19 ms·

GitHub has received a DMCA from MPA about torrent tracker nyaa.si

580 points by livueta 6y ago

voidwtf 6y ago
I hope GitHub is willing to put a stop to this, seems like a stretch. Where this thread of logic end? Should python be blocked by DMCA because it is used to compile code that facilitates copyright infringement?
- dunefox 6y ago
  Personal computers make copyright infringement possible. They need to go.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    I guess this is exactly what Apple thinks when they remove root from your devices.
    - devmunchies 6y ago
      $ sudo whoami root
      - fsflover 6y ago
        https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG-116-JU05-20190716-SD036.pdf https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG...
        devmunchies 6y ago
        oh, mobile. yeah agreed. thanks for link, haven't seen this.
  - EvanAnderson 6y ago
    The industry is working on that. We're still getting people used to the idea of "phones" in beautiful and "safe" walled gardens. (We all know that "phones" aren't actually personal computers so it's not like we're giving anything up!) It's easier to control infringing uses of technology in the walled garden, where the imprimatur of the "gardener" reigns supreme and software can be sent down the memory hole if it angers the establishment. If this goes according to plan nobody (at least, nobody who isn't part of an aged and miniscule market segment) will notice when the personal computers are brought into the "safety" of the garden too.
  - speeder 6y ago
    Well... they already succeeded in screwing some hardware and software this way. When Windows Vista was about to launch, MPAA pushed hard for DVD copy protection, this resulted in a sudden push against CRT monitors, in favor of then lower quality LCD, to force the usage of HDMI cables (because they have DRM), they also pushed hard for Microsoft to change what soundcards were allowed to do, again because of DRM. This contributed to a sudden death of CRTs right when some companies were about to have breakthrough in lightweight CRT, and also basically killed the soundcard market... they still exist, but nowhere near important as they were, and nowhere near awesome, the changes that were pushed to support DRM killed 3D Audio, back then you had people buying sound cards as if they were like GPUs but for audio, some games used this to great effect (Thief for example), where the game would raytrace the audio, calculating it reflecting, refracting and difracting around the 3D models, allowing for sound simulations that let players to figure out the environment by audio alone... Vista came and changed drastically how the driver stack for video and audio worked, MS back then blamed "stability" but they killed hard anything that could be used to circunvent DVD, HDMI and related DRM.
    - outworlder 6y ago
      > were about to have breakthrough in lightweight CRT Never heard of this. There's a limit on how lightweight a CRT can be, compared to what amounts to essentially a large chip. Maybe that wasn't so bad. Also, unless this breakthrough no longer used an electron gun, they are power hogs. > to force the usage of HDMI cables What's preventing one from driving a CRT with a HDMI signal? You can generate the analog signals the CRT needs quite easily. This is in fact done by dirt cheap dongles today. > where the game would raytrace the audio, calculating it reflecting, refracting and difracting around the 3D models, allowing for sound simulations that let players to figure out the environment by audio alone Why can't we do this today? This can in fact be done by GPUs. Possibly even in the CPU. The way I understand there are a few reasons why people stopped buying sound cards: * Capabilities such as MIDI and pre-loaded instruments were no longer used. Games had more space to burn so they just used digitized waveforms * The built-in audio became "good enough". Any built-in cheap can output audio at high sample rates. Decent audio can be provided even from the analog outputs, not to mention digital signals carried by optical outputs, HDMI, Display Port. Some of these may not even be routed through the audio card * Similarly, many people use USB headsets. They have their own audio device. In fact, many computers have multiple - in my case, my camera has one, the Oculus has another, so does the monitor. All through USB or DisplayPort * Most sound processing tasks are not really that taxing on a modern system. Thief might be an exception and even then, given some AMD and NVidia offerings, this is probably doable without dedicated audio processing hardware * Also Creative had a chokehold on the industry as a whole. Lots of libraries and products were purchased or killed. They still make audio cards today, but I can't understand why.
  - PAPPPmAc 6y ago
    Good old Right to Read (Stallman, 1997) https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html and The Coming War On General Purpose Computing (Doctorow, 2011) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_on_General_Computation https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_on_General_Com... warning us that entities really are going to try exactly that bullshit. And, as usual, sounding paranoid at the time and "oh, yeah, of course that happened" later.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  This nasty industry tried to make the VCR illegal back in the day so you're not that far off.
  - EvanAnderson 6y ago
    A lot people on HN probably weren't alive to know that this happened. It would do people well to read the testimony given before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives back in 1983[1] to get some idea of exactly how willing and eager to destroy innovation copyright maximalists really are. Nothing suggests the attitudes motivating the MPAA's lack of foresight re: the VCR in 1983, aand their general unwillingness to allow anything to upset the status quo, have gone anywhere in the ensuing decades. [1] http://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm http://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm (If nothing else, read Jack Valenti's testimony.)
- f311a 6y ago
  Python does not contain preconfiguration that allows you to download particular files. The DMCA mentions configs with data samples.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
akerro 6y ago
transmission and qbittorrent next?
- tristanc 6y ago
  This is not a torrent client. They’re referring to a torrent tracker. Trackers generally serve to help peers find each other.
  - akerro 6y ago
    They took down youtube-dl first, then torrent tracker, so torrent clients, browsers and ffmpeg are next.
  - notatoad 6y ago
    a tracker isn't any more infringing than a client is though.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    >Indeed, copyright infringement is so prevalent within the Project that infringement plainly is its predominant use and purpose. Directly from the claim. If they can ban a torrent index (I don't know if there's actual tracker code in the project) for it being predominantly used for piracy, why not a torrent client?
- rapfaria 6y ago
  No, probably gazelle
bitcharmer 6y ago
Can someone knowledgeable explain to me how a tracker source code violates DMCA? What's next, hard disk manufacturers? Internet providers?
- wilshire_nc 6y ago
  I never saw the repo, but to play devil's advocate it's possible that there's a unit test or something that downloads copyrighted material. That's what got youtube-dl taken down.
  - sodality2 6y ago
    Doubt, there would be no reason for it to be copyrighted material, it would just be a torrent test
    - cjaybo 6y ago
      Couldn't the same thing have been said for the problematic youtube-dl test case?
      - sodality2 6y ago
        Those directly downloaded copyrighted youtube videos. It would instead be just a torrent tracker connection check, no reason to even transfer a file, since the tracker just matches user with user and doesn't touch any files.
      - Macha 6y ago
        The issue with the youtube-dl case was that certain copyrighted video pages did have a different structure, so they needed to test they could parse that page correctly. There's no technical difference between a torrent containing ArchLinux.iso and TheBeatlesDiscography.zip however.
      - Const-me 6y ago
        Not exactly. They had a test that saves a file from YouTube that was "protected" with some tech a lawyer might quality as DRM. YouTube only uses that thing for copyrighted materials. Torrents don't have anything like that. You don't have to deal with anything copyrighted to test any related stuff, be it client, tracker, or web server.
minitoar 6y ago
Haha love the alembic migration in the mix there.
matthewmorgan 6y ago
We need a bonfire of these rentseekers
- kleiba 6y ago
  No, we need to show strong opposition but using civil and democratic means.
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    To play devil's advocate: how, when they won't let us?
    - kleiba 6y ago
      Who doesn't? And how exactly do they do prevent you from exercising your democratic rights?
      - wizzwizz4 6y ago
        What do you mean by “show strong opposition but using civil and democratic means”? Give me that, and I'll show you millions who can't, or that it isn't effective, or rejoice and change the world.
        kleiba 6y ago
        Here are a few: - engage in discussions - speak up against injustices - vote - join groups of like-minded people - exercise your right to demonstrate Change is hard, and it is slow. That is usually not a bad thing; however, it requires persistence. I'm currently stuck in Germany. Think about the late 80s when a whole state was brought down peacefully by the people of the German Democratic Republic. It was not a storm on the Reichstag that brought about the fall of the state, nor a military coup. It was a lot of different factors combined but an increasing pressure from the people played a central role in it. And, mind you, this was a regime that had no problem taking extreme measures against its own people, so certainly no easy circumstances to stand up against the authorities.
mmastrac 6y ago
The MPA seems to be getting braver with these takedowns, considering how quickly the youtube-dl one got flipped around. This one seems particularly shaky as you could not use it to explicitly download anything - rather to host data of your own (with no explicit requirement for it to be unauthorized copyright violation). EDIT: perhaps just a ploy to unmask the authors of the torrent site?
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Github needs to go on the offensive and begin to take action against fraudulent DMCA notices, including justification to seek damages for these claims.
  - daheza 6y ago
    Agreed that Github needs to push back, but we should also be contacting our legislature so that they are aware of the abuse of law.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      True, but that's a longer "sales cycle" (election cycles are usually every 2-4 years) if you will. Tactical response vs strategic response.
      - newsclues 6y ago
        A full war needs to be waged, at the tactical and strategic level, for (digital) freedom.
    - kodah 6y ago
      This has been an issue, and has been lobbied for, for at least two decades. The law may do us favors one day but that day is far into the future.
      - ballenf 6y ago
synctext 6y ago
> Specifically, we request that you remove or disable access to the infringing Project’s repositories referenced herein in accordance with either 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(ii) (DMCA “representative list” provision), 17 U.S.C. § 512(i)(1)(A) (DMCA “repeat infringer” provision), and/or GitHub’s Terms of Service, which prohibit use of your facilities for copyright infringement, ... So such dual-use technologies are now under pressure. This is quite a step towards banning certain mass-dissemination protocols in general. See "inducement rule" [1] in the US. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inducement_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inducement_rule
jitendrac 6y ago
Torrents were great threat in past years, but now in world with streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime,Hulu and all others torrent is not a serious threat. So,that's a baseless argument, Its like don't sell knives they can be used to murder. Torrents are also useful for many others purposes, like distribution of big opensource software, downloading files with unreliable connection and slow speed, to distribute things [kind of]anonymously peer-peer etc.
- rapfaria 6y ago
  Until you are paying for 10 distinct services, and the music colossi start to create services of their own. Who you gonna call? Plex+sonarr
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    A music colossus already tried this, and Tidal landed with a thud. People are loyal to artists, not labels, and artists change labels on a fairly regular basis. It's not like TV where shows generally live and die on a single channel, and maybe get salvaged onto a second one.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      And if not loyal to an artist it is a genera or station. Classical music listeners can get Bach from a number of different artists, if a few are missing they typically can get by with the others. If someone puts a station on Pandora it will be a long time before they notice that something is missing. With TV there is a long standing character development to get people interested in something in particular. With music you often just want a style - though there are favorites with particular meaning that you may want.
      - bobthepanda 6y ago
        Even loyalty to an artist is overrated. Tidal had exclusivity with some of the biggest names in music with dedicated fanbases and this mostly got people to sign up for the one-month free trial and cancel. Beyonce and Jay-Z moved back onto Spotify. This is a model that is proven not to work.
erk__ 6y ago
Seems that it is something that MPA have gone after for some time they tried to shut down the website late last year. https://torrentfreak.com/mpa-lawyers-are-trying-to-shut-down-pirate-anime-giant-nyaa-si-201104/ https://torrentfreak.com/mpa-lawyers-are-trying-to-shut-down...
- francis_t_catte 6y ago
  yeah, this reads as more of an attempt against the torrent tracker site, rather than the tracker software itself.
chewzerita 6y ago
I thought GitHub said they were going to assume good faith by the repository and allow it to stay up until a ruling has been decided (as well as funding legal costs), rather than immediately taking it down under the hand of the "rightsholder". Did I misread their previous statement after the youtube-dl fiasco?
- ihuman 6y ago
  I think that was just for section 1201 claims, not all claims. > "Going forward, we are overhauling our 1201 claim review process..." https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-youtube-dl-is-back/#what-were-changing https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-yo...
- Griffinsauce 6y ago
  The relevant part of their "youtube-dl is back" post: > Given the cost to developers of an unwarranted takedown of code, we ensure we have a complete notice before we take action. We distinguish between code that merely can be used in an infringing way and code that is preconfigured to be used a certain way. We also recognize that code can provide access to copyrighted content without violating the law (for example, fair use). In some cases we can keep a project up because the content identified in the takedown notice is not in fact infringing or circumventing a TPM that controls access or copying of copyrighted works. So basically: no. But they surrounded it with so much fluff that's its easy to misinterpret.
- fireattack 6y ago
  Nothing will change much, as soon as GitHub is still a user-generated content host. They have to follow DMCA safe harbor practice, which is to obey the claim until proven false, in trade with not get sued themselves as a host.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
cush 6y ago
Ten forkbots and 1000 forks later...
coldcode 6y ago
Browsers are open source. I can download illegal content via a browser. Clearly they should DMCA all the browsers. Make as much (non) sense as this.
- Shish2k 6y ago
  The accusation being made here isn’t “this software can be used for piracy”, but rather “this software is primarily designed for piracy”
dmaz 6y ago
Reading the complaint, it's clear their focus is not on generic tracker source code but on copyrighted file metadata being preloaded into the tracker source code: > The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law.
- f311a 6y ago
  Yes, people should really read the DMCA before jumping into conclusions. I see a lot of false assumptions in the comments.
  - sodality2 6y ago
    To be fair, reading > The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law. could easily be interpreted as "oh MPA took it down because sharing files = bad", not necessarily "their code is very specificlaly designed to analyze and collect pirated media". The companies behind this are very loose with their wording so it looks terrible.
  - kmeisthax 6y ago
    In the defense of the falsely-assuming people the actual legally actionable bits are all the way at the end of the complaint, and the first few paragraphs sound like the MPA is alleging that merely publishing the source code of a BitTorrent tracker is itself infringement. I swear, it's almost as if the people who work for these publisher trade groups are trying to pull aggro and look crazy.
- gnomewascool 6y ago
  I've looked at all the "infringing" files that they link to, from a bundled zip download from the web archive, and I don't see anything that's "preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content". The most iffy is the list of categories in utils/api_uploader_v2.py but there's no category that doesn't contain works out of copyright or under a license permitting redistribution, and even if that were not the case, that would still not be tantamount to being "preconfigured to find" anything in particular. There's also the URL of the pirate site, but google also provides it, as do some comments here...
jhare 6y ago
Github bowing to these requests is really disappointing. Makes me sad.
- meibo 6y ago
  U.S. organizations need to follow U.S. law. Github has shown that they're trying to fight these things, with yt-dl reinstatement and a recent donation to the EFF. https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-youtube-dl-is-back/ https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-yo...
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    After reviewing the claim, the law lets them choose whether they want to take it down in exchange for immunity.
maltalex 6y ago
The title is misleading. This isn't some generic torrent tracker. The repo in question is the source of a specific site - nyaa.si [0] which according to the complaint is preconfigured to share copyrighted material: > The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law. This is probably what makes this complaint possible. [0]: https://nyaa.si/ https://nyaa.si/
- livueta 6y ago
  You've got a point, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836800 also points this out. My eye was caught by > The Project blatantly infringes the MPA Member Studios’ copyrights and countless other copyrights. Indeed, copyright infringement is so prevalent within the Project that infringement plainly is its predominant use and purpose. when submitting, and you could argue that does constitute a blanket attack against dual-use products, but the specific allegations you cite are also relevant. Since I could still edit the title I changed it to "for source code of torrent tracker nyaa.si"; hope that's clearer.
- jchw 6y ago
  Please don't, however, baselessly propagate their claims. As far as I can tell it's bullshit. The source code may be for nyaa.si but it just contains normal torrent tracker code. Take a look at the files listed: > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/utils/api_info.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/utils/api_info.... Online here: https://gitlab.com/SIGBUS/nyaa/-/blob/master/utils/api_info.py https://gitlab.com/SIGBUS/nyaa/-/blob/master/utils/api_info.... See anything remotely suggestive? Not I. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/utils/api_uploader_v2.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/utils/api_uploa... Nothing interesting here either. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/static/search-sukebei.xml https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/static/sea... Why did they pick the search entry XML for the porn section??? (I can only assume their lawyers have no idea what 'sukebei' means.) Anyway, nothing interesting in this file either. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/api_handler.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/api_handle... Again, looks ENTIRELY generic. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/.docker/nyaa-config-partial.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/.docker/nyaa-co... It's a config file with some credentials in it. Again, nothing. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/torrents.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/torrents.p... More generic looking Flask code. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/templates/home.html https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/templates/... Again... it's a very basic looking HTML template. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/migrations/versions/2bceb2cb4d7c_add_comment_count_to_torrent.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/migrations/vers... Just about the least interesting database migration ever. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/config.example.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/config.example.... I'm not even sure why they would pick this file, seriously. At this point they're just making shit up. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/.docker/es_sync_config.json https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/.docker/es_sync... And another random config file. If there's even a smidgen of actual copyright infringement in this repo, they failed to find it.
formerly_proven 6y ago
MPAA 2: The Streisand Overdrive
atum47 6y ago
I've made a cool app that consumes yts api a while ago. Naively I even shared it here. After learning that someone in England was arrested only for having links to pirated movies I took everything down. It's a shame how hard they are coming after torrents and copyright content like that. As I kid growing up in Brazil I wouldn't have access to a lot of movies, games and tv shows if weren't for torrents and pirate content. Now a days I can buy these games and pay for a subscription to movies and tv shows, but I learned of them by downloading first. I wonder how much it hurts a tv show like GOT to have some kid watching it without buying.
elliottlan 6y ago
Pathetic!
underseacables 6y ago
Is there a mirror?
looperhacks 6y ago
For those who don't know nyaa.si: it's probably the most popular public tracker for anime/manga/and related stuff. It sprung up not so long ago after the original nyaa.eu (? I'm not 100% sure on the domain) shut down. Today it's not the only surviving clone, but probably the biggest one. I'm still not sure however, how the repo itself violates copyright. Yes I'm aware of the explanations but I have a hard time believing it. And I can't exactly look up the linked code files.
jniedrauer 6y ago
This site is mainly used to share Japanese media. The streaming services have really dropped the ball in this area. They either don't simulcast to other parts of the world (netflix), offer terrible subtitles that are worse than fan translations (netflix, crunchyroll), or just plain never release content for international audiences. I pay for every relevant streaming service I can, and even when I can access legal, official distributions, I still generally prefer fan releases. It's embarrassing. I'm so tired of the rent seeking in the entertainment industry. I want to pay artists and content creators, not an ever growing pile of mediocre middlemen and their lawyers. How can we pool our money to hire lobbyists and change the landscape of this industry?
- fireattack 6y ago
  The coverage of Anime in some countries (such as the US) are a lot better than before though. Can't speak of translation quality as I don't watch English-sub, but they have no problem with simulcast. As a matter of fact, lots of popular animes released on Nyaa.si nowadays are directly ripped from Crunchyroll/Funimation/etc. TVrips from Japan, which were the main source before, are actually getting rarer and rarer.
- Macha 6y ago
  Yeah, I subscribe to Crunchyroll, Netflix, Prime Video, and Funimation. Or in other words, 100% of services with streaming anime available in my country. To be fair, seasonal anime gets a good coverage with those. Netflix's player is pretty good, but the rest vary from meh to awful (I have never successfully changed the timestamp in Funimation's player without playback crashing within the next minute). But back catalogues availability is not so good. Crunchyroll and Netflix have the most popular stuff like Naruto, Code Geass or Evangelion but literally nobody has, say, The Devil is a Part Timer in my country. Movies? The SAO movie got a physical showing in my country, the Made in Abyss movie actually did show up on a pay per view non-region locked streaming service and... that's literally it. Soundtracks? It might be on Spotify. This week. But maybe not next week. I've no fucking idea, but the constant appearence and disappearence of soundtrack songs from my playlists has even caused me to stop moving spotify. So for movies and back catalogues, my only "legal" option is to ship DVDs/Blurays and a region locked player from the US, or maybe sometimes I can get stuff from the UK in my own region. For soundtracks, even that is not usually an option. Does that legally entitle me to pirate it? No. Do I care? Not really, I feel I've tried my best
Hamuko 6y ago
>Specifically, at the URL, the Repository hosts and offers for download the Project, which, when downloaded, provides the downloader everything necessary to launch and host a “clone” infringing website identical to Nyaa.si (and, thus, engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows). I'd like for Motion Picture Association to publish a step-by-step guide on how I can engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows using this piece of software. Because I imagine at some point in the guide they'd tell me to generate torrent files of copyrighted files I have and upload them to the site, which is really outside of this project. Or is Nginx also infringing because when downloaded, it allows me to start engaging in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows by enabling directory indexing and uploading MP4s?
- ihuman 6y ago
  > Because I imagine at some point in the guide they'd tell me to generate torrent files of copyrighted files I have and upload them to the site, which is really outside of this project. One of the files they link to is a utility for uploading torrent files (/utils/api_uploader_v2.py). As far as I can tell, it doesn't generate the torrent files, just uploads them.
  - flyingfences 6y ago
    Torrent files in general, yes. Torrent files are not, by default, any sort of legal infringement.
    - ihuman 6y ago
      I agree. I was pointing that file out because it supports what you were saying.
    - colejohnson66 6y ago
      I wouldn’t go that far. The DMCA mentions “linking”. And while it’s a big stretch to say that a torrent or magnet link is a “link”, they do tell you “how” to find something. If that something is copyrighted, I could see an MPAA lawyer arguing that a torrent “links” to the infringing content. Although, OTOH, if I told a friend to “go to thepiratebay.org and search for $movieName”, it would be harder to prove I’m infringing. It’s a very gray area.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
It would be great if the code for GitHub was on GitHub so that people could host their own. How far are we removed from: “please remove this book on C++, as individuals may learn how to pirate music from Britney Spears using the knowledge herein”
Confiks 6y ago
Note that there are various older forks [1] [2] available that allow to verify that the project isn't in fact "preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content". The most 'incriminating' file is "api_uploader_v2.py", which lists categories such as "6_2 - Software - Games". Which is not infringing at all. While unrealistic, it's technically possible that some of the files have changed (significantly) since June 12 2019, the last commit of [1]. However, it's very unlikely that the database migration file, 2bceb2cb4d7c_add_comment_count_to_torrent.py, would have been changed. [1] https://github.com/marwanpro/nyaa https://github.com/marwanpro/nyaa [2] https://github.com/crf444/nyaa https://github.com/crf444/nyaa
- niea_11 6y ago
  You can still download the zip file of the repository through archive.org. And there is no direct link (took a quick look) to copyrighted content in the source code. If they shutdown the main site, without a data backup, the code is useless. Users will have to re-upload and re-seed the torrents they have.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Tangentially, I'm interested in the concept of the torrent data moving into something somewhat indestructible by also highly available, such as the bitcoin blockchain. Your torrent site then "mounts" the blockchain, scanning the chain for the torrent data (magnet URIs) necessary to bootstrap a corpus.
    - niea_11 6y ago
      I think what you're suggesting is already possible (in a different way) not by using the blockhain, but by crawling bittorrent's DHT. Either of the solutions, will let seeders and leechers communicate in a decentralized way, but if there is no one with the original files, it won't work. So, in this case, nyaa facilitates the seeder/leecher communication, but if the main site is shutdown and users who have the files are not willing to seed the torrents again then the source code is useless. Crawling bittorrent's DHT is mentioned in this paper [1]: This paper presents two kinds of attacks based on crawl-ing the DHTs used for distributed BitTorrent tracking. First, we show how pirates can use crawling to rebuild BitTorrent search engines just a few hours after they are shut down (crawling for fun). Second, we show how content owners can use related techniques to monitor pi-rates’ behavior in preparation for legal attacks and negate any perceived anonymity of the decentralized BitTorrent architecture (crawling for profit) [1]: https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/woot10/tech/full_papers/Wolchok.pdf https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/woot10/tech/full_papers/...
CodesInChaos 6y ago
From the complaint it sounds like this repository doesn't just contain the code of a tracker, but also of a torrent search/indexing site (similar to the pirate bay website). The urls listed as infringing seem mostly be related to this website, not a tracker. I think the argument is that nyaa.si is clearly designed for piracy, and the code is specific to that website evidenced by its url being embedded all over the codebase.
pixelpoet 6y ago
Feels like a repeat of the DeCSS debacle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS On that note, wow do I feel old...
jug 6y ago
Wow. 100% Streisand Effect here.
trasz 6y ago
That's why we need Github alternatives like https://gitee.com/ https://gitee.com/.
- hellohappyworld 6y ago
  I don't think a Chinese git provider would be a good alternative in a long run.
  - trasz 6y ago
    What other provider can afford to properly fight (ie ignore) DMCA takedowns?
jokethrowaway 6y ago
I think the only solution is self-hosting. Would a hosting provider (excluding AWS, given recent news) comply with these baseless requests? I'm personally done with Github. Gitlab is a bit too heavy to run but I can live with Trello and my own git server - all my OSS projects I care about have their own website anyway (ironically, moving from Github Pages to Netlify will be the most annoying part).
- fabianhjr 6y ago
  > Gitlab is a bit too heavy to run For personal repos it would probably be better to go with Gitea or a similar lightweight forge. https://gitea.io/ https://gitea.io/
- donmcronald 6y ago
  For small or independent developers Gitea is really nice. The thing with GitHub and (especially) GitLab is they’re really focused on enterprise customers, so, if you’re a small developer, you get forced into using all the bloat that only makes sense once you need a ton of collaboration. I hope Cloudflare pages ends up being as good as the sales pitch. It looks promising if it does.
  - fabianhjr 6y ago
    As for static page hosting, it is better to just use IPFS + Cloudflare Gateway via CNAME. It has been working great for over a year now. (Eg, my unmaintained but truely serverless blog: https://fabian.social/posts/2020-11-07-ipfs-blogging.html https://fabian.social/posts/2020-11-07-ipfs-blogging.html)
zeruch 6y ago
As someone who worked in that industry for a long time (for BayTSP, which eventually got bought and pulled into Irdeto), the MPA/A is one of the more fervent (and obnoxious clients) we had. Not as dumb as say, Disney or NBC, but still...dedicated since the Valenti days to taking down anything that could event tangentially be related to downloading a movie without "permission" It's a stupid industry, populated by even more stupid clients.
unnouinceput 6y ago
GitHub is Microsoft, right? Well, let them fight I say. Microsoft can simply say "no" automatically to all this bullshit (well, a generic lawyer "no" response) that will automatically get sent back. Good luck for one automation crap to fight with another automation crap - or like someone else said in this thread, this is Garbage In Garbage Out.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
andrewzah 6y ago
The real WTF here is why a torrent site is hosting its source on a site like github in the first place. We all know that societies like the MPA flagrantly abuse the law because there are little repercussions. The codebase really should have been selfhosted.
chovybizzass 6y ago
Is anyone surprised Microsoft censoring free code now?
avipars 6y ago
now that microsoft owns them, will their polices stay the same?
einpoklum 6y ago
... and the repository is down: https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/ https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/ just in case anyone was imagining Microsoft would somehow fight for software freedom.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
corobo 6y ago
Now I know about nyaa.si. Cheers MPA. Could you guys DMCA something reminiscent of tvtorrents.com? Man that place was great for finding stuff to watch.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  You really want to go to private trackers to get quality over quantity. I'd share public sites, but I'm not sure if it breaks the rules.
  - that_guy_iain 6y ago
    I thinK TVTorrents was private. I think it got replaced with the broadcast the .net website.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dmix 6y ago
Great Streisand marku
Shared404 6y ago
Well, now I know about Nyaa.si. Thanks, MPA!
PointyFluff 6y ago
THE DMCA needs to be killed. Viciously.
h_anna_h 6y ago
While I am against DMCAs I find it amusing to be honest, it is kinda like karma. The nyaa.si people commonly engaged in censorship of their issue tracker at github (even if all parties were polite and the issue was closed they ended up locking and deleting issues afterwards). In addition in their early days they engaged in a "fake news" campaign against the other nyaa clone (nyaa.si is a clone of the original nyaa). Finally they never provided their database to the public, so if it dies or if someone wants to make another clone they have to scrape the whole site. (there was a lot of drama when the original nyaa died because nobody had an updated database and they had to work with an outdated one. The other nyaa clone offered a copy of its database. When I asked one of the members of nyaa.si I was offered a pathetic excuse on how it would be too hard to write an sql query). And to be honest the nyaa.si devs would not care about this whole thing at all. They admitted that they published the code to github because they were tired of the "foss nerds" whining.
inopinatus 6y ago
The Streisand Effect is a marvelous thing.
znpy 6y ago
cool, I didn't know about nyaa.si and now I know.
hkt 6y ago
I like the part where they say they're acting in good faith under penalty of perjury. So, that's perjury, then?
blacklight 6y ago
GitHub blindly taking down another repo after another dumb DMCA complaint is just giving me the last push to migrate my projects to a self-hosted Gitlab instance. I've first thought of it after the youtube-dl takedown, and decided to schedule the migration after the company fired a jew employee who called the Capitol Hill protestors Nazis, but I admit that I've got a bit lazy in the meantime. Thanks GitHub for reminding me that I shouldn't be this lazy and I should move my software ASAP to a safe home where I don't have to worry about my code disappearing from the web overnight because of a dumb lawyer who has no clue of what he's talking about when he talks about tech. When open-source developers get pissed of how you treat their projects (most of them developed and maintained for free) they don't come down to the streets, they don't take you to courts, they don't harass your employees. They just move their projects somewhere else, update the URLs provided online, and go on with their lives as if nothing happened. And we all know that GitHub without projects and without developers is nothing but a shiny empty box. I wish you guys enjoy your shiny empty box soon - maybe ask one of those lawyers to contribute some code to it.
rmm 6y ago
As an aside, are there any good open tracker/torrentsite projects? It would be cool to setup a hyperlocal(50-100 people etc.) torrent community for large datasets we transfer around in mining.
00__00 6y ago
Simple for GitHub to understand: "and/or GitHub’s Terms of Service, which prohibit use of your facilities for copyright infringement, see https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service. "
apple_innocent 6y ago
Wonder if there are mirrors of Github based in China that do not receive these takedown requests https://github.com.cnpmjs.org/nyaadevs https://github.com.cnpmjs.org/nyaadevs This mirror shows up in DDG search (which uses Microsoft/Bing for its results)
vfclists 6y ago
Why do folks keep forgetting that Github is Microsoft, and Redhat is IBM? Do Github and Redhat sound cooler than Redhat and Microsoft?

580 points by livueta 6y ago

I hope GitHub is willing to put a stop to this, seems like a stretch. Where this thread of logic end? Should python be blocked by DMCA because it is used to compile code that facilitates copyright infringement?

dunefox 6y ago
Personal computers make copyright infringement possible. They need to go.
- fsflover 6y ago
  I guess this is exactly what Apple thinks when they remove root from your devices.
  - devmunchies 6y ago
    $ sudo whoami root
    - fsflover 6y ago
      https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG-116-JU05-20190716-SD036.pdf https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG...
      - devmunchies 6y ago
        oh, mobile. yeah agreed. thanks for link, haven't seen this.
- EvanAnderson 6y ago
  The industry is working on that. We're still getting people used to the idea of "phones" in beautiful and "safe" walled gardens. (We all know that "phones" aren't actually personal computers so it's not like we're giving anything up!) It's easier to control infringing uses of technology in the walled garden, where the imprimatur of the "gardener" reigns supreme and software can be sent down the memory hole if it angers the establishment. If this goes according to plan nobody (at least, nobody who isn't part of an aged and miniscule market segment) will notice when the personal computers are brought into the "safety" of the garden too.
- speeder 6y ago
  Well... they already succeeded in screwing some hardware and software this way. When Windows Vista was about to launch, MPAA pushed hard for DVD copy protection, this resulted in a sudden push against CRT monitors, in favor of then lower quality LCD, to force the usage of HDMI cables (because they have DRM), they also pushed hard for Microsoft to change what soundcards were allowed to do, again because of DRM. This contributed to a sudden death of CRTs right when some companies were about to have breakthrough in lightweight CRT, and also basically killed the soundcard market... they still exist, but nowhere near important as they were, and nowhere near awesome, the changes that were pushed to support DRM killed 3D Audio, back then you had people buying sound cards as if they were like GPUs but for audio, some games used this to great effect (Thief for example), where the game would raytrace the audio, calculating it reflecting, refracting and difracting around the 3D models, allowing for sound simulations that let players to figure out the environment by audio alone... Vista came and changed drastically how the driver stack for video and audio worked, MS back then blamed "stability" but they killed hard anything that could be used to circunvent DVD, HDMI and related DRM.
  - outworlder 6y ago
    > were about to have breakthrough in lightweight CRT Never heard of this. There's a limit on how lightweight a CRT can be, compared to what amounts to essentially a large chip. Maybe that wasn't so bad. Also, unless this breakthrough no longer used an electron gun, they are power hogs. > to force the usage of HDMI cables What's preventing one from driving a CRT with a HDMI signal? You can generate the analog signals the CRT needs quite easily. This is in fact done by dirt cheap dongles today. > where the game would raytrace the audio, calculating it reflecting, refracting and difracting around the 3D models, allowing for sound simulations that let players to figure out the environment by audio alone Why can't we do this today? This can in fact be done by GPUs. Possibly even in the CPU. The way I understand there are a few reasons why people stopped buying sound cards: * Capabilities such as MIDI and pre-loaded instruments were no longer used. Games had more space to burn so they just used digitized waveforms * The built-in audio became "good enough". Any built-in cheap can output audio at high sample rates. Decent audio can be provided even from the analog outputs, not to mention digital signals carried by optical outputs, HDMI, Display Port. Some of these may not even be routed through the audio card * Similarly, many people use USB headsets. They have their own audio device. In fact, many computers have multiple - in my case, my camera has one, the Oculus has another, so does the monitor. All through USB or DisplayPort * Most sound processing tasks are not really that taxing on a modern system. Thief might be an exception and even then, given some AMD and NVidia offerings, this is probably doable without dedicated audio processing hardware * Also Creative had a chokehold on the industry as a whole. Lots of libraries and products were purchased or killed. They still make audio cards today, but I can't understand why.
- PAPPPmAc 6y ago
  Good old Right to Read (Stallman, 1997) https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html and The Coming War On General Purpose Computing (Doctorow, 2011) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_on_General_Computation https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_on_General_Com... warning us that entities really are going to try exactly that bullshit. And, as usual, sounding paranoid at the time and "oh, yeah, of course that happened" later.
Nextgrid 6y ago
This nasty industry tried to make the VCR illegal back in the day so you're not that far off.
- EvanAnderson 6y ago
  A lot people on HN probably weren't alive to know that this happened. It would do people well to read the testimony given before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives back in 1983[1] to get some idea of exactly how willing and eager to destroy innovation copyright maximalists really are. Nothing suggests the attitudes motivating the MPAA's lack of foresight re: the VCR in 1983, aand their general unwillingness to allow anything to upset the status quo, have gone anywhere in the ensuing decades. [1] http://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm http://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm (If nothing else, read Jack Valenti's testimony.)
f311a 6y ago
Python does not contain preconfiguration that allows you to download particular files. The DMCA mentions configs with data samples.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

akerro 6y ago

transmission and qbittorrent next?

tristanc 6y ago
This is not a torrent client. They’re referring to a torrent tracker. Trackers generally serve to help peers find each other.
- akerro 6y ago
  They took down youtube-dl first, then torrent tracker, so torrent clients, browsers and ffmpeg are next.
- notatoad 6y ago
  a tracker isn't any more infringing than a client is though.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  >Indeed, copyright infringement is so prevalent within the Project that infringement plainly is its predominant use and purpose. Directly from the claim. If they can ban a torrent index (I don't know if there's actual tracker code in the project) for it being predominantly used for piracy, why not a torrent client?
rapfaria 6y ago
No, probably gazelle

bitcharmer 6y ago

Can someone knowledgeable explain to me how a tracker source code violates DMCA? What's next, hard disk manufacturers? Internet providers?

wilshire_nc 6y ago
I never saw the repo, but to play devil's advocate it's possible that there's a unit test or something that downloads copyrighted material. That's what got youtube-dl taken down.
- sodality2 6y ago
  Doubt, there would be no reason for it to be copyrighted material, it would just be a torrent test
  - cjaybo 6y ago
    Couldn't the same thing have been said for the problematic youtube-dl test case?
    - sodality2 6y ago
      Those directly downloaded copyrighted youtube videos. It would instead be just a torrent tracker connection check, no reason to even transfer a file, since the tracker just matches user with user and doesn't touch any files.
    - Macha 6y ago
      The issue with the youtube-dl case was that certain copyrighted video pages did have a different structure, so they needed to test they could parse that page correctly. There's no technical difference between a torrent containing ArchLinux.iso and TheBeatlesDiscography.zip however.
    - Const-me 6y ago
      Not exactly. They had a test that saves a file from YouTube that was "protected" with some tech a lawyer might quality as DRM. YouTube only uses that thing for copyrighted materials. Torrents don't have anything like that. You don't have to deal with anything copyrighted to test any related stuff, be it client, tracker, or web server.

minitoar 6y ago

Haha love the alembic migration in the mix there.

matthewmorgan 6y ago

We need a bonfire of these rentseekers

kleiba 6y ago
No, we need to show strong opposition but using civil and democratic means.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  To play devil's advocate: how, when they won't let us?
  - kleiba 6y ago
    Who doesn't? And how exactly do they do prevent you from exercising your democratic rights?
    - wizzwizz4 6y ago
      What do you mean by “show strong opposition but using civil and democratic means”? Give me that, and I'll show you millions who can't, or that it isn't effective, or rejoice and change the world.
      - kleiba 6y ago
        Here are a few: - engage in discussions - speak up against injustices - vote - join groups of like-minded people - exercise your right to demonstrate Change is hard, and it is slow. That is usually not a bad thing; however, it requires persistence. I'm currently stuck in Germany. Think about the late 80s when a whole state was brought down peacefully by the people of the German Democratic Republic. It was not a storm on the Reichstag that brought about the fall of the state, nor a military coup. It was a lot of different factors combined but an increasing pressure from the people played a central role in it. And, mind you, this was a regime that had no problem taking extreme measures against its own people, so certainly no easy circumstances to stand up against the authorities.

mmastrac 6y ago

The MPA seems to be getting braver with these takedowns, considering how quickly the youtube-dl one got flipped around. This one seems particularly shaky as you could not use it to explicitly download anything - rather to host data of your own (with no explicit requirement for it to be unauthorized copyright violation). EDIT: perhaps just a ploy to unmask the authors of the torrent site?

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Github needs to go on the offensive and begin to take action against fraudulent DMCA notices, including justification to seek damages for these claims.
- daheza 6y ago
  Agreed that Github needs to push back, but we should also be contacting our legislature so that they are aware of the abuse of law.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    True, but that's a longer "sales cycle" (election cycles are usually every 2-4 years) if you will. Tactical response vs strategic response.
    - newsclues 6y ago
      A full war needs to be waged, at the tactical and strategic level, for (digital) freedom.
  - kodah 6y ago
    This has been an issue, and has been lobbied for, for at least two decades. The law may do us favors one day but that day is far into the future.
    - ballenf 6y ago

synctext 6y ago

> Specifically, we request that you remove or disable access to the infringing Project’s repositories referenced herein in accordance with either 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(ii) (DMCA “representative list” provision), 17 U.S.C. § 512(i)(1)(A) (DMCA “repeat infringer” provision), and/or GitHub’s Terms of Service, which prohibit use of your facilities for copyright infringement, ... So such dual-use technologies are now under pressure. This is quite a step towards banning certain mass-dissemination protocols in general. See "inducement rule" [1] in the US. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inducement_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inducement_rule

jitendrac 6y ago

Torrents were great threat in past years, but now in world with streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime,Hulu and all others torrent is not a serious threat. So,that's a baseless argument, Its like don't sell knives they can be used to murder. Torrents are also useful for many others purposes, like distribution of big opensource software, downloading files with unreliable connection and slow speed, to distribute things [kind of]anonymously peer-peer etc.

rapfaria 6y ago
Until you are paying for 10 distinct services, and the music colossi start to create services of their own. Who you gonna call? Plex+sonarr
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  A music colossus already tried this, and Tidal landed with a thud. People are loyal to artists, not labels, and artists change labels on a fairly regular basis. It's not like TV where shows generally live and die on a single channel, and maybe get salvaged onto a second one.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    And if not loyal to an artist it is a genera or station. Classical music listeners can get Bach from a number of different artists, if a few are missing they typically can get by with the others. If someone puts a station on Pandora it will be a long time before they notice that something is missing. With TV there is a long standing character development to get people interested in something in particular. With music you often just want a style - though there are favorites with particular meaning that you may want.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      Even loyalty to an artist is overrated. Tidal had exclusivity with some of the biggest names in music with dedicated fanbases and this mostly got people to sign up for the one-month free trial and cancel. Beyonce and Jay-Z moved back onto Spotify. This is a model that is proven not to work.

erk__ 6y ago

Seems that it is something that MPA have gone after for some time they tried to shut down the website late last year. https://torrentfreak.com/mpa-lawyers-are-trying-to-shut-down-pirate-anime-giant-nyaa-si-201104/ https://torrentfreak.com/mpa-lawyers-are-trying-to-shut-down...

francis_t_catte 6y ago
yeah, this reads as more of an attempt against the torrent tracker site, rather than the tracker software itself.

chewzerita 6y ago

I thought GitHub said they were going to assume good faith by the repository and allow it to stay up until a ruling has been decided (as well as funding legal costs), rather than immediately taking it down under the hand of the "rightsholder". Did I misread their previous statement after the youtube-dl fiasco?

ihuman 6y ago
I think that was just for section 1201 claims, not all claims. > "Going forward, we are overhauling our 1201 claim review process..." https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-youtube-dl-is-back/#what-were-changing https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-yo...
Griffinsauce 6y ago
The relevant part of their "youtube-dl is back" post: > Given the cost to developers of an unwarranted takedown of code, we ensure we have a complete notice before we take action. We distinguish between code that merely can be used in an infringing way and code that is preconfigured to be used a certain way. We also recognize that code can provide access to copyrighted content without violating the law (for example, fair use). In some cases we can keep a project up because the content identified in the takedown notice is not in fact infringing or circumventing a TPM that controls access or copying of copyrighted works. So basically: no. But they surrounded it with so much fluff that's its easy to misinterpret.
fireattack 6y ago
Nothing will change much, as soon as GitHub is still a user-generated content host. They have to follow DMCA safe harbor practice, which is to obey the claim until proven false, in trade with not get sued themselves as a host.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

cush 6y ago

Ten forkbots and 1000 forks later...

coldcode 6y ago

Browsers are open source. I can download illegal content via a browser. Clearly they should DMCA all the browsers. Make as much (non) sense as this.

Shish2k 6y ago
The accusation being made here isn’t “this software can be used for piracy”, but rather “this software is primarily designed for piracy”

dmaz 6y ago

Reading the complaint, it's clear their focus is not on generic tracker source code but on copyrighted file metadata being preloaded into the tracker source code: > The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law.

f311a 6y ago
Yes, people should really read the DMCA before jumping into conclusions. I see a lot of false assumptions in the comments.
- sodality2 6y ago
  To be fair, reading > The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law. could easily be interpreted as "oh MPA took it down because sharing files = bad", not necessarily "their code is very specificlaly designed to analyze and collect pirated media". The companies behind this are very loose with their wording so it looks terrible.
- kmeisthax 6y ago
  In the defense of the falsely-assuming people the actual legally actionable bits are all the way at the end of the complaint, and the first few paragraphs sound like the MPA is alleging that merely publishing the source code of a BitTorrent tracker is itself infringement. I swear, it's almost as if the people who work for these publisher trade groups are trying to pull aggro and look crazy.
gnomewascool 6y ago
I've looked at all the "infringing" files that they link to, from a bundled zip download from the web archive, and I don't see anything that's "preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content". The most iffy is the list of categories in utils/api_uploader_v2.py but there's no category that doesn't contain works out of copyright or under a license permitting redistribution, and even if that were not the case, that would still not be tantamount to being "preconfigured to find" anything in particular. There's also the URL of the pirate site, but google also provides it, as do some comments here...

jhare 6y ago

Github bowing to these requests is really disappointing. Makes me sad.

meibo 6y ago
U.S. organizations need to follow U.S. law. Github has shown that they're trying to fight these things, with yt-dl reinstatement and a recent donation to the EFF. https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-youtube-dl-is-back/ https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-yo...
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  After reviewing the claim, the law lets them choose whether they want to take it down in exchange for immunity.

maltalex 6y ago

The title is misleading. This isn't some generic torrent tracker. The repo in question is the source of a specific site - nyaa.si [0] which according to the complaint is preconfigured to share copyrighted material: > The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law. This is probably what makes this complaint possible. [0]: https://nyaa.si/ https://nyaa.si/

livueta 6y ago
You've got a point, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836800 also points this out. My eye was caught by > The Project blatantly infringes the MPA Member Studios’ copyrights and countless other copyrights. Indeed, copyright infringement is so prevalent within the Project that infringement plainly is its predominant use and purpose. when submitting, and you could argue that does constitute a blanket attack against dual-use products, but the specific allegations you cite are also relevant. Since I could still edit the title I changed it to "for source code of torrent tracker nyaa.si"; hope that's clearer.
jchw 6y ago
Please don't, however, baselessly propagate their claims. As far as I can tell it's bullshit. The source code may be for nyaa.si but it just contains normal torrent tracker code. Take a look at the files listed: > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/utils/api_info.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/utils/api_info.... Online here: https://gitlab.com/SIGBUS/nyaa/-/blob/master/utils/api_info.py https://gitlab.com/SIGBUS/nyaa/-/blob/master/utils/api_info.... See anything remotely suggestive? Not I. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/utils/api_uploader_v2.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/utils/api_uploa... Nothing interesting here either. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/static/search-sukebei.xml https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/static/sea... Why did they pick the search entry XML for the porn section??? (I can only assume their lawyers have no idea what 'sukebei' means.) Anyway, nothing interesting in this file either. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/api_handler.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/api_handle... Again, looks ENTIRELY generic. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/.docker/nyaa-config-partial.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/.docker/nyaa-co... It's a config file with some credentials in it. Again, nothing. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/torrents.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/torrents.p... More generic looking Flask code. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/templates/home.html https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/templates/... Again... it's a very basic looking HTML template. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/migrations/versions/2bceb2cb4d7c_add_comment_count_to_torrent.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/migrations/vers... Just about the least interesting database migration ever. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/config.example.py https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/config.example.... I'm not even sure why they would pick this file, seriously. At this point they're just making shit up. > https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/.docker/es_sync_config.json https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/.docker/es_sync... And another random config file. If there's even a smidgen of actual copyright infringement in this repo, they failed to find it.

formerly_proven 6y ago

MPAA 2: The Streisand Overdrive

atum47 6y ago

I've made a cool app that consumes yts api a while ago. Naively I even shared it here. After learning that someone in England was arrested only for having links to pirated movies I took everything down. It's a shame how hard they are coming after torrents and copyright content like that. As I kid growing up in Brazil I wouldn't have access to a lot of movies, games and tv shows if weren't for torrents and pirate content. Now a days I can buy these games and pay for a subscription to movies and tv shows, but I learned of them by downloading first. I wonder how much it hurts a tv show like GOT to have some kid watching it without buying.

elliottlan 6y ago

Pathetic!

underseacables 6y ago

Is there a mirror?

looperhacks 6y ago

For those who don't know nyaa.si: it's probably the most popular public tracker for anime/manga/and related stuff. It sprung up not so long ago after the original nyaa.eu (? I'm not 100% sure on the domain) shut down. Today it's not the only surviving clone, but probably the biggest one. I'm still not sure however, how the repo itself violates copyright. Yes I'm aware of the explanations but I have a hard time believing it. And I can't exactly look up the linked code files.

jniedrauer 6y ago

This site is mainly used to share Japanese media. The streaming services have really dropped the ball in this area. They either don't simulcast to other parts of the world (netflix), offer terrible subtitles that are worse than fan translations (netflix, crunchyroll), or just plain never release content for international audiences. I pay for every relevant streaming service I can, and even when I can access legal, official distributions, I still generally prefer fan releases. It's embarrassing. I'm so tired of the rent seeking in the entertainment industry. I want to pay artists and content creators, not an ever growing pile of mediocre middlemen and their lawyers. How can we pool our money to hire lobbyists and change the landscape of this industry?

fireattack 6y ago
The coverage of Anime in some countries (such as the US) are a lot better than before though. Can't speak of translation quality as I don't watch English-sub, but they have no problem with simulcast. As a matter of fact, lots of popular animes released on Nyaa.si nowadays are directly ripped from Crunchyroll/Funimation/etc. TVrips from Japan, which were the main source before, are actually getting rarer and rarer.
Macha 6y ago
Yeah, I subscribe to Crunchyroll, Netflix, Prime Video, and Funimation. Or in other words, 100% of services with streaming anime available in my country. To be fair, seasonal anime gets a good coverage with those. Netflix's player is pretty good, but the rest vary from meh to awful (I have never successfully changed the timestamp in Funimation's player without playback crashing within the next minute). But back catalogues availability is not so good. Crunchyroll and Netflix have the most popular stuff like Naruto, Code Geass or Evangelion but literally nobody has, say, The Devil is a Part Timer in my country. Movies? The SAO movie got a physical showing in my country, the Made in Abyss movie actually did show up on a pay per view non-region locked streaming service and... that's literally it. Soundtracks? It might be on Spotify. This week. But maybe not next week. I've no fucking idea, but the constant appearence and disappearence of soundtrack songs from my playlists has even caused me to stop moving spotify. So for movies and back catalogues, my only "legal" option is to ship DVDs/Blurays and a region locked player from the US, or maybe sometimes I can get stuff from the UK in my own region. For soundtracks, even that is not usually an option. Does that legally entitle me to pirate it? No. Do I care? Not really, I feel I've tried my best

Hamuko 6y ago

>Specifically, at the URL, the Repository hosts and offers for download the Project, which, when downloaded, provides the downloader everything necessary to launch and host a “clone” infringing website identical to Nyaa.si (and, thus, engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows). I'd like for Motion Picture Association to publish a step-by-step guide on how I can engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows using this piece of software. Because I imagine at some point in the guide they'd tell me to generate torrent files of copyrighted files I have and upload them to the site, which is really outside of this project. Or is Nginx also infringing because when downloaded, it allows me to start engaging in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows by enabling directory indexing and uploading MP4s?

ihuman 6y ago
> Because I imagine at some point in the guide they'd tell me to generate torrent files of copyrighted files I have and upload them to the site, which is really outside of this project. One of the files they link to is a utility for uploading torrent files (/utils/api_uploader_v2.py). As far as I can tell, it doesn't generate the torrent files, just uploads them.
- flyingfences 6y ago
  Torrent files in general, yes. Torrent files are not, by default, any sort of legal infringement.
  - ihuman 6y ago
    I agree. I was pointing that file out because it supports what you were saying.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    I wouldn’t go that far. The DMCA mentions “linking”. And while it’s a big stretch to say that a torrent or magnet link is a “link”, they do tell you “how” to find something. If that something is copyrighted, I could see an MPAA lawyer arguing that a torrent “links” to the infringing content. Although, OTOH, if I told a friend to “go to thepiratebay.org and search for $movieName”, it would be harder to prove I’m infringing. It’s a very gray area.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

It would be great if the code for GitHub was on GitHub so that people could host their own. How far are we removed from: “please remove this book on C++, as individuals may learn how to pirate music from Britney Spears using the knowledge herein”

Confiks 6y ago

Note that there are various older forks [1] [2] available that allow to verify that the project isn't in fact "preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content". The most 'incriminating' file is "api_uploader_v2.py", which lists categories such as "6_2 - Software - Games". Which is not infringing at all. While unrealistic, it's technically possible that some of the files have changed (significantly) since June 12 2019, the last commit of [1]. However, it's very unlikely that the database migration file, 2bceb2cb4d7c_add_comment_count_to_torrent.py, would have been changed. [1] https://github.com/marwanpro/nyaa https://github.com/marwanpro/nyaa [2] https://github.com/crf444/nyaa https://github.com/crf444/nyaa

niea_11 6y ago
You can still download the zip file of the repository through archive.org. And there is no direct link (took a quick look) to copyrighted content in the source code. If they shutdown the main site, without a data backup, the code is useless. Users will have to re-upload and re-seed the torrents they have.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Tangentially, I'm interested in the concept of the torrent data moving into something somewhat indestructible by also highly available, such as the bitcoin blockchain. Your torrent site then "mounts" the blockchain, scanning the chain for the torrent data (magnet URIs) necessary to bootstrap a corpus.
  - niea_11 6y ago
    I think what you're suggesting is already possible (in a different way) not by using the blockhain, but by crawling bittorrent's DHT. Either of the solutions, will let seeders and leechers communicate in a decentralized way, but if there is no one with the original files, it won't work. So, in this case, nyaa facilitates the seeder/leecher communication, but if the main site is shutdown and users who have the files are not willing to seed the torrents again then the source code is useless. Crawling bittorrent's DHT is mentioned in this paper [1]: This paper presents two kinds of attacks based on crawl-ing the DHTs used for distributed BitTorrent tracking. First, we show how pirates can use crawling to rebuild BitTorrent search engines just a few hours after they are shut down (crawling for fun). Second, we show how content owners can use related techniques to monitor pi-rates’ behavior in preparation for legal attacks and negate any perceived anonymity of the decentralized BitTorrent architecture (crawling for profit) [1]: https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/woot10/tech/full_papers/Wolchok.pdf https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/woot10/tech/full_papers/...

CodesInChaos 6y ago

From the complaint it sounds like this repository doesn't just contain the code of a tracker, but also of a torrent search/indexing site (similar to the pirate bay website). The urls listed as infringing seem mostly be related to this website, not a tracker. I think the argument is that nyaa.si is clearly designed for piracy, and the code is specific to that website evidenced by its url being embedded all over the codebase.

pixelpoet 6y ago

Feels like a repeat of the DeCSS debacle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS On that note, wow do I feel old...

jug 6y ago

Wow. 100% Streisand Effect here.

trasz 6y ago

That's why we need Github alternatives like https://gitee.com/ https://gitee.com/.

hellohappyworld 6y ago
I don't think a Chinese git provider would be a good alternative in a long run.
- trasz 6y ago
  What other provider can afford to properly fight (ie ignore) DMCA takedowns?

jokethrowaway 6y ago

I think the only solution is self-hosting. Would a hosting provider (excluding AWS, given recent news) comply with these baseless requests? I'm personally done with Github. Gitlab is a bit too heavy to run but I can live with Trello and my own git server - all my OSS projects I care about have their own website anyway (ironically, moving from Github Pages to Netlify will be the most annoying part).

fabianhjr 6y ago
> Gitlab is a bit too heavy to run For personal repos it would probably be better to go with Gitea or a similar lightweight forge. https://gitea.io/ https://gitea.io/
donmcronald 6y ago
For small or independent developers Gitea is really nice. The thing with GitHub and (especially) GitLab is they’re really focused on enterprise customers, so, if you’re a small developer, you get forced into using all the bloat that only makes sense once you need a ton of collaboration. I hope Cloudflare pages ends up being as good as the sales pitch. It looks promising if it does.
- fabianhjr 6y ago
  As for static page hosting, it is better to just use IPFS + Cloudflare Gateway via CNAME. It has been working great for over a year now. (Eg, my unmaintained but truely serverless blog: https://fabian.social/posts/2020-11-07-ipfs-blogging.html https://fabian.social/posts/2020-11-07-ipfs-blogging.html)

zeruch 6y ago

As someone who worked in that industry for a long time (for BayTSP, which eventually got bought and pulled into Irdeto), the MPA/A is one of the more fervent (and obnoxious clients) we had. Not as dumb as say, Disney or NBC, but still...dedicated since the Valenti days to taking down anything that could event tangentially be related to downloading a movie without "permission" It's a stupid industry, populated by even more stupid clients.

unnouinceput 6y ago

GitHub is Microsoft, right? Well, let them fight I say. Microsoft can simply say "no" automatically to all this bullshit (well, a generic lawyer "no" response) that will automatically get sent back. Good luck for one automation crap to fight with another automation crap - or like someone else said in this thread, this is Garbage In Garbage Out.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

andrewzah 6y ago

The real WTF here is why a torrent site is hosting its source on a site like github in the first place. We all know that societies like the MPA flagrantly abuse the law because there are little repercussions. The codebase really should have been selfhosted.

chovybizzass 6y ago

Is anyone surprised Microsoft censoring free code now?

avipars 6y ago

now that microsoft owns them, will their polices stay the same?

einpoklum 6y ago

... and the repository is down: https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/ https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/ just in case anyone was imagining Microsoft would somehow fight for software freedom.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

corobo 6y ago

Now I know about nyaa.si. Cheers MPA. Could you guys DMCA something reminiscent of tvtorrents.com? Man that place was great for finding stuff to watch.

proverbialbunny 6y ago
You really want to go to private trackers to get quality over quantity. I'd share public sites, but I'm not sure if it breaks the rules.
- that_guy_iain 6y ago
  I thinK TVTorrents was private. I think it got replaced with the broadcast the .net website.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dmix 6y ago

Great Streisand marku

Shared404 6y ago

Well, now I know about Nyaa.si. Thanks, MPA!

PointyFluff 6y ago

THE DMCA needs to be killed. Viciously.

h_anna_h 6y ago

While I am against DMCAs I find it amusing to be honest, it is kinda like karma. The nyaa.si people commonly engaged in censorship of their issue tracker at github (even if all parties were polite and the issue was closed they ended up locking and deleting issues afterwards). In addition in their early days they engaged in a "fake news" campaign against the other nyaa clone (nyaa.si is a clone of the original nyaa). Finally they never provided their database to the public, so if it dies or if someone wants to make another clone they have to scrape the whole site. (there was a lot of drama when the original nyaa died because nobody had an updated database and they had to work with an outdated one. The other nyaa clone offered a copy of its database. When I asked one of the members of nyaa.si I was offered a pathetic excuse on how it would be too hard to write an sql query). And to be honest the nyaa.si devs would not care about this whole thing at all. They admitted that they published the code to github because they were tired of the "foss nerds" whining.

inopinatus 6y ago

The Streisand Effect is a marvelous thing.

znpy 6y ago

cool, I didn't know about nyaa.si and now I know.

hkt 6y ago

I like the part where they say they're acting in good faith under penalty of perjury. So, that's perjury, then?

blacklight 6y ago

GitHub blindly taking down another repo after another dumb DMCA complaint is just giving me the last push to migrate my projects to a self-hosted Gitlab instance. I've first thought of it after the youtube-dl takedown, and decided to schedule the migration after the company fired a jew employee who called the Capitol Hill protestors Nazis, but I admit that I've got a bit lazy in the meantime. Thanks GitHub for reminding me that I shouldn't be this lazy and I should move my software ASAP to a safe home where I don't have to worry about my code disappearing from the web overnight because of a dumb lawyer who has no clue of what he's talking about when he talks about tech. When open-source developers get pissed of how you treat their projects (most of them developed and maintained for free) they don't come down to the streets, they don't take you to courts, they don't harass your employees. They just move their projects somewhere else, update the URLs provided online, and go on with their lives as if nothing happened. And we all know that GitHub without projects and without developers is nothing but a shiny empty box. I wish you guys enjoy your shiny empty box soon - maybe ask one of those lawyers to contribute some code to it.

rmm 6y ago

As an aside, are there any good open tracker/torrentsite projects? It would be cool to setup a hyperlocal(50-100 people etc.) torrent community for large datasets we transfer around in mining.

00__00 6y ago

Simple for GitHub to understand: "and/or GitHub’s Terms of Service, which prohibit use of your facilities for copyright infringement, see https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service. "

apple_innocent 6y ago

Wonder if there are mirrors of Github based in China that do not receive these takedown requests https://github.com.cnpmjs.org/nyaadevs https://github.com.cnpmjs.org/nyaadevs This mirror shows up in DDG search (which uses Microsoft/Bing for its results)

vfclists 6y ago

Why do folks keep forgetting that Github is Microsoft, and Redhat is IBM? Do Github and Redhat sound cooler than Redhat and Microsoft?