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You break your own ToS and DMCA policies by banning users who repost youtube-dl code. You potentially also lose your safe harbor restrictions in the process. L

You break your own ToS and DMCA policies by banning users who repost youtube-dl code. You potentially also lose your safe harbor restrictions in the process. Let's pretend for the moment that the original youtube-dl DMCA had been valid, or that you removed youtube-dl due to an innocuous mistake. If I post youtube-dl to MY account, you have NO reason to take it down until you receive another takedown request from the RIAA for my repo. You certainly have no reason to ban users. There is nothing in your ToS which this violates. I work on education projects which use youtube-dl in legal, non-infringing ways. I don't think the RIAA has a legal leg to stand on for reasons I'm not going to get to in this post. Until github starts following DMCA processes properly, I CANNOT respond to the existing takedown request, since I have no standing. It's not my repo. The right course of action for me would be to: (1) Consult my lawyer and figure out if this is a fight I want to pick. I'm pretty sure I'd win in court if this went all the way, but I might go bankrupt first. (2) Post youtube-dl to my repo. (3) Wait for a DMCA takedown notice. (4) Respond to it with a counternotice, and litigate with the RIAA. Because github has decided to act as an arbiter on behalf of the RIAA, rather than a neutral third party, I cannot follow this process. github short-circuits this process at #2 by threatening to remove the repo and ban my account. I'm sorry that you've chosen to side with the RIAA against the Internet. I'm gradually moving my business to gitlab. This is approximately what people thought would happen as a result of the Microsoft purchase.

kelnos 6y ago
This whole thing makes me think of how Google goes "above and beyond" with Content ID on YouTube. Google had no legal obligation to build Content ID and preemptively take things down (and, as it turns out, way more aggressively than they legally need to be). In the same way, it seems GitHub is preemptively telling people that if they re-post youtube-dl on GH, they'll be banned, even though GH has no legal responsibility to do so. It's really sad that they're siding with big business in all this, rather than their users, without whom they'd be nothing.
- TheKarateKid 6y ago
  YouTube had to make Content ID because they were facing a multi-billion dollar lawsuit from Viacom. Had YouTube not been proactive, the court could have ruled that YouTube was widely used for piracy, and they’d be liable. GitHub seems to be acting without a backbone. They’re owned by Microsoft, and can definitely stand up to legal challenges like this. Look at BitTorrent: The protocol and it’s code are legal despite being used for piracy. I don’t see why GitHub caves to every request to take down code that is clearly not violating any copyrighted material. Also, the code itself does not break any copy protection and even if it did.. the code itself needs a user to execute it. Isn’t this how LAME was able to exist without violating mp3 patent laws?
gamblor956 6y ago
You break your own ToS and DMCA policies by banning users who repost youtube-dl code. You need to re-read the Github TOS, because this is absolutely covered by it already (see Section F of their TOS). You potentially also lose your safe harbor restrictions in the process. That is false. They could lose their safe harbor if they did not respond to a presumptively valid DMCA notice. Until github starts following DMCA processes properly, I CANNOT respond to the existing takedown request, since I have no standing. It's not my repo. Pretty sure that the Legal Dept at Github knows more about the DMCA process than a random non-lawyer on HN. It's something they deal with on a regular basis. Because github has decided to act as an arbiter on behalf of the RIAA, rather than a neutral third party, I cannot follow this process. github short-circuits this process at #2 by threatening to remove the repo and ban my account. This is false. Because github has decided to act as an arbiter on behalf of the RIAA, rather than a neutral third party, I cannot follow this process. github short-circuits this process at #2 by threatening to remove the repo and ban my account. That is probably for the best. Customers with unrealistic expectations are not worth the effort to keep.
- woofie11 6y ago
  > You need to re-read the Github TOS, because this is absolutely covered by it already (see Section F of their TOS). Section F says they can take down RIAA's account, not mine. Here is the section in full: "If you believe that content on our website violates your copyright, please contact us in accordance with our Digital Millennium Copyright Act Policy. If you are a copyright owner and you believe that content on GitHub violates your rights, please contact us via our convenient DMCA form or by emailing copyright@github.com. There may be legal consequences for sending a false or frivolous takedown notice. Before sending a takedown request, you must consider legal uses such as fair use and licensed uses. We will terminate the Accounts of repeat infringers of this policy." The relevant policy is here: https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/site-policy/github-acceptable-use-policies https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/site-... > That is false. They could lose their safe harbor if they did not respond to a presumptively valid DMCA notice. Had it been a valid DMCA notice, the required response under the DMCA is taking down the youtube-dl repo. Their thermonuclear bomb was to take down other people's repos, ban accounts, and make random threats. > Pretty sure that the Legal Dept at Github knows more about the DMCA process than a random non-lawyer on HN. It's something they deal with on a regular basis. I'm pretty sure they do too, which is why their aggressive and technological legal response, combined with their CEO making public statements of sympathy for their victims, is so cynical, dirty, and dishonest. They can be the good guy, and fight the RIAA. They can be a neutral party, and do their duty under DMCA. But fighting the RIAAs battles for then, and then making comments like Nat's? Sketchy and sleazy. Even eighties/nineties Microsoft didn't do that. They went after people, but they were at least open about what they were doing -- they called Linux a virus and all sorts of other nasty things. They didn't pretend to like Linux while spreading FUD and mounting legal attacks. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the other random guy on the internet (you) doesn't know more than the first random guy on the internet (me). > That is probably for the best. Customers with unrealistic expectations are not worth the effort to keep. Depends on the cost, the context, and how those expectations manifest. Talk to any luxury good company serving the ultrawealthy for how not catering to customers with unreasonable expectations would serve them. Or any company selling to an athlete to promote a product. Or many small businesses who just won multimillion dollar B2B contracts. Or... But in either case, I don't think expecting github to act honestly is an unrealistic expectation. Each time I've dealt with a dishonest company, no matter how good the deal looked, I came out behind. I think people were holding their breath to see what happens with github post-acquisition, and we just learned.

kelnos 6y ago

This whole thing makes me think of how Google goes "above and beyond" with Content ID on YouTube. Google had no legal obligation to build Content ID and preemptively take things down (and, as it turns out, way more aggressively than they legally need to be). In the same way, it seems GitHub is preemptively telling people that if they re-post youtube-dl on GH, they'll be banned, even though GH has no legal responsibility to do so. It's really sad that they're siding with big business in all this, rather than their users, without whom they'd be nothing.

TheKarateKid 6y ago
YouTube had to make Content ID because they were facing a multi-billion dollar lawsuit from Viacom. Had YouTube not been proactive, the court could have ruled that YouTube was widely used for piracy, and they’d be liable. GitHub seems to be acting without a backbone. They’re owned by Microsoft, and can definitely stand up to legal challenges like this. Look at BitTorrent: The protocol and it’s code are legal despite being used for piracy. I don’t see why GitHub caves to every request to take down code that is clearly not violating any copyrighted material. Also, the code itself does not break any copy protection and even if it did.. the code itself needs a user to execute it. Isn’t this how LAME was able to exist without violating mp3 patent laws?

gamblor956 6y ago

You break your own ToS and DMCA policies by banning users who repost youtube-dl code. You need to re-read the Github TOS, because this is absolutely covered by it already (see Section F of their TOS). You potentially also lose your safe harbor restrictions in the process. That is false. They could lose their safe harbor if they did not respond to a presumptively valid DMCA notice. Until github starts following DMCA processes properly, I CANNOT respond to the existing takedown request, since I have no standing. It's not my repo. Pretty sure that the Legal Dept at Github knows more about the DMCA process than a random non-lawyer on HN. It's something they deal with on a regular basis. Because github has decided to act as an arbiter on behalf of the RIAA, rather than a neutral third party, I cannot follow this process. github short-circuits this process at #2 by threatening to remove the repo and ban my account. This is false. Because github has decided to act as an arbiter on behalf of the RIAA, rather than a neutral third party, I cannot follow this process. github short-circuits this process at #2 by threatening to remove the repo and ban my account. That is probably for the best. Customers with unrealistic expectations are not worth the effort to keep.

woofie11 6y ago
> You need to re-read the Github TOS, because this is absolutely covered by it already (see Section F of their TOS). Section F says they can take down RIAA's account, not mine. Here is the section in full: "If you believe that content on our website violates your copyright, please contact us in accordance with our Digital Millennium Copyright Act Policy. If you are a copyright owner and you believe that content on GitHub violates your rights, please contact us via our convenient DMCA form or by emailing copyright@github.com. There may be legal consequences for sending a false or frivolous takedown notice. Before sending a takedown request, you must consider legal uses such as fair use and licensed uses. We will terminate the Accounts of repeat infringers of this policy." The relevant policy is here: https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/site-policy/github-acceptable-use-policies https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/site-... > That is false. They could lose their safe harbor if they did not respond to a presumptively valid DMCA notice. Had it been a valid DMCA notice, the required response under the DMCA is taking down the youtube-dl repo. Their thermonuclear bomb was to take down other people's repos, ban accounts, and make random threats. > Pretty sure that the Legal Dept at Github knows more about the DMCA process than a random non-lawyer on HN. It's something they deal with on a regular basis. I'm pretty sure they do too, which is why their aggressive and technological legal response, combined with their CEO making public statements of sympathy for their victims, is so cynical, dirty, and dishonest. They can be the good guy, and fight the RIAA. They can be a neutral party, and do their duty under DMCA. But fighting the RIAAs battles for then, and then making comments like Nat's? Sketchy and sleazy. Even eighties/nineties Microsoft didn't do that. They went after people, but they were at least open about what they were doing -- they called Linux a virus and all sorts of other nasty things. They didn't pretend to like Linux while spreading FUD and mounting legal attacks. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the other random guy on the internet (you) doesn't know more than the first random guy on the internet (me). > That is probably for the best. Customers with unrealistic expectations are not worth the effort to keep. Depends on the cost, the context, and how those expectations manifest. Talk to any luxury good company serving the ultrawealthy for how not catering to customers with unreasonable expectations would serve them. Or any company selling to an athlete to promote a product. Or many small businesses who just won multimillion dollar B2B contracts. Or... But in either case, I don't think expecting github to act honestly is an unrealistic expectation. Each time I've dealt with a dishonest company, no matter how good the deal looked, I came out behind. I think people were holding their breath to see what happens with github post-acquisition, and we just learned.