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Based on how easily the EFF resolved the problem by sending that notice to GitHub, it feels like this could be an easy problem to solve in the future.. The RIA

Based on how easily the EFF resolved the problem by sending that notice to GitHub, it feels like this could be an easy problem to solve in the future.. The RIAA got effortlessly blocked here with a couple of lawyer man hours, which contained information gathered from a handful of really interesting blog posts. I would say this entire story is something to celebrate, because it shows how easily a single person could stop this. Mitchell L. Stoltz, Senior Staff Attorney at the EFF signed this letter, which probably took no more than handful of man hours to compile. Pretty great roi.

stretchcat 6y ago
Not every project will have a sufficiently high profile for the EFF to notice. Relying on the EFF like this doesn't scale, isn't future proof, and doesn't address the long tail of the problem.
- munk-a 6y ago
  I think it'll most likely come down to a question of cost per incident - while a couple of lawyer hours is certainly relatively cheap if that same cost is required for every similar RIAA take down request then you'd need to look at how many hours it takes for RIAA to identify a good target and produce a take down notice. The effortlessness of this particular incident gives me hope that if the volume of take downs increased then maybe the EFF or someone else could essentially put together a form reply.
boomboomsubban 6y ago
>The RIAA got effortlessly blocked here with a couple of lawyer man hours, which contained information gathered from a handful of really interesting blog posts. It's not clear that the RIAA needed to spend any real lawyer man hours making the request, I don't think a designated agent needs to be a lawyer but even if they do they just send a form letter.
mattnewton 6y ago
Even if the RIAA payed 1.5 lawyer hours to the EFF’s 1, this is a bad trade IMO. And I doubt the RIAA is spending significant time on these cases based on their record of general sloppyness (ex- the time the RIAA sued charter for infringement on songs they didn’t have the copyright to, after making the same mistake with Cox https://abovethelaw.com/2020/03/riaa-realizes-it-sued-charter-over-a-bunch-of-songs-it-doesnt-hold-the-copyrights-for/ https://abovethelaw.com/2020/03/riaa-realizes-it-sued-charte...)
boogies 6y ago
> it feels like this could be an easy problem to solve in the future Welcome to the future. Github has received “a DMCA” from the RIAA’s film counterpart requesting they take down another repo for tool that does not contain proprietary copyrighted material (this time not even including a test suite that downloads it IIUC), and apparently instantaneously complied. As of the time I’m posting this, it’s been more than a day (an order of magnitude longer than “a couple of lawyer man hours”, times 1–2?) since it was posted here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836503 and I’m still not aware of any other response from them so far.
jrochkind1 6y ago
Oh, a legal memo like that, for something that is going to be high-visibility and you want to get right and you want to win, definitely took more than a few person hours. I bet several people were working on it for a few days, minimum. It's also something that requires lawyers/law staff, not just random people, for maximum effect. But yes, this is definitely a positive thing! I'm not sure anyone but the EFF would have done it succesfully, I am grateful to the EFF... and, yes, to github for their response, which not every company would have had.

stretchcat 6y ago

Not every project will have a sufficiently high profile for the EFF to notice. Relying on the EFF like this doesn't scale, isn't future proof, and doesn't address the long tail of the problem.

munk-a 6y ago
I think it'll most likely come down to a question of cost per incident - while a couple of lawyer hours is certainly relatively cheap if that same cost is required for every similar RIAA take down request then you'd need to look at how many hours it takes for RIAA to identify a good target and produce a take down notice. The effortlessness of this particular incident gives me hope that if the volume of take downs increased then maybe the EFF or someone else could essentially put together a form reply.

boomboomsubban 6y ago

>The RIAA got effortlessly blocked here with a couple of lawyer man hours, which contained information gathered from a handful of really interesting blog posts. It's not clear that the RIAA needed to spend any real lawyer man hours making the request, I don't think a designated agent needs to be a lawyer but even if they do they just send a form letter.

mattnewton 6y ago

Even if the RIAA payed 1.5 lawyer hours to the EFF’s 1, this is a bad trade IMO. And I doubt the RIAA is spending significant time on these cases based on their record of general sloppyness (ex- the time the RIAA sued charter for infringement on songs they didn’t have the copyright to, after making the same mistake with Cox https://abovethelaw.com/2020/03/riaa-realizes-it-sued-charter-over-a-bunch-of-songs-it-doesnt-hold-the-copyrights-for/ https://abovethelaw.com/2020/03/riaa-realizes-it-sued-charte...)

boogies 6y ago

> it feels like this could be an easy problem to solve in the future Welcome to the future. Github has received “a DMCA” from the RIAA’s film counterpart requesting they take down another repo for tool that does not contain proprietary copyrighted material (this time not even including a test suite that downloads it IIUC), and apparently instantaneously complied. As of the time I’m posting this, it’s been more than a day (an order of magnitude longer than “a couple of lawyer man hours”, times 1–2?) since it was posted here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836503 and I’m still not aware of any other response from them so far.

jrochkind1 6y ago

Oh, a legal memo like that, for something that is going to be high-visibility and you want to get right and you want to win, definitely took more than a few person hours. I bet several people were working on it for a few days, minimum. It's also something that requires lawyers/law staff, not just random people, for maximum effect. But yes, this is definitely a positive thing! I'm not sure anyone but the EFF would have done it succesfully, I am grateful to the EFF... and, yes, to github for their response, which not every company would have had.