6 ms·

That seems odd, given that Kevin Wayne is co-author of the 4th edition of "Algorithms".

dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
What seems odd is that the code is freely licenced to the public, no matter who wrote it. These DMCA requests are created and acted upon without the slightest checking, with no penalty. There should be some sort of modest cost somewhere to stop this nonsense.
- viraptor 5y ago
  As long as they're properly filled out, they have to be acted on if the provider wants to keep their safe harbour status.
- qayxc 5y ago
  > There should be some sort of modest cost somewhere to stop this nonsense. Playing the Devil's Advocate here: But wouldn't that in turn incentivise actual copyright infringement on account of it potentially being cheaper to mass publish copyrighted material as opposed to request it being taken down?
  - bnj 5y ago
    I hadn't thought about that angle before. Is the public interest best served by adding friction to copyright enforcement, or by adding friction to fair use?
    - qayxc 5y ago
      Good question. I honestly don't know. We would have to re-evaluate the value of IP as whole first, I guess.
      - lanstin 5y ago
        Certainly the right to copy is different when copying is so much cheaper than when the laws where written. We gave up:the right to copy when you couldn’t really copy. Now we can copy and maybe we want to retain that right to the people. Or at least rejigger so we either get more or give less via this exchange
  - the8472 5y ago
    Costs could be per false claim, it would incentivize them to decrease their false positive rate.
    - hedora 5y ago
      The law is based on the doctrine of unclean hands. Judges decide on a case by case basis, based on the facts pertaining to the case. An artist finds their life’s work online, and issues a takedown notice, not realizing it contained a few songs they don’t notice? No big deal. A label pays a takedown notice mill, that produces completely bogus / mistargeted takedown requests on a regular basis? Scorched earth. They lose the ability to enforce any copyrights on their catalog.
      - the8472 5y ago
        > The law is based on the doctrine of unclean hands. Judges decide on a case by case basis, based on the facts pertaining to the case. Judges don't scale and they are a step function, not an incentive gradient. > An artist finds their life’s work online, and issues a takedown notice, not realizing it contained a few songs they don’t notice? No big deal. If he had to pay a small(!) fee for mistakes in his takedown it would mean little harm to him since he protected his works with one takdown. One could even add an exemption for first-time mistakes. If he has to do it repeatedly then one would hope that he improves his search process. Additionally you have to consider that takedown notices can be filed against middle-men targeting many different 3rd parties at once. E.g. consider URL takedowns submitted to google. Google has no dirty hands and neither do some of the mistaken targets. Small fees would only add up if you issue bogus takedowns in bulk. They also have the advantage of not burdening the courts and providing the right incentives. The fact that the cost exists would drive people to reduce false positives which would make the penalty being required less often. As far as fees go one could also distinguish between fair use disputes vs. wholly incorrect claims. After all in the former case the claimant has a valid case and it is just that there exists a valid defense. In the latter case the claim itself was invalid. > A label pays a takedown notice mill, that produces completely bogus / mistargeted takedown requests on a regular basis? Scorched earth. They lose the ability to enforce any copyrights on their catalog. That is not what is happening in reality.
- nullsmack 5y ago
  There should be a 3-strikes and you're out when it comes to DMCA abuse. After 3 false DMCA notices you lose all copyrights. That will stop this abuse once and for all. Running automated systems that do nothing but harass people over things that they are legally able to do should be illegal.
  - hedora 5y ago
    Read up on “copyright misuse”. The law says a single infraction can invalidate all related copyrights. It has never been used in response to a DMCA takedown notice. It is far past time for that to happen. The precedent alone would end this crap. With such a precedent, Pearson would be at risk of losing the copyright on the entire textbook (and probably related course materials, tests, etc.)
inetsee 5y ago
Kevin Wayne is one of the co-authors of the book, but the copyright listing is "Copyright 2011 Pearson Education, Inc." and there does not appear to be anything in the book that says that the code is GPL licensed. Presumably Kevin Wayne was given the right to license the code as GPL, but that fact didn't get included in the text of the book, and the f*cking, stupid copyright bot Pearson uses didn't get the memo.
- csunbird 5y ago
  There is a counter notice from him (I think) here: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/04/2021-04-29-pearson-counternotice.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/04/2021-04-2...

What seems odd is that the code is freely licenced to the public, no matter who wrote it. These DMCA requests are created and acted upon without the slightest checking, with no penalty. There should be some sort of modest cost somewhere to stop this nonsense.

viraptor 5y ago
As long as they're properly filled out, they have to be acted on if the provider wants to keep their safe harbour status.
qayxc 5y ago
> There should be some sort of modest cost somewhere to stop this nonsense. Playing the Devil's Advocate here: But wouldn't that in turn incentivise actual copyright infringement on account of it potentially being cheaper to mass publish copyrighted material as opposed to request it being taken down?
- bnj 5y ago
  I hadn't thought about that angle before. Is the public interest best served by adding friction to copyright enforcement, or by adding friction to fair use?
  - qayxc 5y ago
    Good question. I honestly don't know. We would have to re-evaluate the value of IP as whole first, I guess.
    - lanstin 5y ago
      Certainly the right to copy is different when copying is so much cheaper than when the laws where written. We gave up:the right to copy when you couldn’t really copy. Now we can copy and maybe we want to retain that right to the people. Or at least rejigger so we either get more or give less via this exchange
- the8472 5y ago
  Costs could be per false claim, it would incentivize them to decrease their false positive rate.
  - hedora 5y ago
    The law is based on the doctrine of unclean hands. Judges decide on a case by case basis, based on the facts pertaining to the case. An artist finds their life’s work online, and issues a takedown notice, not realizing it contained a few songs they don’t notice? No big deal. A label pays a takedown notice mill, that produces completely bogus / mistargeted takedown requests on a regular basis? Scorched earth. They lose the ability to enforce any copyrights on their catalog.
    - the8472 5y ago
      > The law is based on the doctrine of unclean hands. Judges decide on a case by case basis, based on the facts pertaining to the case. Judges don't scale and they are a step function, not an incentive gradient. > An artist finds their life’s work online, and issues a takedown notice, not realizing it contained a few songs they don’t notice? No big deal. If he had to pay a small(!) fee for mistakes in his takedown it would mean little harm to him since he protected his works with one takdown. One could even add an exemption for first-time mistakes. If he has to do it repeatedly then one would hope that he improves his search process. Additionally you have to consider that takedown notices can be filed against middle-men targeting many different 3rd parties at once. E.g. consider URL takedowns submitted to google. Google has no dirty hands and neither do some of the mistaken targets. Small fees would only add up if you issue bogus takedowns in bulk. They also have the advantage of not burdening the courts and providing the right incentives. The fact that the cost exists would drive people to reduce false positives which would make the penalty being required less often. As far as fees go one could also distinguish between fair use disputes vs. wholly incorrect claims. After all in the former case the claimant has a valid case and it is just that there exists a valid defense. In the latter case the claim itself was invalid. > A label pays a takedown notice mill, that produces completely bogus / mistargeted takedown requests on a regular basis? Scorched earth. They lose the ability to enforce any copyrights on their catalog. That is not what is happening in reality.
nullsmack 5y ago
There should be a 3-strikes and you're out when it comes to DMCA abuse. After 3 false DMCA notices you lose all copyrights. That will stop this abuse once and for all. Running automated systems that do nothing but harass people over things that they are legally able to do should be illegal.
- hedora 5y ago
  Read up on “copyright misuse”. The law says a single infraction can invalidate all related copyrights. It has never been used in response to a DMCA takedown notice. It is far past time for that to happen. The precedent alone would end this crap. With such a precedent, Pearson would be at risk of losing the copyright on the entire textbook (and probably related course materials, tests, etc.)

inetsee 5y ago

Kevin Wayne is one of the co-authors of the book, but the copyright listing is "Copyright 2011 Pearson Education, Inc." and there does not appear to be anything in the book that says that the code is GPL licensed. Presumably Kevin Wayne was given the right to license the code as GPL, but that fact didn't get included in the text of the book, and the f*cking, stupid copyright bot Pearson uses didn't get the memo.

csunbird 5y ago
There is a counter notice from him (I think) here: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/04/2021-04-29-pearson-counternotice.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/04/2021-04-2...