HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed] • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by gfd » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:11 AM UTC

rvivek wrote: post #37

Hello, I'm Vivek, founder/CEO of HackerRank. Our intention with this initiative is to takedown plagiarized code snippets or solutions to company assessments. This was definitely an unintended consequence. We are looking into it ASAP and also going to do an RCA to ensure this doesn't happen again. Sorry, everyone! EDIT: update here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31092085

You can't copyright algorithmic code snippets. It's like trying to copyright math. You will have an insane amount of false positive from every repository that have ever implemented a prefix sum or binary search. (Or anything autocompleted using github copilot or alphacode which I believe is trained on competitive programming styled submissions from codeforces and atcoder)

The solution would be to build some sort of cheat detector and punish only the candidate. Don't take down and lose the goodwill of the entire programming community by abusing draconian laws.

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

#72

Post by mjg59 » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:11 AM UTC

rvivek wrote: post #37

Hello, I'm Vivek, founder/CEO of HackerRank. Our intention with this initiative is to takedown plagiarized code snippets or solutions to company assessments. This was definitely an unintended consequence. We are looking into it ASAP and also going to do an RCA to ensure this doesn't happen again. Sorry, everyone! EDIT: update here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31092085

> solutions to company assessments

Sorry, are you asserting that you hold copyright over solutions that other people write?

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

#73

Post by xucheng » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:12 AM UTC

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=

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

#74

Post by jeroenhd » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:12 AM UTC

Not the first time they've taken down Github repos, some with a legal basis (partial problem text, though Fair Use might overrule that if the cases ever made it to court), others with no involvement at all (https://github.com/egfx/React-Leaderboard still hasn't been restored, for example)

More information about previous DMCA abuse here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29239594

Personally, I would not trust a company this unethical to certify anything. Their excuse seems to be "we're using an external service" but they chose that external service and are fully responsible for these takedowns in their name.

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

#75

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:13 AM UTC

rvivek wrote: post #37

Hello, I'm Vivek, founder/CEO of HackerRank. Our intention with this initiative is to takedown plagiarized code snippets or solutions to company assessments. This was definitely an unintended consequence. We are looking into it ASAP and also going to do an RCA to ensure this doesn't happen again. Sorry, everyone! EDIT: update here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31092085

> This was definitely an unintended consequence.

A person driving 100 miles per hour down a residential street and crashing into something is an unintended consequence, but not unforeseen.

This may have been "unintended" but when you have a company file DMCA notices on your behalf without proper supervision (especially when they had filed DMCA notices like this against other open source libraries) it is not "unforeseen" for them to file a DMCA notice against a completely innocent project.

At the very minimum the open source library that was affected and their maintainers deserve monetary recompense for the time and stress that your actions have cost them.

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

#76

Post by a-dub » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:15 AM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #63

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…

HackerRank and LeetCode are a scourge on our industry, for more reasons than this shitty behavior.

automated programming tests are pretty dystopic, it's true.

especially if the web based editor doesn't support vim style key bindings.

amusing irony that likely parts of a question were lifted from the very source that was subject to the takedown.

bigger problem i have with coding tests is that they check if someone is familiar with some subset of reference material (usually algorithms). in my experience, anyone can pull those from a book in practice and real software engineering has little to do with that and more to do with having the knowledge and experience to avoid making a mess or building weird software.

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

#77

Post by SeanLuke » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:15 AM UTC

gfd wrote: post #71

rvivek wrote: post #37

Hello, I'm Vivek, founder/CEO of HackerRank. Our intention with this initiative is to takedown plagiarized code snippets or solutions to company assessments. This was definitely an unintended consequence. We are looking into it ASAP and also going to do an RCA to ensure this doesn't happen again. Sorry, everyone! EDIT: update here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31092085

You can't copyright algorithmic code snippets . It's like trying to copyright math. You will have an insane amount of false positive from every repository that have ever implemented a prefix sum or binary search. (Or anything autocompleted using github copilot or alphacode which I believe is trained on competitive programming styled submissions from codeforces and atcoder) The solution would be to build some sort of…

> You can't copyright algorithmic code snippets. It's like trying to copyright math.

You might first investigate just how small the piece of code was on which nearly all of Oracle's case vs. Google rested.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11722514

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

#78

Post by jeroenhd » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:17 AM UTC

rvivek wrote: post #37

Hello, I'm Vivek, founder/CEO of HackerRank. Our intention with this initiative is to takedown plagiarized code snippets or solutions to company assessments. This was definitely an unintended consequence. We are looking into it ASAP and also going to do an RCA to ensure this doesn't happen again. Sorry, everyone! EDIT: update here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31092085

Are you seriously claiming copyright over other people's solutions? You have *no* right, legally or ethically, to exercise any kind of control over "solutions to company assessments" under the DMCA.

At worst, you can try to exercise the controls in the EULA that your victims agreed to, but this sounds like abuse of the legal system.

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

#79

Post by jakebasile » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:17 AM UTC

mjg59 wrote: post #72

rvivek wrote: post #37

Hello, I'm Vivek, founder/CEO of HackerRank. Our intention with this initiative is to takedown plagiarized code snippets or solutions to company assessments. This was definitely an unintended consequence. We are looking into it ASAP and also going to do an RCA to ensure this doesn't happen again. Sorry, everyone! EDIT: update here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31092085

> solutions to company assessments Sorry, are you asserting that you hold copyright over solutions that other people write?

Yeah this stood out to me too. If I publish code that I wrote for no remuneration, how does HackerRank claim to own the copyright to that code?

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

#80

Post by electroly » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 1:18 AM UTC

rvivek wrote: post #42

endisneigh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious - why even bother? What will you do if someone torrents the solutions? Focus on figuring out another solution. Leetcode for instance puts the solutions out there.

It's not an either or. We need to do the takedown AND figure out a way where we can do things like randomizing questions but preserving the integrity of it to ensure a fair evaluation, etc.

Is your company's legal position seriously that you hold copyright on independently written solutions to your prompts? If so, I'd love to see you sued for this. This issue goes way beyond just one misfire.