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Please remove mitsuhiko/*

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Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#191

Post by parasubvert »

jnbiche wrote: post #119

These kinds of episodes are making me increasingly depressed. On one hand, I'm incredibly disappointed in the ethics and morality of some of the people who have latched on to Bitcoin. And sadly, I'd have to include tip4commit in that group, particularly since they are "opt-out" and yet have been spamming people after each commit [ubernostrum points out below that they aren't even "opt-out", since they're not honoring…

"If Bitcoin does fail, a large part of the blame will be one the shoulders of so many software and IT people who make a flash decision that Bitcoin was "tulips" or a "ponzi scheme", and who refused to change their minds in the face of evidence otherwise "

The same can be said for Bitcoin believers who, in the face tremendous of evidence otherwise (BTC volatility, pleas from respectable folks who study currency and economics, the types of shady characters BTC has attracted), believe it is anything but a flawed implementation of an interesting but possibly bad idea (the blockchain).

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#192

Post by jordigh »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #140
jnbiche wrote: post #119

These kinds of episodes are making me increasingly depressed. On one hand, I'm incredibly disappointed in the ethics and morality of some of the people who have latched on to Bitcoin. And sadly, I'd have to include tip4commit in that group, particularly since they are "opt-out" and yet have been spamming people after each commit [ubernostrum points out below that they aren't even "opt-out", since they're not honoring…

The only reason HNers are pulling out the DMCA is because another project is (unethically or not) using their names to raise funds in a way that they do not permit. That has nothing to do with bitcoin. Like it or not, the pseudonymous (not anonymous) nature of bitcoin will always attract a high level of illegal and unethical activity. Many people will then use those activities, stories, and experiences to paint bitco…

> The only reason HNers are pulling out the DMCA is because another project is (unethically or not) using their names to raise funds in a way that they do not permit.

And what does that have to do with the digital millenium copyright act? Using a name without permission in a way that can confuse consumers is a trademark violation, not a copyright violation.

It's horrible that the DMCA has turned into a generic weapon in legal online warfare.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#193

Post by zorpner »

isgood12 wrote: post #185
bewaretheirs wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, if a payment is "available" to you, it must be reported as income at the time it becomes available. Failure to cash a paycheck doesn't mean you don't owe tax on it. See IRS publication 525, page 2, "constructively received income": http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p525.pdf There's some fuzziness and legal room here but the safe thing would be to declare it as income.

That makes absolutely no sense to me. If I get an offer from a bank that $200 is available to me if I open a checking account with them, then do I have to report it as income even if I don't open an account or perform any action to go after it?

The money is not available to you if you receive a contingent offer. Once you accept the offer then the money becomes available to you.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#194

Post by art2 »

What is staggering is that one would assume that this service was created with the aim of helping open source developers, but when the developers ask personally to make a reasonable change to how the site is functioning, the owners decline. So the reason the site exists is something different. I don't think it's fraud. It's probably the weird culture of the (younger) part of the Bitcoin community, for whom the Bitcoin is more like cultural revolution. It's hard to rationally explain why liking Bitcoin leads to liking tip4commit's approach, but surely the Bitcoin revolutionists like to place themselves above the rest, and don't see themselves as a part of the "old" world (legal, financial system etc.).

For example, the currently highest-voted comment on /r/bitcoin for the story [0] says "I disagree with him [mitsuhiko]".

[0] http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kz9x0/please_remov...

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#195

Post by Confusion »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #31
waterlesscloud wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to where they believe they are immune to the rules because they're using Bitcoin? To me it just looks like a badly implemented concept that happens to use Bitcoin. I'm not seeing any Bitcoin exceptionalism here.

The Bitcoin exceptionalism is clear in this bit: ---- arsenische - Do I need to learn all the laws of all the countries before publishing anything online or may I just use the common sense and conscience please? mitsuhiko - To be honest: when it comes to handling money I would assume so. If this website would be dealing with a real world currency you would have a bunch of problems on yourself at this point. Most peop…

The first point has nothing to do with bitcoin. Any internet entrepreneur has to consider that question at some point and the answer is mostly: no, I do not need to learn all the laws of all the countries before starting a business online.

I sell a service online. I know that I do not need to transfer VAT to the US government when selling to American citizens. I know I need to transfer VAT to my EU government for any sale to a citizen of an EU country. So far so good. Do you honestly think I know what to do when a Kenyan or Vietnamese citizen makes a purchase? Do you think most small US-based companies transfer VAT to the EU? Do you think anyone bars citizens from countries they don't want to deal with from purchasing their services?

The internet is still the wild west for many things, because governments of the world still haven't caught up with internet commerce. Nobody, except for the larges companies, can reasonably be expected to be able to deal with the laws of a few hundred countries.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#196

Post by jafaku »

exDM69 wrote: post #146
hippich wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

playing devil's advocate: may be tip4commit is not your problem, but rather your country's laws are if these allow to so easily mock anyone and risk of being convicted?

My country has several stupid laws but there's very little I can do to change them (apart from voting). That doesn't make it OK for someone to run a dodgy "donations/tip/contribution" service, asking for money on my behalf. This could potentially cause problems for lots of people around the world (seems like UK has similar laws too). Stupid foreign laws don't go away by ignoring them. Running an international service…

What if upvoting your comments was also made illegal in your country? Should we somehow guess that and stop?

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#197

Post by arsenische »

keithpeter wrote: post #126
hippich wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you say 'before _collecting_ donations'. just don't _collect_ if you don't want to.

soliciting contributions in UK. Moot point as to how someone else soliciting a contribution on your behalf without your permission is seen. I think that people who set Web services up really need to think about what territory the service is designed to operate in and which legal system(s) they have the time and resources to examine.

we are not collecting or soliciting a contribution on someone's behalf.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#198

Post by tg3 »

amalcon wrote: post #167
Blahah wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares? It's no different to accepting Euros but getting dollars in your bank account. The point is that they allow users to spend bitcoins (or Euros).

OK, but nobody is arguing that Amazon.com's acceptance of the Argentine peso is a good sign for the future of the currency.

Widespread use of the Argentine peso isn't critical for its success (a strong economy and good monetary policy is). Widespread use is, however, critical for Bitcoin's success, since it relies on a network effect of merchants and consumers.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#199

Post by smoyer »

ubernostrum wrote: post #5

I do not normally rant, but tip4commit and its ilk are some of the most infuriating people in the world to deal with, since they're opting other people's projects into something that has all sorts of legal/taxation consequences and think that "we have no way to remove you once you get opted in" is an acceptable answer. I'd push complaints further up to GitHub, since I'm sure something in the way this works violates t…

This is the OSS crowd-funding/tipping equivalent of GetSatisfaction and UserVoice. Both started as service-desk/bug-tracking platforms that included the software of completely unaffiliated companies but have morphed into customer engagement platforms as SaaS.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#200

Post by JackFr »

bewaretheirs wrote: post #171
randallsquared wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can there be taxation consequences unless you act to set up a bitcoin address and accept the offered tip? If you've done all that, I think it's clear you know what you're doing. If you don't do that, then the money (apparently?) returns to the project you committed to, from whence it came. The only way there could be tax is if you receive the money, and that can only happen by you deliberately becoming involved.

In the US, if a payment is "available" to you, it must be reported as income at the time it becomes available. Failure to cash a paycheck doesn't mean you don't owe tax on it. See IRS publication 525, page 2, "constructively received income": http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p525.pdf There's some fuzziness and legal room here but the safe thing would be to declare it as income.

> In the US, if a payment is "available" to you, it must be reported as income at the time it becomes available. Failure to cash a paycheck doesn't mean you don't owe tax on it.

I don't believe that's correct. A check which is never cashed is not income, as the funds are never transferred there is no income, there is no income tax. The point of the IRS regulation is that tax period in which the check is received is the applicable one, rather than the tax period when it is cashed.

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