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TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

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Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#421

Chinas whole economy is built on illegal copying amd stealing ideas, who is surprised? Not me.

I would say the entire world economy is based on people taking other people's ideas and running with them.

Steve Jobs was a Silicon Valley folk hero, no? Was he known for implementing his original ideas?

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all true. It's copyright infringement if you're not following a license contract, of which the GPL is.

The GPL contract only says you have to distribute source to the users you give binaries to. The only people who can ask for said source are the people receiving those binaries and the only people who have standing to sue when that doesn’t happen is the copyright owners. That’s why you can use GPL software in your private CI system and not need to give anyone the source code.

Hopefully the SFC lawsuit against Vizio will set the precedent that any recipient of GPL binaries has standing to sue:

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#424
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the one on the OBS team who originally found this. I saw a tweet yesterday from someone that's in the beta, and as with any desktop live streaming software (and especially with "Studio" in the name) I was curious if they were using any OBS Studio code or if it was developed all in-house. The download link is available in their JS, you can find the most recent installer link here: https://tron-sg.bytelemon.com/api…

Wow this is amazing, thanks for digging in and doing this work. If this were Reddit, I would give you a gold award, but since this is HN, all I have to give is my 1 upvote.

If you tap the timestamp you can favorite it (add it to the public list of favorite comments linked on your profile page).

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#425
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GPL requires that any derivative work of GPL licensed code must also be licensed under the same (or compatible) license as the original GPL'd code. This is the "viral" aspect of the license. It applies even if the only interface between your code and the GPL code is dynamic linking, and not a single line of the GPL'd code is in your application. There are acceptable ways to bundle GPL code with closed source soft…

And why is it important for GPL to be honoured in this case? Like.. what protection is GPL providing here and to whom exactly?

So that the recipients of the code have the four freedoms defined by the FSF:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

    A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms: [1]

    The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
    The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
    The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
    The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#426
post #51

The original Tweet (embedded one from HunterAP) says TikTok installs OBS and uses it in the background with a TikTok front-end. It doesn’t say that they’ve illegally forked it. EDIT: See comments from OBS developer below for a more clear explanation of the issues than the linked Tweet

OBS developer here. It doesn't "install OBS in the background". They ship several executables as part of their software that contain code derived from OBS and there is no offer of source code. They're currently in violation of the GPL, but per our GPL Cooperation Commitment we are trying to work this out with them privately.

A link to that commitment for those who are looking:

https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/COMMITM...

I'd encourage you to also adopt the FSF/SFC's "Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement":

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.htm...

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment doesn't meet any of this criteria. The original article was about a Chinese company's unauthorized fork of OBS. It's semantics whether or not you consider an "unauthorized fork" as stealing, but I certainly do. So it's neither unrelated or a generic tangent, as it relates to intellectual property theft. It's beyond question both that China as a country is known for stealing intellectual property, and that…

Do you seriously think the Googles and Apples of the US have not used GPL code in commercial products, ever? Yikes. All I see is a comment that teeters on the brink of racism and now you're trying to backtrack.

Do you have any examples where Google or Apple have been discovered to violate GPL? AFAIK, Google outright bans GPL usage internally for the majority of things, and it's well-documented that Apple almost exclusively uses BSD-licensed tooling.

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#428
So will all those outlets that had "Trump's social network is violating the GPL" stories be jumping on this with equal fervour? Considering they didn't cover the compliance with the GPL that "truth social" (awful name) did, I think we can safely assume they won't.

Re: TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm out of my depth here, but what makes you say they can't swap out the OBS part for something else? Do you mean they can't swap it without modifying the rest of the code, or can't swap it at all?

If they swap it out, they have to build code which does exactly the same/ has the same interface. It can still be considered a "derived" work. I'm not a lawyer but that was what op meant.

> It can still be considered a "derived" work

Incorrect. It cannot, unless they copy it. You may freely take inspiration from GPL works. The GPL is not a patent.

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