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Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

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Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#101

Post by aww_dang »

smolder wrote: post #78
belorn wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that is not what the DMCA copyright claim says. It does not complain about redistributing the files of a paid OS. The complaint is explicitly about providing a tool to work around technical restrictions, so "just provided an exe and some patch files" will not make microsoft happy. A common copyright claim of someone sharing copies of proprietary files would not make news. Using the DRM circumvention provision in…

This is a bad move for MS. It's user hostile enough to have telemetry and ads in the OS in the first place. If they fight against people's efforts to make it usable again, they lose market share, developers/power users lose interest in the platform, less software gets bought from and made for their store, and so on. I think what they really need is a pro version of Windows that attracts pro users by removing the bull…

They've been doing this kind of thing for decades and still have market share.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#102

Post by nvarsj »

loufe wrote: post #75
malikNF wrote: post #32

Microsoft being Microsoft, its such a shame so many video games still only support MS. Over the years MS has become really user hostile (well may be not as much as my samsung android phone I guess) with constant forced updates, forced adverts for their products. And now a DMCA for a project trying to help folks customize windows? Sigh! Few days ago there was an update on Windows10 and my computer was restarted forcef…

I wish it was just the game makers needing to build for another platform which is the problem. Unfortunately a large problem is also graphics drivers. NVidia and AMD don't do much to help the open source community / linux with the development of their drivers, meaning they don't harness the power of the cards often times by significant margins comparing with Windows. There are other technical hiccups which make a dif…

AMD has excellent open source support. They embraced the Linux community a few years ago, and we now have a high quality AMD driver mainlined in the Linux kernel. Games run very well on AMD/Linux, including Steam/Proton.

It's NVIDIA that is completely Linux/OSS hostile, and still follows the broken proprietary driver approach they have been doing for years. On top of that they actively ignore the agreed community standards and build proprietary/inferior APIs because it's less work for them (like EGL).

I'm completely baffled by NVIDIA's approach to be honest. Especially with scientific workloads on Linux. It seems like investing in a small team to build high quality mainlined Linux drivers would be a net win for them for little cost.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#103

Post by hajile »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #9

Is this evidence of how Microsoft now monetises Windows? – Protect your privacy by tweak and customize Windows 10. – Disable many of the annoying features built into Windows. – Unwanted Windows components removal. – Remove/Disable many Windows programs and services.

15 years ago, a piece of software that downloaded user data and forced ads onto them was considered evil.

The pot with the frogs is boiling quite fiercely these days. Too bad they don't notice.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#104

Post by lucb1e »

jrockway wrote: post #58
zeepzeep wrote: post #55

So if a modified ISO is illegal, how about a binary diff?

Here is a take from the early 2000s: https://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html Not really sure how much of this is still true. Since cloud services and locked devices took over most of the software that people use, it doesn't come up much anymore.

Interesting question and answer, thanks for the link. To save others a click / searching for the relevant parts, these seem to be it:

> since it's not copyright infringement for you to apply a patch, it's also not copyright infringement for someone to give you a patch.

> For example, Galoob's Game Genie, which patches the software in Nintendo cartridges, does not infringe Nintendo's copyrights. ``Having paid Nintendo a fair return, the consumer may experiment with the product and create new variations of play, for personal enjoyment, without creating a derivative work.''

For the EU, merely this is said:

> The European Software Directive (adopted by the UK in 1992) gives users the freedom to copy, run, modify, and reverse-engineer lawfully acquired programs.

Given the reasoning "if it's not copyright infringement to patch, it's also not infringement to give you a patch", which I honestly don't quite follow, this ought to mean that the law works the same way in the EU. (The reason I don't follow that logic is that copyright doesn't dictate what I can do with information I already have: it's about distribution as far as I know. So of course it's okay for me to apply a patch when not considering any law other than copyright (at least from my not-a-lawyer and European perspective), but that doesn't mean I can make what might perhaps be argued to be a derivative work and spread that around.)

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#105

Post by cmdshiftf4 »

spzb wrote: post #15

Hang on. So this is the Business Software Association acting on behalf of Microsoft issuing a takedown notice to Microsoft-owned Github? Sounds like this could have been solved with a couple of internal emails. Or more likely BSA are just going off on one without Microsoft's input.

>Sounds like this could have been solved with a couple of internal emails

This is actually what I'd least like to see Github become i.e. takedowns based on an internal bigcorp emails, with a pristine PR message sent out only if people complain.

It's much nicer that it's out in the open as it is.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#106

Post by gruez »

Xelbair wrote: post #85
Ntrails wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's user hostile enough to have telemetry and ads in the OS in the first place. I may be alone, but I think those two things are very different classes of feature, and am very relaxed about the former as an opt out.

There is no opt-out of telemetry in win10. You can only set it to basic.

You can set it to one level lower ("security") on enterprise and education editions.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/configure-w...

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#107

Post by 1MachineElf »

We knew a day like this would come after Microsoft acquired GitHub.

Glad to see a great alternative, SourceHut, is moving forward as evidenced by the HN submission made earlier today. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23485290

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#108

Post by gruez »

joombaga wrote: post #97
lostgame wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure, but is Windows 10 not slightly different from previous releases insofar as you can directly download the ISO for Windows 10? Unless you had an MSDN subscription it was a little more difficult to grab an ISO back in the day. Of course, it’s still illegal to modify and upload the modified version...but you’d think the patcher would be an even more obvious route than normal these days if it’s so easy to do…

As I understand it the ISO you get without an MSDN subscription is missing a bunch of updates.

Is that really an issue? With windows 10 there's a new version out every 6 months, so it's never going to be that out of date.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#109

Post by ldiracdelta »

hkt wrote: post #79
lmilcin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft did change. But then it looked how Apple and Google did the same thing, successfully, and sailed away in terms of market share and now it wants to replicate the success. The thing is, I don't think it is going to succeed. The likely thing that is already happening is that power users are leaving Windows and once power users leave the platform will die.

After twenty years on Debian I just bought a Windows laptop on the strength of WSL2 and Docker for Windows. Being able to play SimCity has been a bonus, and I feel like I have the best of both worlds thanks to recent Windows additions. It isn't perfect but the Linux Desktop experience isn't either. Nor is OSX, in my experience. My point being: I've been a very stubborn desktop Linux user for a long time and have migr…

Why is it all or nothing? I dual boot my machine so I can game. Otherwise I dev' in Linux.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#110

Post by gruez »

sbarre wrote: post #60
FactolSarin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really what's going on here. "Ninjutsu OS" is a modified Windows 10 ISO. Basically a pirated copy.

It's actually both. You are right, they were distributing a modified version of Windows without permission. And there's nothing notable or interesting about that. It's a pretty clear-cut case of "don't do that". But ALSO.. the language in the MS/BSA complaint states that tools that help the user disable Windows 10 OS features - some that arguably benefit MS more than the user - run afoul of the DMCA's anti-circumvent…

>But ALSO.. the language in the MS/BSA complaint states that tools that help the user disable Windows 10 OS features

does that matter? You can put whatever you want on a DMCA complaint. It's not going to be subject to any judicial review. I wouldn't be worried unless they actually initiate a lawsuit.

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