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Yeah. The way I understand it GitHub is really putting their money where their mouth is. The easy way out is to push the liability onto the user by making the

Yeah. The way I understand it GitHub is really putting their money where their mouth is. The easy way out is to push the liability onto the user by making them file a counter-notice. This way GitHub is taking on some liability. I'm guessing youtube-dl might be a really strong case for GitHub if they'd happen to get sued, so it makes a lot of business sense to take a stand on it. The get much needed goodwill from the developer community and get to send a strong message they're not interested in being the messenger for weak DMCA claims. GitHub/Microsoft management deserve credit for recognizing the long term value (to them) of pushing back hard against frivolous DMCA claims.

jrochkind1 6y ago
The thing is, Microsoft can actually afford a LOT of risk of legal bills in return of developer goodwill, apart from how strong a case it is. Especially since Github somehow seems to have been losing developer goodwill lately. This is not a dig -- few companies can afford to take a legal risk that Microsoft can (even on a strong case, most companies couldn't afford the legal bills of standing up to RIAA), and it's GREAT that they are choosing to, setting a standard. It will in fact be really hard for gitlab to do similar though, they can not afford a lawsuit from the RIAA like MS can. (And the RIAA is really unlikely to sue MS unless they really think they have to, cause they know they're outgunned_.