DMCA needs a song like YMCA.
GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
161–170 of 194 posts
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#162So is whoever filed the notice going down for perjury?
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given the technical nature of the work, developers who can't jive with GitHub's policies can throw up a GitLab/Gitea server in an hour and evade censorship. And of course, as we learned with youtube-dl, the issue isn't the code/commits (since everyone gets that with a git clone), it's the issues and PR history. Any public file host has to deal with the DMCA, and (for now, barring any evil brought on by Microsoft), I'…
Should we perhaps invent a standard convention for keeping issues and PR history along with the usual source code in the repo itself?
https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki from the sqlite guy.
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recommended checking out Tom Scott’s video on DMCA (0). It’s 40 minutes long and rather YouTube centric however it paints a very clear picture as to why these companies are engaging in a seemingly broken practice. It’s not because they want to, it’s because they are legally required to do so. (0) - https://youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwo5qc78QU
YouTube goes very much above and beyond what the DMCA requires, and favors the interests of the big corporate copyright holders over smaller creators. I imagine they do this because of their settlement with Viacom[0] where they likely bent over backwards to avoid further appeals and lawsuits. Viacom likely said "regardless of how this goes, we and other copyright holders will sue YouTube off the internet unless you b…
The DMCA was written by lawyers for lawyers.
And you know who can afford lawyers? Big corporate copyright holders.
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#165The notice is here: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/04/2021-04-2... Kevin Wayne (repo owner presumably) is listed as co-author on the book that is published by Pearson, who have issued the notice. https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Sedgewic...
When someone “swears under the penalty of perjury” something that is inaccurate, and the legal system does make it simple to apply that penalty, there’s something wrong with the legal system.
Regardless of the actual form of the notice (so long as it is not deficient), under the DMCA the only part for which is actually treated as under penalty of perjury is the claim of the person giving notice being or representing the copyright owner or exclusive licensee of the the work identified (notably, the claim that the particular content to be taken down is infringing is not under penalty of perjury.)
While I don’t know the relationship between this “investigator” and Pearson, the claim that Pearson is the owner or exclusive licensee of the books identified does not appear to be in dispute.
This does not appear to be a defect in the application of the penalty by the legal system but of what the penalty applies to under the relevant law.
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hadn't thought about that angle before. Is the public interest best served by adding friction to copyright enforcement, or by adding friction to fair use?
Good question. I honestly don't know. We would have to re-evaluate the value of IP as whole first, I guess.
Certainly the right to copy is different when copying is so much cheaper than when the laws where written. We gave up:the right to copy when you couldn’t really copy. Now we can copy and maybe we want to retain that right to the people. Or at least rejigger so we either get more or give less via this exchange
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
also many professor make wink-and-nod that student may simply "find pdf copy" from internet. good ones are not desiring for to make students pay large moneys.
I got a bit pissed that this for one course. Wasn't the professor's fault, but rather the school. (in 2011) University tells incoming students they must check the book list for their course and get books before classes start. Books are expensive. First day of class - professor gives everyone a PDF of the physics book I just spend $200 on. Says, "the university requires that I list at least one book for the course and…
I've seen similar things, with the reasoning being less "the university requires the professor to list at least one required text" (this one would be easy to sidestep: just require a cheap or free one and then use another) and more "the texts listed are required will be sold to students at a discount, so students can only profit from this... as long as they are in the know".
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There should be some sort of modest cost somewhere to stop this nonsense. Playing the Devil's Advocate here: But wouldn't that in turn incentivise actual copyright infringement on account of it potentially being cheaper to mass publish copyrighted material as opposed to request it being taken down?
Costs could be per false claim, it would incentivize them to decrease their false positive rate.
A sinple solution would be to create a private cause of action, for both the recipient and the impacted user of a DMCA takedown notice that is false in any essential way (including claim of infringement, not just the parts under penalty of perjury, for which there is a public sanction available) for actual costs or other damages or statutory damages, trebled for knowing or reckless falsehoods, with courts given explicit power to also require the offending notice-giver and/or copyright holder, if found to be engaging in a pattern and practice of reckless notices, to post surety and provide special notice in future DMCA notices issued by then (or on behalf, ifnthey are an owner) for a set period of years (say 3) allowing the recipient a 30-day window to investigate claims at the sanctioned actor’s expense to determine legitimacy prior to executing a takedown, with the safe harbor still in place if that investigation is conducted in good faith even if it comes to a negative conclusion.
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
> very overpriced textbooks Not just way overpriced, the few Pearson books I happen to own are of an alarmingly low quality. The pages of a phone book look and feel like premium paper compared to my copy of Blitzer's College Algebra.
Not to mention some of them have wonderful anti-features, such as physical books that have a handful of online-only chapters that you can only access if you buy the textbook new, thereby reducing the value of used copies.
You'll then appreciate the "Pearson New International Editions" (with a chapter and the preface removed to tank the resale value).
Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's often the only thing that actually substantially changes between editions. Shuffle the exercise numbers and change the font and spacing and voila, brand new edition completely incompatible with older versions!
If that’s true, can’t there be some consumer class-action applied?
Class actions, like any lawsuit, require a law to be broken.