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HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

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Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#141

Post by MarkMarine »

josephcsible wrote: post #124
jeroenhd wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the DMCA is that if the claimant disagrees with your counter notice, the content stays offline for at least enough time for a lawsuit be be filed over the contents of the post, if the claimant is actually willing to take the matter to court. I don't think anyone will actually go through the expenses to go to court over a code snippet on Github, unless they're particularly principled, wealthy, and ret…

Yeah, the fact that the DMCA works like that makes it a guilty-until-proven-innocent system.

100% and that is ridiculous, it's going to be a cancer on the open source community. Basically patent troll level harassment, except you didn't need to go through any of the "work" or "effort" to acquire a patent, and you don't have to actually bring a suit in court for the damage to be done.

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#142

Post by raymondh »

xucheng wrote: post #73
blurbleblurble wrote: post #36

I wonder how many other repos they've wrongfully DMCA'd that we'll never hear about.

List of takedown notices from HackerRank to GitHub: https://github.com/github/dmca/search?q=HackerRank&type=

Thank you, this gives a lot of insight into what is going on. This one tells the whole story: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/ea3736a0c4c9574e0c8cea06...

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#143

Post by ceeplusplus »

smabie wrote: post #138
__app_dev__ wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said!! Personally, I like designing and building software and have been doing so for 20+ years but after doing several HakerRank and Leetcode style interviews it makes me wish to do something else. I’ve had FAANG recruiters tell me “study for hours per day for a few months” and then you can be ready. Even smaller companies focus on leetcode more than actual experience. I’ve worked with plenty of optimal algorith…

> No other well-paid profession tolerates this style of interview one you have experience. Not exactly true, pretty common in finance/trading as well.

It's the result of making IQ tests for jobs illegal. Leetcode and the trick questions asked in finance are just IQ tests in disguise. You can't regulate your way out of the market - if companies want smart people they'll find a way to hire smart people.

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#144

Post by travisoliphant »

haltingproblem wrote: post #112
bfz wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Travis is the creator of NumPy.

I know and so what? edit: what triggered me is that he is here promoting his podcast!!??!!? seriously, a little EQ will go a long way.

I'm sorry about triggering you. I can see your point. I did not mean to focus attention away from what happened and how to avoid it.

I am sincerely interested in seeing if the HackerRank leadership will reach out and discuss. I was not intending to promote anything I'm doing right now. I suspect they won't but I will talk to them respectfully if they do.

Let's promote the SymPy maintainers, though. Let's also promote NumFOCUS, because they do a valuable service to community-driven projects and could help SymPy respond to this sensibly. Let's also promote NumFOCUS because they efficiently and tirelessly work to help the projects they fiscally sponsor (like SymPy) -- providing legal support: https://numfocus.org/.

Perhaps something good can come out of this, still.

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#146

Post by doh »

jfarmer wrote: post #134
doh wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not technically correct. There is no definition "as soon as they receive it". In fact the law calls for "expeditiously or remove" access. Courts confirmed many times that days or weeks is considered expeditious. Github could've easily take the time and wait for SymPy to file counter notice which then allows Github to keep the content up up until courts say otherwise. Github instead elected to remove content i…

That's fair. I didn't mean it literally, but should've been more precise since we're talking about a law. I wonder how many tech companies w/ platforms have any delay. Is there precedent?

There are cases mostly around Facebook and Youtube taking weeks and prevailing on the judgement. Currently there is no established limit.

European legislators are trying to establish some time limits but these are mostly around toxic content not related to copyright.

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#147

Post by jeroenhd »

perihelions wrote: post #60

Unpopular opinion: FOSS projects shouldn't bother hosting under US jurisdiction. There's absolutely no upside for a nonprofit, and our supercharged lawfare culture causes endless headaches for everyone -- even the most innocent software in the whole world, like a symbolic algebra library. It's so depressing to see well-meaning philanthropy apathetically trampled by thugs in suits.

The terms of DMCA are not much different from those in other countries. The WIPO copyright treaty caused many of its signees to practically copy the text from the DMCA into their own legal system.

Perhaps you can host this stuff in countries that do not care much about copyright (China, Russia, etc.) but those usually come with their own problems.

Instead of avoiding countries, you should avoid hosters that will take such extreme measures following DMCA takedown requests. There are companies out there that will have a human read your counter notice and care about the legality of this whole situation, you just have to find them. That means avoiding big players like Github and building your own bespoke host, probably behind a Cloudflare or similar tunnel to prevent your website from going down because of DDoS attacks and traffic spikes, which will add significantly to hosting costs, especially if the library becomes successful.

To be honest, this sounds like solving the wrong problem. Hackerrank and their friends are the problem, not the people using Github's free service to host their documentation.

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#148

Post by paulgb »

jeroenhd wrote: post #122
MarkMarine wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's working. Here is a DCMA the author tried to fight, saying hacker rank doesn't publish their solutions, and the solution is the sole work of the author: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/ea3736a0c4c9574e0c8cea06... guess what, it's still offline for DCMA.

The problem with the DMCA is that if the claimant disagrees with your counter notice, the content stays offline for at least enough time for a lawsuit be be filed over the contents of the post, if the claimant is actually willing to take the matter to court. I don't think anyone will actually go through the expenses to go to court over a code snippet on Github, unless they're particularly principled, wealthy, and ret…

> The problem with the DMCA is that if the claimant disagrees with your counter notice, the content stays offline until a lawsuit is fought out over the contents of the post.

Not quite. The obligation of the service provider when they receive a counter-notice is to inform the person who filed the original notice, and give them 10-14 days to file a court order to block the content. If they don't get that court order in that time, the service provider must put the content back up or risk losing their DMCA safe harbor.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#149

Post by philderbeast »

judge2020 wrote: post #140
zomglings wrote: post #38

I apologize in advance for the profanity. This really pissed me off. FUCK you HackerRank, for even entertaining the notion of litigating open source projects at scale for no good reason. FUCK you for taking down the the documentation for a harmless open source symbolic mathematics engine without any justification that I can see. What content of your shitty ranking company could SymPy possibly have infringed on? Also…

> What content of your shitty ranking company could SymPy possibly have infringed on? from the request[0]: > Someone has illegally copied our client's technical exams questions and answers from their official website hackerrank.com and uploaded them on their platform without permission. Archive of the allegedly infringing page is here[1]. 0: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2022/04/2022-04-1... 1: https://w…

intersting, im not seeing anything that looks like it would be copywritable at "questions and answers" on that archive page.

I feel like hacker rank might be facing an uphill battle for this one.

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#150

Post by [deleted] »

smorgusofborg wrote: post #4
Nextgrid wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I suspect happened is that the HackerRank test legitimately (fair use) included parts of the docs (the exercise could’ve been about the library those docs are for), DMCA enforcement has been outsourced to the lowest bidder and these idiots just did a blanket search for some phrases from the test, found the official docs and DMCA’d it.

The CC licenses should probably be adjusted to make a DMCA attempt a permanent revocation of license. That way DMCAs can flow in the opposite direction and people can learn things.

[deleted]
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