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Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

torrentfreak.com

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Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#31

Post by tomxor »

spzb wrote: post #15

Hang on. So this is the Business Software Association acting on behalf of Microsoft issuing a takedown notice to Microsoft-owned Github? Sounds like this could have been solved with a couple of internal emails. Or more likely BSA are just going off on one without Microsoft's input.

[edit] Not so blatent abuse, apparently the repo included windows iso derivatives...

> Business Software Association acting on behalf of Microsoft.

Oh wait a sec... Another BS third party Github DMCA complaint? This sounds very similar to the "REACT" Github DMCA complaint last month also covered by TF [0]. Where someone was (not) using Casio's software on an ARM SBC inside a plastic Casio case.

"REACT" [1], "BSA" [2]... they are both non-profit, why are they both so comfortable using blatant DMCA abuse as a means to silence content their members disapprove of?

[0] https://torrentfreak.com/hacker-mods-old-calculator-to-acces...

[1] https://www.react.org/about-us/

[2] https://www.bsa.org/

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#32

Post by malikNF »

Microsoft being Microsoft, its such a shame so many video games still only support MS. Over the years MS has become really user hostile (well may be not as much as my samsung android phone I guess) with constant forced updates, forced adverts for their products. And now a DMCA for a project trying to help folks customize windows? Sigh!

Few days ago there was an update on Windows10 and my computer was restarted forcefully, upon booting back up I was greeted by a massive "in your face" type of advert for their Edge browser, couldn't quit it and had to see a big advert from MS about their stupid Edge browser. After I managed to close it, it decided to pin the browser to my task bar without asking me if it should.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#34

Post by winkeltripel »

tomxor wrote: post #31
spzb wrote: post #15

Hang on. So this is the Business Software Association acting on behalf of Microsoft issuing a takedown notice to Microsoft-owned Github? Sounds like this could have been solved with a couple of internal emails. Or more likely BSA are just going off on one without Microsoft's input.

[edit] Not so blatent abuse, apparently the repo included windows iso derivatives... > Business Software Association acting on behalf of Microsoft. Oh wait a sec... Another BS third party Github DMCA complaint? This sounds very similar to the "REACT" Github DMCA complaint last month also covered by TF [0]. Where someone was (not) using Casio's software on an ARM SBC inside a plastic Casio case. "REACT" [1], "BSA" [2]…

"BSA, is a trade group established by Microsoft"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_(The_Software_Alliance)

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#35

Post by darkwater »

winkeltripel wrote: post #34
tomxor wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[edit] Not so blatent abuse, apparently the repo included windows iso derivatives... > Business Software Association acting on behalf of Microsoft. Oh wait a sec... Another BS third party Github DMCA complaint? This sounds very similar to the "REACT" Github DMCA complaint last month also covered by TF [0]. Where someone was (not) using Casio's software on an ARM SBC inside a plastic Casio case. "REACT" [1], "BSA" [2]…

"BSA, is a trade group established by Microsoft" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_(The_Software_Alliance)

I still remember the BSA ads against pirate software in the '90s..

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#36

Post by nickjj »

lmilcin wrote: post #13
henearkr wrote: post #4

Microsoft hasn't changed after all... I used to like what they were doing with WSL, but now on the contrary it starts to worry me, because it can become an avenue of evil behavior against users/devs/open-source/...

Microsoft did change. But then it looked how Apple and Google did the same thing, successfully, and sailed away in terms of market share and now it wants to replicate the success. The thing is, I don't think it is going to succeed. The likely thing that is already happening is that power users are leaving Windows and once power users leave the platform will die.

> The likely thing that is already happening is that power users are leaving Windows and once power users leave the platform will die

I would consider myself a power user, but the only reason I stick with Windows still is because I can't find a good reliable video editor on Linux -- and also some games.

Kdenlive makes doing super common things a lot more difficult and time consuming than what's available on Windows video editors and DaVinci Resolve has potential but it's the most crash prone piece of software I've run into on any platform, and also has severe audio quality issues when exporting mp4s (on my hardware at least -- I couldn't use it to create videos due to that).

But I would think at this point, power users are only a drop in the bucket compared to the gaming crowd in terms of audience size. Right now on Linux, gaming comes down to hoping 3rd party tools allow you to run most games you want, or you dual boot (really annoying) or you run KVM with a GPU pass-through to run Windows in a VM with native performance (approaching 1 level above power user level just to set this up and 2 video cards).

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#38

Post by p_l »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #2

So much for Microsoft's professed "love" of open source. They love it only if it works in their interests making them money. Otherwise, not so much. I love this infringing feature they mentioned: "– Protect your privacy by tweak and customize Windows 10." So basically they openly admit you have to give up your privacy in order to use their product. Neat.

The project got hit for providing an ISO with license check removed, not for customizing windows. Over the last ~25 years I don't recall any of the windows customization tools getting hit with DMCA... because they didn't provide a technically illegal copy of the OS with them.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#39

Post by p_l »

choeger wrote: post #5

Interesting case. If Microsoft really demands that a user does not disable features, I am looking forward to some taking this to court. The thing is, software licenses are still largely uncharted territory. If I am not allowed to modify the system as my hardware executes it, will Microsoft take liability for any damage, material or immaterieal that could be caused by it? Think of an upgrade bricking your device (happ…

The case is that the tool included a full copy of Windows, modified, and apparently with activation removed.

So it got hit like any other site providing "cracked" windows.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#40

Post by p_l »

lostgame wrote: post #22
jeroenhd wrote: post #16

The website is down, but yeah, offering customised ISO files with Windows and some tools is clearly a breach of license. You can't just take a paid OS distribution, add some config and plonk it onto github. There's been people patching and customising Windows for many years, but most of the time that was done in the form of gaining an official ISO, patching it with a program on your computer and then using that to in…

I’m not sure, but is Windows 10 not slightly different from previous releases insofar as you can directly download the ISO for Windows 10? Unless you had an MSDN subscription it was a little more difficult to grab an ISO back in the day. Of course, it’s still illegal to modify and upload the modified version...but you’d think the patcher would be an even more obvious route than normal these days if it’s so easy to do…

Getting legal windows ISO download has been possible since at least Vista, though it wasn't as easy as it is now.

The issue is that ninjutsu essentially provided a hacked up image to download, a derivative product, which they didn't have a license to distribute and thus copyright bit them in the arse.

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