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Right, and even a cursory search would reveal that for license violations, you can file a DMCA takedown request with Github against the offending repository [0]

Right, and even a cursory search would reveal that for license violations, you can file a DMCA takedown request with Github against the offending repository [0]. It literally takes ten minutes and Github is required by law to act immediately and ask questions later. And then at that point, the ball's in the other guy's court. He could file a DMCA Counter Notice with Github to get the repository reinstated, but in doing so, he is swearing under penalty of perjury that he is telling the truth claiming that he didn't violate the original code's license. If the forker didn't credit Wonder Unit as required by their original license [1], well, then clearly Wonder Unit has a case to have the code removed. This isn't Vietnam. There are rules. [0] https://help.github.com/articles/dmca-takedown-policy/ https://help.github.com/articles/dmca-takedown-policy/ [1] https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/ https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/

IAmEveryone 9y ago
The Github ToC require you to allow forks for public repositories. So a fork on Github is almost literally the only use of this software that they couldn't stop. I'm reasonably certain that Github would check this when served with a DMCA notice, as well. The ToC read as if they are a reaction to exactly such a case. They don't want it to be possible to infringe copyright with the single click of a button.
- fapjacks 9y ago
  But the fork wasn't the problem. The problem was the forker scrubbing attribution, which is against the license it supposedly had at the time. Or, at least, that seemed to have been the problem at the time?
dragonwriter 9y ago
> It literally takes ten minutes and Github is required by law to act immediately and ask questions later. Technically, no. They get the benefit of the DMCA Safe Harbor if they do so, but it is not a legal requirement. If they would be liable for infringement without the safe harbor, staying in it eliminates that liability, but that only matters if GitHub would have been liable (which isn't necessarily the case if the other user would have been.) The DMCA safe harbor rules aren't mandates, which is why the counternotice side has less compliance (because hosts would rarely be liable to their own users for a erroneous take-down, so the safe harbor on that side doesn't protect them from anything.)

IAmEveryone 9y ago

The Github ToC require you to allow forks for public repositories. So a fork on Github is almost literally the only use of this software that they couldn't stop. I'm reasonably certain that Github would check this when served with a DMCA notice, as well. The ToC read as if they are a reaction to exactly such a case. They don't want it to be possible to infringe copyright with the single click of a button.

fapjacks 9y ago
But the fork wasn't the problem. The problem was the forker scrubbing attribution, which is against the license it supposedly had at the time. Or, at least, that seemed to have been the problem at the time?

dragonwriter 9y ago

> It literally takes ten minutes and Github is required by law to act immediately and ask questions later. Technically, no. They get the benefit of the DMCA Safe Harbor if they do so, but it is not a legal requirement. If they would be liable for infringement without the safe harbor, staying in it eliminates that liability, but that only matters if GitHub would have been liable (which isn't necessarily the case if the other user would have been.) The DMCA safe harbor rules aren't mandates, which is why the counternotice side has less compliance (because hosts would rarely be liable to their own users for a erroneous take-down, so the safe harbor on that side doesn't protect them from anything.)