4 ms·

They should have counter claimed this nonsense instead of taking down the repo. RIAA is an abusive troll.

by shmerl 6y ago

tanseydavid 6y ago
>> RIAA is an abusive troll That is one of nicer things that one say about the Recording Industry Association of America.
gorbachev 6y ago
Github is obligated to take down the "offending" content as soon as they receive a DMCA notice. It's then on the owner of that content to file a counter claim to restore it. Even if the content is not in violation of DMCA, your files will be gone for a day or two, or longer depending on how slow the publishing platform operators are to process the counter claim and how long it takes to file the counter claim.
- gouggoug 6y ago
  Has anyone tried sending automated DMCA for the entirety of Github? Once half of github is under bogus DMCA, maybe that'll make them think for a minute. I'm halfway serious.
  - kadoban 6y ago
    You as a random person would be committing what's essentially (or actually?) perjury and I'd expect you'd either be ignored or prosecuted. Big companies seem to get freebies on this, doubt you would.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Github is obligated to take down the "offending" content as soon as they receive a DMCA notice. No, they aren't obligated to do anything. Github is immunized from any liability they would otherwise have to the complaining party for hosting the material affected by the notice if they comply within the parameters of the DMCA safe harbor provision (which requires action "expeditiously" rather than "immediately") when they receive a notice.
  - stale2002 6y ago
    > No, they aren't obligated to do anything. This is semantics. Because github absolutely would not be able to exist if it lost its safe harbor protections. So, it is "obligated", in that if it does not follow these laws, then it will 100% have shut down, eventually, due to business reasons. If the alternative to doing a certain action, is that your business will almost certainly be shut down eventually, then I think that is a reasonable situation to use the word "obligated" for.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Because github absolutely would not be able to exist if it lost its safe harbor protections. It wouldn't lose them generally, just with regard to the act of hosting that specific item. Without commenting on the particular case, if the claimed theory of infringement was patently frivolous on its face, even if the notice was formally valid under the DMCA, it would be reasonable for a provider to ignore the notice because they had insufficient risk of liability to concern themselves with. (This is conversely why providers tend to be less good at responding to counter-notices, again, the only hammer is liability shield, but this is for any liability they would have to the person whose content was taken down for taking it down. As this is usually none to start with, they are quite free to be cavalier with counter-notice process.)
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  In a 512 case, yes. The safe-harbour provisions don't apply to 1201.
kadoban 6y ago
This is part of the DMCA process. Github takes it down until they get a counter-claim from the repo owner, don't think they really have much of a choice in it, legally.
- shmerl 6y ago
  Yeah, this process is messed up. It gives preference to abusers, instead of making them prove things to take something down.
  - kadoban 6y ago
    It is messed up in practice, yeah. The counter to that is supposed to be that if you submit totally bogus claims you can be prosecuted for an actual crime, but as far as I know that never happens, at least for the big players.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > This is part of the DMCA process. Github takes it down until they get a counter-claim from the repo owner, don't think they really have much of a choice in it, legally. They have a choice, but if they would be liable for hosting the content but for the DMCA safe harbor, failing to take it down when they receive compliant takedown notice means that they are then exposed to that liability because they are outside of the safe harbor.
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
It sounds like the RIAA is comfortable filing DMCA takedowns when the logic is questionable. If so, then I'm curious about the legality of a counter-attack: Look at any websites, photos, music, videos, and text presented online by everyone represented by the RIAA. If anyone in a competent jurisdiction sees any similarity to prior art that they've created, even if it's their 2nd grade writing assignment, hit them with a DMCA takedown notice. After all, we just need a good-faith belief that it might fly in some court somewhere, right?

They should have counter claimed this nonsense instead of taking down the repo. RIAA is an abusive troll.

by shmerl 6y ago

They should have counter claimed this nonsense instead of taking down the repo. RIAA is an abusive troll.

>> RIAA is an abusive troll That is one of nicer things that one say about the Recording Industry Association of America.

gorbachev 6y ago

Github is obligated to take down the "offending" content as soon as they receive a DMCA notice. It's then on the owner of that content to file a counter claim to restore it. Even if the content is not in violation of DMCA, your files will be gone for a day or two, or longer depending on how slow the publishing platform operators are to process the counter claim and how long it takes to file the counter claim.

gouggoug 6y ago
Has anyone tried sending automated DMCA for the entirety of Github? Once half of github is under bogus DMCA, maybe that'll make them think for a minute. I'm halfway serious.
- kadoban 6y ago
  You as a random person would be committing what's essentially (or actually?) perjury and I'd expect you'd either be ignored or prosecuted. Big companies seem to get freebies on this, doubt you would.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Github is obligated to take down the "offending" content as soon as they receive a DMCA notice. No, they aren't obligated to do anything. Github is immunized from any liability they would otherwise have to the complaining party for hosting the material affected by the notice if they comply within the parameters of the DMCA safe harbor provision (which requires action "expeditiously" rather than "immediately") when they receive a notice.
- stale2002 6y ago
  > No, they aren't obligated to do anything. This is semantics. Because github absolutely would not be able to exist if it lost its safe harbor protections. So, it is "obligated", in that if it does not follow these laws, then it will 100% have shut down, eventually, due to business reasons. If the alternative to doing a certain action, is that your business will almost certainly be shut down eventually, then I think that is a reasonable situation to use the word "obligated" for.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Because github absolutely would not be able to exist if it lost its safe harbor protections. It wouldn't lose them generally, just with regard to the act of hosting that specific item. Without commenting on the particular case, if the claimed theory of infringement was patently frivolous on its face, even if the notice was formally valid under the DMCA, it would be reasonable for a provider to ignore the notice because they had insufficient risk of liability to concern themselves with. (This is conversely why providers tend to be less good at responding to counter-notices, again, the only hammer is liability shield, but this is for any liability they would have to the person whose content was taken down for taking it down. As this is usually none to start with, they are quite free to be cavalier with counter-notice process.)
dredmorbius 6y ago
In a 512 case, yes. The safe-harbour provisions don't apply to 1201.

kadoban 6y ago

This is part of the DMCA process. Github takes it down until they get a counter-claim from the repo owner, don't think they really have much of a choice in it, legally.

shmerl 6y ago
Yeah, this process is messed up. It gives preference to abusers, instead of making them prove things to take something down.
- kadoban 6y ago
  It is messed up in practice, yeah. The counter to that is supposed to be that if you submit totally bogus claims you can be prosecuted for an actual crime, but as far as I know that never happens, at least for the big players.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> This is part of the DMCA process. Github takes it down until they get a counter-claim from the repo owner, don't think they really have much of a choice in it, legally. They have a choice, but if they would be liable for hosting the content but for the DMCA safe harbor, failing to take it down when they receive compliant takedown notice means that they are then exposed to that liability because they are outside of the safe harbor.

DoofusOfDeath 6y ago

It sounds like the RIAA is comfortable filing DMCA takedowns when the logic is questionable. If so, then I'm curious about the legality of a counter-attack: Look at any websites, photos, music, videos, and text presented online by everyone represented by the RIAA. If anyone in a competent jurisdiction sees any similarity to prior art that they've created, even if it's their 2nd grade writing assignment, hit them with a DMCA takedown notice. After all, we just need a good-faith belief that it might fly in some court somewhere, right?