Copyright infringement by German contact tracing app • Hacker News Board

Re: Copyright infringement by German contact tracing app

#141

Post by consp » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 4:13 PM UTC

notagoodidea wrote: post #97

rob74 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Er... do you mean offering to work "off the record" without paying taxes for it ("Schwarzarbeit")? That't tax evasion, not corruption, but yeah, that's pretty common, even in Germany.

That's interesting that in German, Dutch and French we will talk about "black work" (schwarzarbeit (DE), travail au noir (FR), zwart werk (NL)) meaning undeclared/unreported work. I see multiple probable origins on the net : - Coming for the german "schwarzarbeit" during end of 1st, in-between or during the occupation during 2nd WW and translated in French/Dutch from there. - Patron making employees works during the…

AFAIK you are correct. Before the first world war taxation was different in most of those countries and work was not taxed directly at all otherwise only in war years (i.e. the first world war) so the meaning is new. There was no need for a word for something which did not exist.

Re: Copyright infringement by German contact tracing app

#142

Post by idownvoted » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

solarkraft wrote: post #131

idownvoted wrote: post #46

Here's a quick way to sweep this story under the rug: Both CEOs of the company "Culture4Life GmbH" are politically well connected in Berlin. One is a clubowner, frequently in talks with government for tax-exemptions (eg. you pay less tax if you've employ a DJ...). The other one is a member of the Green party. And we all know: Anyone who critcizes the left-wing sphere of Berlin is nothing but a racist. So there comes…

It's unfortunate the comment is inflammatory, the information contained is valuable.

So I'm being inflammatory because I mention it's the Green Party and other Berlin leftists that are being involved?

It's not my fault that under the guise of being the force of good, of being the moral highground itself, of being pampered by decades of softball questions from nearly the whole of German Journalism, curruption can flourish.

It can do so even better if adherends of Berlin progressivism are being nurtured in the belief that, and opponents of Berlin progressivism are being threatened with that, every criticism of the left is guilty by association: Tin-Foil-Hat > Right-Wing > Nazi.

Just look at the FB profile of one their CEOs… full of "Nazis everwhere". It's the modern day.

Re: Copyright infringement by German contact tracing app

#143

Post by jkaplowitz » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #137

jkaplowitz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wondered whether penalties should target reputation more than they do, which would affect all classes of criminal including upper class. For example, as part of the sentence for violent crimes, the government could mail official press releases about the crime to all households in the area periodically for a certain amount of time after the conviction, or put up signs, at the criminal's expense (with a gove…

I do believe that the shame-feeling part of society is generally less likely to commit crimes. That is, it would work on them, but it wouldn't work on someone who does not care what their neighbors think of them.

A lot of companies and businesspeople care what their customers and the general public think, at least.

Re: Copyright infringement by German contact tracing app

#144

Post by dorgo » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

moooo99 wrote: post #6

This is not the official contract tracing app (that one can be found here https://github.com/corona-warn-app ), its a commercial product that's only been "open sourced" under pressure of the public. Their service was financed be the same public figures that are now heavily pushing for its use. And as one comment in the linked GitHub issue states, calling their license "open source" is really more of a marketing joke.…

>This is not the official contract tracing app (that one can be found here https://github.com/corona-warn-app)

This sounds like they do the same thing. But the luca app is for check-ins ( which are mostly still done with pen in paper in germany ). Check-ins are not supported by the official corona-warn-app (yet).

Also 2 states already purchased the app and 8 other announced to purchase it [1]. So if you live in one of these 10 states (out of 16) then you can consider the luca app to be official.

[1] (German) https://www.heise.de/hintergrund/Corona-Apps-Die-wichtigsten...

Re: Copyright infringement by German contact tracing app

#145

Post by LeanderK » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #137

jkaplowitz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wondered whether penalties should target reputation more than they do, which would affect all classes of criminal including upper class. For example, as part of the sentence for violent crimes, the government could mail official press releases about the crime to all households in the area periodically for a certain amount of time after the conviction, or put up signs, at the criminal's expense (with a gove…

I do believe that the shame-feeling part of society is generally less likely to commit crimes. That is, it would work on them, but it wouldn't work on someone who does not care what their neighbors think of them.

or teenagers/young adults in a rebellious state of mind. If you like to provoke and your circle of friends feels the same then you're not shamed.

Re: Copyright infringement by German contact tracing app

#146

Post by dorgo » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

zeepzeep wrote: post #32

makepanic wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cwa app will support event registration in the next version too. See https://github.com/corona-warn-app/cwa-documentation/blob/ma... for details on how they do it.

They always said they could have easily integrated Luca like features but no, ofc we need to pick the option with millions of marketing money behind it instead of waiting for a privacy focused version.

Afaik, privacy focused version is not possible without changing legislation. All apps would do check-ins anonymous if not for legislation.

Re: Copyright infringement by German contact tracing app

#147

Post by kmeisthax » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

reader_mode wrote: post #99

nevi-me wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is taking someone's code, be it small, and deliberately removing the attribution; an error?

Likely. Why is everyone acting like this is some high conspiracy or even blaming the entire project - this was probably some lazy dev that didn't want to deal with the hassle of including the licence and just copy pasted the class. I used to do this when I was learning to code, I often reimplemented stuff already available for learning and would just copy paste large chunks. I didn't publish any work back then and I…

You as a learner copypasting code isn't itself the problem. The problem is that this is a published, copyrighted work that has been included into another published, copyrighted work without adherence to license terms.

If I had copied Culture4Life's code and used it in my own project, they would be suing for tens of thousands of dollars in damages; and the law would agree that I should have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages for that infringement. Asking for attribution and a proper license declaration is the polite way to handle a license violation.

Re: Copyright infringement by German contact tracing app

#148

Post by zwog » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

dorgo wrote: post #144

moooo99 wrote: post #6

This is not the official contract tracing app (that one can be found here https://github.com/corona-warn-app ), its a commercial product that's only been "open sourced" under pressure of the public. Their service was financed be the same public figures that are now heavily pushing for its use. And as one comment in the linked GitHub issue states, calling their license "open source" is really more of a marketing joke.…

>This is not the official contract tracing app (that one can be found here https://github.com/corona-warn-app ) This sounds like they do the same thing. But the luca app is for check-ins ( which are mostly still done with pen in paper in germany ). Check-ins are not supported by the official corona-warn-app (yet). Also 2 states already purchased the app and 8 other announced to purchase it [1]. So if you live in one…

> Check-ins are not supported by the official corona-warn-app (yet).

According to [1] version 2.0 will be released in two weeks and will support check-ins.

[1] (German) https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/corona-warn-app-check-in-10...

Re: Copyright infringement by German contact tracing app

#149

Post by solarkraft » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

idownvoted wrote: post #142

solarkraft wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfortunate the comment is inflammatory, the information contained is valuable.

So I'm being inflammatory because I mention it's the Green Party and other Berlin leftists that are being involved? It's not my fault that under the guise of being the force of good, of being the moral highground itself, of being pampered by decades of softball questions from nearly the whole of German Journalism, curruption can flourish. It can do so even better if adherends of Berlin progressivism are being nurture…

No, it's because of this:

> And we all know: Anyone who critcizes the left-wing sphere of Berlin is nothing but a racist. So there comes the rug.

which distracts from the valuable rest of your comment.

I do this myself sometimes and have noticed that it usually steers the discussion away from the subject matter.

Re: Copyright infringement by German contact tracing app

#150

Post by IG_Semmelweiss » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

realityking wrote: post #76

Tomte wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other "official app" ("Corona Warn App") is also not developed by the government or any government-employed developers. That distinction is no distinction. "Official" means that the government has adopted it and given it a special status. The federal government and state governments have endorsed the Corona Warn App. No special privileges in lockdown are connected to it. No special use by public health authoritie…

There is a big difference between commissioning a product (work for hire) and buying a product that has been already developed. The federal government actually owns the IP of the Corona Warn App. Luca is merely licensed by various state and local governments. You can’t expect the buyer of a software to assume responsibility for copyright violations. It’s like blaming someone for a (hypothetical) copyright violation i…

>>> You can’t expect the buyer of a software to assume responsibility for copyright violations

Yes you can. Certainly true in the US. Liability depends on state law and in how the contract is written. If the buyer did not specifically make that carve out, a judge may end up deciding.

If the seller specifically carved that in, the buyer can be liable too (along with the seller).

This is why most government entities are difficult to contract with. They have buyers that insist in specific contract language. Govt entities have templates preapproved by lawyers to prevent this sort of thing coming back to haunt them. So if you want to do business with the govt, that's the hoops you will need to jump over.