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I don't think their claim is that accurate. The complete paragraph in their terms reads like this: > Unless otherwise indicated, the Site is our proprietary pr

I don't think their claim is that accurate. The complete paragraph in their terms reads like this: > Unless otherwise indicated, the Site is our proprietary property and all source code, databases, functionality, software, website designs, audio, video, text, photographs, and graphics on the Site (collectively, the “Content”) and the trademarks, service marks, and logos contained therein (the “Marks”) are owned or controlled by us or licensed to us, and are protected by copyright and trademark laws and various other intellectual property rights and unfair competition laws of the United States, foreign jurisdictions, and international conventions. They are talking about the proprietary property of the site (which is correct), and for the source code they are saying it's "owned or controlled by us or licensed to us". So in my understanding this part is correct. The only issue is they doesn't display the notice that the code is based on Mastodon and doesn't share the modified source code. This is in fact against AGPL. The problem with this accusation is they never launched the service officialy in the first, some people who got access to an URL which wasn't supposed to be released to the public (and apparently this URL is unacessible already), so I think a legal dispute is a hard case right now. Now they can get away by just fixing it before the launch.

aww_dang 5y ago
Maybe they haven't modified the source at all?
- danillonunes 5y ago
  Can't tell for sure because I don't know the platform enough, but from what I've seen on the leaked screenshots there are some layout changes that apparently couldn't be done without modifying the code.
  - aww_dang 5y ago
    The accusations seem baseless if it all comes down to layout or templating. Meets my expectations of Vice coverage.
weare138 5y ago
IANAL but it seems you could make the argument that by not making the modified source available under the AGPLv3 they would clearly be in violation of the AGPLv3 license which would negate their claim that the source code is licensed to them. Wouldn't they need to currently be in compliance with the license in order to excise the rights conferred by the license?
- danillonunes 5y ago
  Yes, I meant to say they can claim it's licensed to then as long as they follow all the license terms. Also IANAL but I believe they can make the claim that they are not violating the license terms since the site was not meant to be publicly available and the access that some people obtained was not authorized (and I think this is a strong argument since they blocked the access as soon as it was discovered). One can say that the mere fact that the site was accessible, even if unintentional, was enough to configure it to be distributed, and therefore required to follow the full license terms (in fact, I think this is the position that GNU takes), but I don't think this argument would be so strong in an actual legal battle,

aww_dang 5y ago

Maybe they haven't modified the source at all?

danillonunes 5y ago
Can't tell for sure because I don't know the platform enough, but from what I've seen on the leaked screenshots there are some layout changes that apparently couldn't be done without modifying the code.
- aww_dang 5y ago
  The accusations seem baseless if it all comes down to layout or templating. Meets my expectations of Vice coverage.

weare138 5y ago

IANAL but it seems you could make the argument that by not making the modified source available under the AGPLv3 they would clearly be in violation of the AGPLv3 license which would negate their claim that the source code is licensed to them. Wouldn't they need to currently be in compliance with the license in order to excise the rights conferred by the license?

danillonunes 5y ago
Yes, I meant to say they can claim it's licensed to then as long as they follow all the license terms. Also IANAL but I believe they can make the claim that they are not violating the license terms since the site was not meant to be publicly available and the access that some people obtained was not authorized (and I think this is a strong argument since they blocked the access as soon as it was discovered). One can say that the mere fact that the site was accessible, even if unintentional, was enough to configure it to be distributed, and therefore required to follow the full license terms (in fact, I think this is the position that GNU takes), but I don't think this argument would be so strong in an actual legal battle,