly impersonating a person or an organisation is not ok either.
Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC
#15I wonder if there are any SEO people out there, doing pro-bono (is that even the right term?) work for open source projects like this? It should be possible to fight back (or, as was discussed/suggested before, search engines are just broken).
~2 minutes of pro-bono work: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/ Put in name of the bad guys. Find the blogs who blogged about their sites. http://webylife.com/design/top-10-brand-logo-mistakes/commen... http://www.dragonblogger.com/entertainment-television/ etc, etc. Contact them, ask them to change the link to the spam site with a link to your site. It's stupid gruntwork, you'll need lots of it, and it will be like pl…
Sure.
Still, adwords, adsense or bing ads get ranked over the highly ranked website.
Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC
#16Disclaimer: VLC dev and VideoLAN chairman I think the worse part of all this mess is that Google refuses to act and stop those. This was requested quite a few time and Google told us to go away because we didn't own all the trademarks in the US (even though we still have copyright). Moreover, the safe-browsing initiative, used in Chrome 12, is a complete joke. Reporting one of those websites make the safe-browsing re…
When I used to work at LimeWire, Google would do the same thing to us. Not only did they sell adwords to the malware sites, they refused to allow us to buy adwords.
Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC
#17I wonder if there are any SEO people out there, doing pro-bono (is that even the right term?) work for open source projects like this? It should be possible to fight back (or, as was discussed/suggested before, search engines are just broken).
In my experience it's quite difficult to offer any web assistance for free online, I guess people are too wary of unsolicited help.
Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
How likely is it that these sites serve up clean binaries to Google's spider?
Quite unlikely, tested with different user-agent, and notably the Google Spider one, but the binaries are almost empty and download other binaries, which might not work for them... Another explanation is that Google doesn't consider those adware and toolbar as malware... I truly don't know.
Perhaps one or some of the tech press that read HN will pick this story up and give you all some more link juice? Or, perhaps some of those anonymous vigilantes will be happy to have new targets to go after.
I realize this is somewhat off-topic, but thanks for VLC and all that you all do. It's one of my favorite projects, and it's one of the first things I install on friends' machines.
Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC
#19So distributing copy of VLC with lots of malware added but still conforming with the GPL is okay?
Yes, this is ok, as long as VLC copyright is concerned. However: - Claiming that you are the original Author is not OK, because of copyright laws. - Adding restrictions on the usage of the software is not OK, because of the GPL. - As the VLC installer is GPL, the modified installers must be GPL'd too. - Shipping VLC commercially means shipping all the source code of all external libraries, which they usually don't. (…
I think the trademark would stop my hypothetical evil plans more than anything else. If I had to call it "Bill's video player that isn't evil, honest." no-one would download it.
(To say nothing of why someone who distributes malware would be at all concerned with copyright and trademark law.)
Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
How likely is it that these sites serve up clean binaries to Google's spider?
Quite unlikely, tested with different user-agent, and notably the Google Spider one, but the binaries are almost empty and download other binaries, which might not work for them... Another explanation is that Google doesn't consider those adware and toolbar as malware... I truly don't know.
My knowledge is probably ~ 7 years out of date here, but back in the day when I worked in AV, labelling and removing spyware was a task fraught with legal issues.
AV companies could recognize and trivially remove such a thing - but chose not to, so they didn't get sued by well-monied corporations who got very upset at their "User Metric Software Toolbar blah blah blah" being marked as malware.
I wonder if that's the case here.