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Please remove mitsuhiko/*

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Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#21

Post by Niksko »

colanderman wrote: post #16
ubernostrum wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tip4commit is one of a number of services which, without asking for permission or notifying you, opt your projects into a BitCoin-based crowdfunding system. Even if your project doesn't want it, even if your project has its own donation/support system you'd like to send people to. Historically they spammed committers of force-opted-in repositories with an email on every commit to tell them what their new BTC donation…

I wonder if you could threaten them with a cease & desist over a trademark violation? (Is there an argument to be made that they are illegally using your trademark to market their service by association?) Would be interested to hear from someone with a legal background about this.

Sounds plausible. IANAL, but I know there are similar protections for somebody's likeness. As in, you're not allowed to use somebody's likeness to endorse a product without their consent. I can't see why the same wouldn't go for using somebody's trademark to endorse a product without the trademark owner's consent.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#22

Post by pferdefleisch »

colanderman wrote: post #10

From the FAQ: > What happens to unclaimed tips (if recipient doesn't sign in and specify his/her bitcoin address)? Funds that are not claimed during 30 days get returned back to the project. Presumably "the project" in the answer refers to tip4commit? If so, isn't tip4commit committing fraud by advertising that tips go to the intended recipient, when in fact, if the recipient does not participate, they go into tip4co…

This is very similar to Readability's revenue model and you can see how that turned out. http://blog.readability.com/2012/06/announcement/

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#23

Post by andrewstuart2 »

colanderman wrote: post #10

From the FAQ: > What happens to unclaimed tips (if recipient doesn't sign in and specify his/her bitcoin address)? Funds that are not claimed during 30 days get returned back to the project. Presumably "the project" in the answer refers to tip4commit? If so, isn't tip4commit committing fraud by advertising that tips go to the intended recipient, when in fact, if the recipient does not participate, they go into tip4co…

I doubt it's a mistake. If you ask me, it's more likely that this is the whole goal of "the project."

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#24

Post by ubernostrum »

colanderman wrote: post #16
ubernostrum wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tip4commit is one of a number of services which, without asking for permission or notifying you, opt your projects into a BitCoin-based crowdfunding system. Even if your project doesn't want it, even if your project has its own donation/support system you'd like to send people to. Historically they spammed committers of force-opted-in repositories with an email on every commit to tell them what their new BTC donation…

I wonder if you could threaten them with a cease & desist over a trademark violation? (Is there an argument to be made that they are illegally using your trademark to market their service by association?) Would be interested to hear from someone with a legal background about this.

Like I said, it's something I've investigated.

Best I can tell as a non-attorney acting on advice from others, the way in which they advertise their services could be easily confused as implying a financial relationship with organizations or individuals with whom they do not have a (consenting) financial relationship. Where to go from there is an open question.

The bigger question, as always with such things, is whether they cause enough annoyance to be worth lawyering them, and whether playing whack-a-mole -- since they're not the only "service" which does this -- would be a prudent way to spend time and money.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#25

Post by teamhappy »

jedanbik wrote: post #11

This is gross to read because it's really about consent.

I disagree. He explicitly consented to everybody doing whatever they want with the software.

I just don't think it's fair to allow people to do one thing and then make them feel bad about it once they do it.

---

Let me clarify a couple of things here so I don't have to write short replies to all of you.

Let's start with the 3-clause-BSD license. It states that you aren't allowed to use the names of the contributors to endorse derived works. They don't do any of that so this is not an issue.

Somebody brought up trademarks. If there's a trademark issue the legal situation should be clear and this issue should resolve itself in no time. Nobody likes lawsuits. I don't see how they violate any trademarks though.

Somebody else brought up handles. This has always been an issue. It seems to boil down to if you like a project, it's okay for them to use somebody else's handle, if you don't, it's unacceptable. I don't think it's a good idea to build a moral argument on top of that. I'm pretty sure I'm guilty of this myself.

The money/tax thing is very interesting. I really wouldn't know, but I don't think you can collect money on someone else's behalf. As in, it only becomes a tax issue/your money once you actually accept the money.

If you're one of the people who think "GitHub should just shut these scumbags down" we might as well start shutting down political parties, newspapers and TV station we don't like. I don't want to live in a world like that.

What upsets me the most is the fact that it becomes harder and harder to have a discussion about topics like this one. What's the point in having a discussion platform if everybody is expected to agree anyway? And even worse, if you don't immediately state that you don't support someone/something you're guilty by association somehow.

I'm sad now. Please continue.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#28

Post by ubernostrum »

TomGullen wrote: post #15
ubernostrum wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that they have a site on which they solicit donations for specific projects by name, without the permission of the projects involved, raises legal concerns both for them and for the projects if someone succumbs to the reasonable confusion that projects listed on tip4commit have some sort of fundraising agreement with tip4commit. I've considered a few times figuring out what it would cost to give them a good…

The idea behind Tip4Commit seems sound to me, it just seems like they've executed it really poorly which is a shame. Unfortunately can't seem to access their site, but if you're right and they are intentionally creating confusion then that is obviously a bad thing.

I have no problem with crowdfunded donation services... so long as the person/project the donations are being collected for has consented to it.

I have a large problem with forcibly opting me and projects I work on into this, especially since some of those projects have donation mechanisms already, and an even bigger problem with no way to opt out once in. And I have a huge problem with the implication that I or those projects have any sort of relationship with tip4commit other than one of saying "please stop this" and getting back "no" over and over.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#29

Post by michaelmior »

colanderman wrote: post #10

From the FAQ: > What happens to unclaimed tips (if recipient doesn't sign in and specify his/her bitcoin address)? Funds that are not claimed during 30 days get returned back to the project. Presumably "the project" in the answer refers to tip4commit? If so, isn't tip4commit committing fraud by advertising that tips go to the intended recipient, when in fact, if the recipient does not participate, they go into tip4co…

I assumed "the project" meant that the tip goes back into a general pool still dedicated to the particular project the tip was originally designated for. Then these funds would be available for redistribution when new commits are made to the project.

I can see how "the project" could also be interpreted as tip4commit though and if that's the case, that's pretty lousy.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#30

Post by brador »

ubernostrum wrote: post #19
demetris wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe contacting their hosting provider could be an additional way to approach the problem, since, from what I can tell, the messages they send to contributors are spam.

We (Django) already threatened that a while back. They still insist they will not remove projects or stop collecting donations on behalf of non-consenting projects. All they did was manually disable some of the spam coming toward our committers.

Assuming you had the muscle, what's the worst a dev could theoretically hit them with? Could they be succesfully sued? DMCA?
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