WhatsApp issued takedown against alternative clients a week before acquisition
1–10 of 69 posts
Re: WhatsApp issued takedown against alternative clients a week before acquisition
#2wtf.
i had no idea this could be done to open source code.
Re: WhatsApp issued takedown against alternative clients a week before acquisition
#3wtf. i had no idea this could be done to open source code.
I'm not going to comment on the validity of this specific case, but "open source" doesn't automatically mean "protected from copyright law infringement".
Re: WhatsApp issued takedown against alternative clients a week before acquisition
#4> This continues to cause significant harm to WhatsApp.
$16bn says otherwise.
Re: WhatsApp issued takedown against alternative clients a week before acquisition
#5> This continues to cause significant harm to WhatsApp. $16bn says otherwise.
Maybe libraries/clients would impact WhatsApp's ability to rework their backend to use FB infra now that they've been acquired?
Re: WhatsApp issued takedown against alternative clients a week before acquisition
#6wtf. i had no idea this could be done to open source code.
From what I understand, companies _have_ to do stuff like this. By not protecting a copyright or trademark you are, in effect, giving it up.
Calling your API "node.whatsapp" is using their trademark, and they do have the right and responsibility to protect it.
It doesn't make them wrong; just a jerk :)
Re: WhatsApp issued takedown against alternative clients a week before acquisition
#7With the poor, let's say terrible, security posture WhatsApp always had, this is really not the way to communicate the message that they care and want their software to be scrutinized. Open implementations are a great help to any reverse engineer trying to figure out the mess that is their protocol.
This is exactly what triggers full disclosure.
Re: WhatsApp issued takedown against alternative clients a week before acquisition
#8Interesting. Trademark law is probably pretty strong against repositories named "WhatsApp" or something very similar. Using the logo without permission as well.
Describing a project as "working with WhatsApp" would probably not be an actionable trademark infringement. Code that works with the WhatsApp API is almost certainly not "infringing", unless there's some "encryption" going on.
Unfortunately the DMCA takedown rules are such that Internet providers such as Github have basically no direct recourse and refusing to comply is not an option. Additionally, complainants don't have to prove much of anything to issue a takedown notice to a service provider. This is a seriously broken part of copyright law, IMO.
Re: WhatsApp issued takedown against alternative clients a week before acquisition
#9wtf. i had no idea this could be done to open source code.
From what I understand, companies _have_ to do stuff like this. By not protecting a copyright or trademark you are, in effect, giving it up. Calling your API "node.whatsapp" is using their trademark, and they do have the right and responsibility to protect it. It doesn't make them wrong; just a jerk :)
They have to do it to protect trademark, but not copyright. I'm not sure there's any real copyright claim to be made here. The DMCA does have provisions against reverse engineering etc. It's not clear to me from this notice exactly what's believed to be infringing other than the Trademark claim, which is pretty straightforward (and easily gotten around).
Re: WhatsApp issued takedown against alternative clients a week before acquisition
#10666 github stars for the repo :)