75 ms·

TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS

1545 points by cwaffles 5y ago

mthrow_123 5y ago
I worked at a medium size software company in New York and our team lead would always say "Why make what you can take?" when referring to finding open source code and running with it, regardless of licensing or anything.
oliwarner 5y ago
It's concerning how many self-labelled software engineers on Twitter are chipping in with comments like "it's open source so it's fair game" or "they just need to add attribution".
- mikeryan 5y ago
  So, I’m unclear on this if, and I don’t know if this is true, TikTok just creates a UI that “execs” commands to an unmodified OBS executable cli - What is their actual responsibility here?
  - pavon 5y ago
    They are distributing the OBS executable, therefore they have an obligation to also distribute the source to those same people on request, and to let them know about their rights to receive the source under the GPL. If OBS really is running standalone, then that is the extent of their responsibilities. If on the other-hand, OBS is being combined with other software to create a derivative work, then they must distribute the full source of that derivative work as well. What constitutes a derivative work is more complicated. It is ultimately a decision for courts, though many folks (including FSF) have opinions on what should and shouldn't be considered a derivative work.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- criddell 5y ago
  It might not be like this everywhere, but in the US all software engineers are self-labelled. It's not like medical doctor (MD) or professional engineer (PE) where the title actually implies some license to practice.
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    Common misconception, but Software Engineer is actually a licensed profession in many states (with vague industry exemptions): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_professionalism#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_professio... But virtually nobody does it. The NCEES even abandoned their Software Engineer licensing exam a few years ago because nobody was taking it.
    - anthk 5y ago
      In Europe being an engineer has civil accountability on issues. You can be fined really high if you hire a self-called engineer without a proper degree. Or at least decades of alleged experience in the field.
      - k12sosse 5y ago
        Especially without the accountability. Call yourself a software engineer? Did your code break? Is it vulnerable to exploits? What was the damage? Did you ship it knowing it was not fit for public usage? Congratulations! you're no longer allowed to program for a living and the state is suing you and your employer for damages.
        saghm 5y ago
        I think part of the problem is that compared to more traditional forms of engineering, software engineering is still really young and not as rigorous. Right now, _nobody_ can write code without any bugs it in whatsoever. If we banned people who wrote buggy code, pretty soon we'd have no software engineers left. Regardless of whether you think that's a good idea, it seems pretty clear that at the very least there is a lot of demand for programmers, so it's unlikely the industry would get behind limiting that further in such a drastic way.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  In many jurisidictions "Engineer" is a licensed and regulated title, and their professional organizations have tried to regulate it, but lost the war. We know have actual engineering programs that focus on software and 6-week bootcamps graduating people who claim to be "Software Engineers", so add it to the list of appropriated words right next to "Geek".
  - lainga 5y ago
    The attitude on (mostly American) HN is against licensing bodies, as far as I've seen in the past.
    - tata71 5y ago
      If you saw, or were exposed to, how many thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours it takes native professionals to get licensed to do hair braiding or cutting, you'd be disenfranchised, too.
      - lainga 5y ago
        Native professional like native-born American? In my case I pay about 300 CAD a year to EGBC and have not heard from my colleagues that getting a P.Eng in BC is a significant time-sink. You have to have 4 years of work experience, get your work certified, and then do a couple exams. I would believe dozens of hours, but not hundreds.
  - emaginniss 5y ago
    Right, "geek" should go back to the original definition: a person who bites the head off of a chicken in a carnival show.
    - mometsi 5y ago
      And he is a foole, a sotte, and a geke also, Which choseth a place vnto the same to go, And where diuers wayes lead thither directly He choseth the worst and most of ieopardie https://www.otago.ac.nz/english-linguistics/tudor/BarcEclogues.html https://www.otago.ac.nz/english-linguistics/tudor/BarcEclogu...
- throwhauser 5y ago
  It's reminiscent of people adding "no copyright intended" (sic) when posting other people's music online. It seems like intuitions about copyright have been shifting, even if the law hasn't.
  - minimaxir 5y ago
    At the least, the internet eventually realized that "you must delete your video game ROMs within 24 hours of obtaining them" is not a valid legal stance.
    - ludamad 5y ago
      Oh that jogs forgotten memories.
      - codetrotter 5y ago
        Anyone remember that disclaimer some pirate websites used to have where they said something starting with something like “On October 28, 1998, President Clinton signed into law the Digital Millennium Copyright Act”, and the disclaimer went on to mention some DMCA exceptions like learning and teaching or something? Always gave me a chuckle. As if saying that the DMCA does not apply for you is enough to make it actually so.
  - slantyyz 5y ago
    > It seems like intuitions about copyright have been shifting, even if the law hasn't. I think people actually know it's wrong and legally questionable. I believe they do it because they simply want to do it and in the back of their minds, hope adding some bogus disclaimer will let them get away with it... because other people seem to be getting away with it.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      I think people think it's legally wrong but not morally wrong, and so they add a bogus disclaimer hoping that they can get away with it because other people have.
- yumraj 5y ago
  Probably they are employed at companies who are themselves violating GPL and have seen this being done there.
  - delusional 5y ago
    How do you think companies end up violating GPL. Maybe sometimes it's a heartless executive, but a lot of enterprise software devs are completely unconcerned with licenses. If they can get their hands on it, the license doesn't matter.
    - jermaustin1 5y ago
      I had a senior dev at a past job who did this constantly. And when it was found out how much he actually stole, our entire team was laid off and replaced by the company that did the audit. He just refused to believe that software licenses were real. That and I dont think he could actually code anything from scratch without stealing large swaths of code from open source repositories.
      - vkat 5y ago
        Copy/paste without attribution to license or permission is more blatant.
        jermaustin1 5y ago
        Organizationally he was given free reign to do whatever he wanted, and that lead to the entire teams downfall. He canceled code reviews... for himself. Well, he actually stated, all code reviews go through him, thus he "code reviewed" his own code. I remember he was once a few weeks late on delivering a basic landing page, and when it finally got to QA at 9pm on a Friday, our entire team was forced to work the weekend and QA gave me a TFS export of more than 200 defects I had to fix because he was unreachable. Needless to say, our entire team was upset we all got laid off, but also relieved because we all ended up in better jobs. At least everyone I've talked to, which is everyone but him, as he has never responded to a single text message or email since he quit after the layoff (he refused severance, and just walked out), all his socials went off line, and any record of his name has disappeared from the internet. I'm fairly certain he was a conman, but I have no way of finding out.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  There are subtleties not captured by this quick overview which are not fully understood by (in my experience) the vast majority of programmers: https://choosealicense.com/licenses/ https://choosealicense.com/licenses/ If your project is going to be "real" (e.g., not some personal throwaway), you really need a lawyer if you are including anything other than MIT. Even Apache can be problematic when it comes to patenting.
  - gus_massa 5y ago
    What about BSD?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - krylon 5y ago
      I am not a lawyer, but the (2-clause) BSD and MIT licenses look nearly identical to me. The wording is slightly different, but I think they express the same intent.
- znpy 5y ago
  > self-labelled software engineers are you implying there should be requirements to label yourself as an engineer? like a degree in engineering ?
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    This is already a thing in the US.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  I wish "software engineer" meant something. There are CMU/MIT grads using the tittle alongside 3 month bootcamp grads. I also have to wonder, with the owners of Tik Tok really being ByteDance (字节跳动) if the dissrespect for IP really isn't cultural.
  - paxys 5y ago
    The title isn't what's important, it's your skills and what you can do with them. The MIT grad and 3 month bootcamp grad both have the same opportunity to complete and prove themselves, which is unique to the software field. Lack of artificial barriers and gatekeeping is the very reason why the industry is able to thrive.
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      But you get these twitter threads that are highly missleading. Would be great to have some quality control at some point. This doesn't make real engineers look good in the eyes of the public. Same thing with medical profesionnals spreading anti-vaxx news around.
- koonsolo 5y ago
  Maybe it's a generational thing. In the olden days, Open Source was basically GPL. But nowadays, Open Source is basically BSD. So I get it that all the npm developers don't really consider that some licenses might be restrictive.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 5y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592556.
- viktorcode 5y ago
  Most likely that's the reason of OBS' code ending up in TikTok's product. Some engineer disregarded the license with no insidious intention to steal.
  - mr_toad 5y ago
    It’s even possible that the developer tried to get the product to be compliant and was ignored.
mrweasel 5y ago
Are they technically obligated to provide the source code online, or could they just say: "Well it's available on request, and no one has done so"? The just mail out a USB stick or DVD to anyone who asks? I believe that's with in the limits of the GPLv2.
- Karunamon 5y ago
  Yep. "available on request" is perfectly allowed, there's no requirement that it be on a publicly available webpage.
  - teddyh 5y ago
    No, the offer of source code must be explicit, not just available if anyone happens to ask.
    - dspillett 5y ago
      The offer yes, but the code does not need to be that easy to publicly access. Of course once the first person to request the source via that offer gets it (assuming they come good in that respect) it might be made more easily available.
      - teddyh 5y ago
        Sure, but did anyone installing the TikTok streaming software get such an explicit offer? If not, then, hey, GPL violation.
  - DannyBee 5y ago
    This is totally wrong. It must be an explicit offer for source. " 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: ... b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, " Note accompany it. The only exception is this: "If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code. "
msarrel 5y ago
It ends up being close to impossible to enforce these licenses.
neyme 5y ago
I've always wondered if these license are legally enforceable. What if TikTok ignores the criticism and does nothing. Do the developers sue the company and will they get any money?
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  They could try to get money but they could also try to get a cease and desist order to compel them to stop if they don’t even post suit. Not sure if that means violating is criminal or anything but means you’re ignoring a court order which is a big no-no legally.
- pabs3 5y ago
  Enforcement of the GPL was done way back in 2003 against Linksys and resulted in the OpenWRT project. In Europe the GPL Violations project brought a lot of other cases. So there is plenty of precedent. The principles the FSF and Software Freedom Conservancy use when doing enforcement actions emphasise using legal action as a last resort and not prioritising financial gain (they usually just ask for legal costs and costs for verifying the violation). https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-strategy.html#brief-history-of-user-focused-gpl-enforcement https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-st... https://gpl-violations.org/ https://gpl-violations.org/ https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.htm...
jetsetgo 5y ago
When Logitech and StreamElements do it; it's fine?
xvector 5y ago
- okprod 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
a2tech 5y ago
Well not illegal. It looks like they need to acknowledge and include the OBS license.
- NeutronStar 5y ago
  Illegal until then.
- Rygian 5y ago
  If they are not already acknowledging and including the OBS license, then it's already in breach of the license (ie. "illegal" in the informal sense that you used).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- 1_player 5y ago
  Not only the license, the source code as well. The GPLv2 license exists for a reason. """ These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it. For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights. """ https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/COPYING https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/COPYING
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
The original Tweet (embedded one from HunterAP) says TikTok installs OBS and uses it in the background with a TikTok front-end. It doesn’t say that they’ve illegally forked it. EDIT: See comments from OBS developer below for a more clear explanation of the issues than the linked Tweet
- yorwba 5y ago
  > The original Tweet (embedded one from HunterAP) says TikTok installs OBS and uses it in the background with a TikTok front-end. It doesn’t say that they’ve illegally forked it. It does say "illegal fork" below HunterAP's username and above the screenshot.
- r1ch 5y ago
  OBS developer here. It doesn't "install OBS in the background". They ship several executables as part of their software that contain code derived from OBS and there is no offer of source code. They're currently in violation of the GPL, but per our GPL Cooperation Commitment we are trying to work this out with them privately.
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    Thanks for the clarification. Is there anywhere where this is written up more clearly? Even on Twitter? Would be good to circulate a more clear explanation of what's going on.
    - r1ch 5y ago
      Not at the moment, we're trying to resolve it in private. Similar to how the Streamlabs situation unfolded, we don't want to "go public" until all other options have been exhausted, though it's looking like this choice may be out of our hands.
  - pabs3 5y ago
    A link to that commitment for those who are looking: https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/COMMITMENT https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/COMMITM... I'd encourage you to also adopt the FSF/SFC's "Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement": https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.htm...
throwawayay02 5y ago
> OBS is free for anyone to use, for any reason. Other developers can use the OBS code in their own projects as long as they obey the guidelines set forth in the GPLv2 license. OBS has no watermarks or other limitations and can be used commercially with no restrictions. So I guess there's nothing wrong with that.
- dtech 5y ago
  It depends on how they integrated. GPLv2 requires that TikTok's version is either GPL-compatible itself (I doubt it), or they use OBS as an external program. edit This comment [1] claims GPL code is compiled into their non-GPL program, which is a huge no-no [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592556
- jmcs 5y ago
  It would depend if Tiktok Editor is legally considered a derivative application or not. If it is, then it's in breach of GPLv2.
ghusbands 5y ago
People are misunderstanding this and claiming it's not problematic. Ben Torrell (an OBS developer) notes later in the thread that there is indeed GPL code compiled into TikTok's executables; since source is not available and they have not got another license, it is unlicensed and hence illegal.
- mynameismon 5y ago
  Relavant Tweet: https://twitter.com/dodgepong/status/1471522226520346632 https://twitter.com/dodgepong/status/1471522226520346632
  - trynewideas 5y ago
    See also https://twitter.com/dodgepong/status/1471528656199692292 https://twitter.com/dodgepong/status/1471528656199692292 and https://twitter.com/dodgepong/status/1471524716477300737 https://twitter.com/dodgepong/status/1471524716477300737 too twitter; didn't read: there's apparently OBS code evident in the decompiled app, and other GPL code as well, and OBS found out independently and are working to resolve it
    - mynameismon 5y ago
      Also important to note: OBS developers also found incidents of OBS code outside of that instance, and they are working with TikTok on the same.
    - 4684499 5y ago
      That's pretty fast for a beta released yesterday. Are the devs actively monitoring and reverse engineering every binary released that related to streaming? Also, where can I get the live studio executable? None of the links I found works, is that public release?
      - r1ch 5y ago
        I'm the one on the OBS team who originally found this. I saw a tweet yesterday from someone that's in the beta, and as with any desktop live streaming software (and especially with "Studio" in the name) I was curious if they were using any OBS Studio code or if it was developed all in-house. The download link is available in their JS, you can find the most recent installer link here: https://tron-sg.bytelemon.com/api/sdk/check_update?branch=master&pid=6974351561648511246&uid=&buildId= https://tron-sg.bytelemon.com/api/sdk/check_update?branch=ma... (note: you probably won't be able to actually use it without being in the beta group) Without even installing it, opening the setup files showed some immediate red flags, notably the "GameDetour64.dll", "Inject64.exe" and "MediaSDKGetWinDXOffset64.exe" look awfully similar to the way the OBS Studio game capture hooks work with our "graphics-hook64.dll", "inject-helper64.exe" and "get-graphics-offsets64.exe". I don't jump straight in to disassembling everything I come across, but when it's this obvious it begs further investigation, and after some disassembly I was able to confirm that OBS code was present in their binaries.
pshushereba 5y ago
China stealing intellectual property? If only we could have seen this coming!
- c0balt 5y ago
  Not like US companies would be any better. They usually just take more care of hiding it, cause you know, cause you know lawsuits.
  - adventured 5y ago
    US (and European) companies are typically a lot better about it, precisely because they fear lawsuits, they fear the consequences. China and its large companies don't fear lawsuits the way US corporations do. That's how Jack Ma was able to steal Alipay from Yahoo shareholders and laugh all the way to the bank, there were no consequences to worry about. It's why Yahoo capitulated in dealing with Alibaba as a major shareholder, they knew the end result would have been their ownership stake could just be zero'd out at any time. That's why China can arbitrarily point at Didi and tell them to delist, regardless of what it does to foreign shareholders - there's nothing to worry about, there will be no meaningful consequences. You can't get at them domestically if they don't want you to, because they're a nation that operates by the shielded, arbitrary dictate of the CCP rather than laws, and nearly everyone is afraid of their retaliation (including the richest corporations in the world like Apple). Nobody much fears the US will retaliate the way China does. That's why the EU has been pounding US tech companies with mega fines, and wouldn't dare behave that way toward China. It's why the green virtue signalers are so very scared to publicly lambast China, and they'll harangue the US and EU all day. It's why the NBA will intentionally ignore any and all atrocities of China (they're intensely terrified to utter even the slightest of negative words toward China), yet they have almost zero fear of jabbing the US 24/7 - it's because for the most part nobody is afraid of the US.
    - throwaway473825 5y ago
      The Swedish bank oligopoly once illegally used Moxie Marlinespike's GPL code in their closed-source app: https://mobile.twitter.com/moxie/status/530252445725642752 https://mobile.twitter.com/moxie/status/530252445725642752 They even refused to get in touch. Why would they when they have most Swedish political parties in their pocket? And that's in one of the world's least corrupt countries.
h2odragon 5y ago
So will all those outlets that had "Trump's social network is violating the GPL" stories be jumping on this with equal fervor? Considering they didn't cover the compliance with the GPL that "truth social" (awful name) did, I think we can safely assume they won't. That said, TikTok using and backing OBS makes perfect sense, the terms of the license aren't onerous and everybody benefits. "Open source works like its supposed to" isn't a eyeball grabbing headline tho.
vmception 5y ago
“Right click and save as” jokes not looking so funny anymore?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
londons_explore 5y ago
The commitment[1] appears to say, in summary, "you can violate the license anytime, and as long as you stop violating soon after we tell you to, there can be no financial penalties". That makes the GPL substantially weaker, since now a company can use GPL code in any place they think nobody will look. They will never be on the hook for court ordered damages going back years for unlicensed use. [1]: https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/COMMITMENT https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/COMMITM...
- zinekeller 5y ago
  > That makes the GPL substantially weaker, since now a company can use GPL code in any place they think nobody will look. They will never be on the hook for court ordered damages going back years for unlicensed use. In OBS' case, maybe. But OBS' developers' generosity doesn't automatically translate to other developers, and even in proprietary cases, there have been cases of a exact-copy contract that have gone significantly different ways.
- phkahler 5y ago
  I'm not a fan of the GPLv3 limiting the available response to copyright violations. Time limits in particular. It's one of the less clear parts of the license IMHO, and it affects the primary means of enforcement. Fortunately a lot of GPLv3 code is actually 3+ so maybe if a version 4 ever comes along this nonsensical restriction on enforcement will be more limited. I do understand the reasons around accidental misuse, but I haven't really seen anyone getting into big trouble from accidental misuse. I have seen these high profile cases of deliberate misuse by big corporations.
  - lucasyvas 5y ago
    I'm not personally a fan of protecting against accidental misuse. No other law offers significant leniency for ignorance that I am aware of.
    - r_hoods_ghost 5y ago
AustinDev 5y ago
So people that have ripped off OBS so far and violated GPL include TikTok, StreamLabs (Logitech), and StreamElements. Any other people I missed?
- detaro 5y ago
  StreamLabs afaik kept clear of GPL violations?
- the-dude 5y ago
  How did StreamLabs violate the GPL?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - pineconewarrior 5y ago
    The OBS project has accused StreamLabs of copying their name and stealing their trademark (By naming their software StreamLabs OBS). I'm not sure about any source code thievery.
    - r1ch 5y ago
      Streamlabs violated OBS' trademarks, their fork has always complied with the GPL.
      - AustinDev 5y ago
        There were 6 to 12 months iirc where they did not distribute their source required by GPL. I have close friends on the OBS team.
        wccrawford 5y ago
        If nobody asked for the source and was denied, they were not yet in violation. They aren't required to actually post it online. They can simply send it to someone when asked.
orliesaurus 5y ago
I hope they donate to the OBS project at least...
- lucasyvas 5y ago
  Doubt
nunez 5y ago
Damn two big names stealing from OBS in one year! It is great software, though; I can see why companies would go that route.
lucasyvas 5y ago
In almost all cases, TikTok's offering would be considered a derived work because you cannot swap out the OBS part for another and still have it work. So they are likely in full violation unless they agree to open source all their code. Seems like a pretty open and shut case to be honest - that is, if they intend to pursue legal action and the powers that be rule appropriately.
- _fat_santa 5y ago
  Like others have said though, any derivative works of OBS must also contain the same GPL License. It was pointed out in that thread that Reddit also forked OBS for their live steaming but they didn't get into hot water because they followed the rules and open sourced their software like the License required them to.
- thebean11 5y ago
  I'm out of my depth here, but what makes you say they can't swap out the OBS part for something else? Do you mean they can't swap it without modifying the rest of the code, or can't swap it at all?
  - randomNumber7 5y ago
    If they swap it out, they have to build code which does exactly the same/ has the same interface. It can still be considered a "derived" work. I'm not a lawyer but that was what op meant.
    - thebean11 5y ago
      I'm not sure, that sounds a lot like the Oracle v Google argument on whether an API is copyrightable.
      - lucasyvas 5y ago
        I don't think the API part matters as much. What matters most is that they'd have to rebuild OBS capabilities from scratch and prove there is a clean separation. Otherwise, it's a derived work because separating them makes the TikTok offering useless / not functional.
Shubhi_29 5y ago
Tiktok is ban in India
andrew_ 5y ago
I'd like to see HN shy away from posting twitter threads as news. There's almost always a hard link to the source material, and twitter threads are filled with emotional, truncated, nuance-lacking, trite clips that more often than not do little to promote healthy discussion of a topic. The goal of quality here really is noble.
- platz 5y ago
  sometimes thats where the news is
  - Kinrany 5y ago
    Including this case. The "original" original is a Discord message.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Oddskar 5y ago
  Why would a newspaper article that regurgitates the Twitter thread be any better? If the source is Twitter then I much prefer a link to Twitter.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    But the news isn’t that somebody on Twitter found this license issue, the news is that there’s a license issue. A tweet could be a good tip for a journalist to do journalistic things like finding out if its true and writing up some context of how this has happened before and what GPL is, that way the story can be understood by a wider audience. Twitter is popular for people obsessed with hearing the latest rumor, but if TikTok is an illegal fork of OBS, I’d rather hear a few days later the well researched details - or if its a nothingburger overreaction, then I’d rather not hear about it at all.
- galgalesh 5y ago
  From the HN guidelines: > Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
sergiotapia 5y ago
Hope there is a multi-million dollar pay-off for OBS.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  OBS is willing to work with TikTok to get them into compliance. That would either mean open-sourcing the software or paying for a license.
  - bilbo0s 5y ago
    At this point, it's not even clear to me that paying would rectify the legal issue with respect to the GPL. It's an amalgamation of source contributions over time. Any one contributor could, in theory, refuse any consideration other than an open sourcing of the software. Of course, now I think about it, that could be an easy problem to fix. They say every man has a number.
    - ghusbands 5y ago
      Almost all relicensing efforts are actually most hindered by not being able to contact people. If you can't contact someone who holds the copyright to something, you can't change the licensing rights over it. A lot of projects have copyright assignment, to allow for relicensing. They typically ask for you to assign copyright to them or to a company they control, so that they can still relicense as they see fit, in future.
      - dodgepong 5y ago
        It's worth noting that if someone can't be contacted, the maintainers aren't out of luck yet. If the contribution is deleted (and then possibly reimplemented later by someone with whom the project _is_ in contact) then the issue is resolved. It can be a lot of work, though, depending on the size and importance of the contribution, and reimplementing the code in a way that doesn't derive from the original submission can be difficult or ambiguous.
  - SergeAx 5y ago
endisneigh 5y ago
People expecting OBS to get millions from this are naïve. Almost certainly TikTok will change the software to just use OBS independently to avoid the issue. If OBS wants money they should use a dual license.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  Nobody says they want money. They likely just want the GPL violation to stop, one way or another.
  - pabs3 5y ago
    Indeed, enforcement actions should always be about making the compliance happen and never prioritize financial gain. https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.htm...
- VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
  did anybody say OBS wanted millions? > Almost certainly TikTok will change the software to just use OBS independently to avoid the issue. this is a perfectly acceptable outcome.
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  And yet it could be argued that TikTok saved millions they'd otherwise have had to pay to produce or license equivalent software.
- Trumpi 5y ago
  I imagine that OBS merely want others to abide by their license.
- phkahler 5y ago
  >> People expecting OBS to get millions from this are naïve. IANAL but copyright violation has already happened. Due to our insane lobbyists the penalties for that are something like $150K per copy. If/when some copyright holder wants to make an example and get rich instead of settling for compliance, they should be quite able to do so. I would love to see a big evil company smacked down like that. >> If OBS wants money they should use a dual license. That's just an opinion.
EGreg 5y ago
Some people on HN make fun of “code is law”, but in this the “law about code” is hardly enforceable internationally. Putting the snark aside - let’s at the broader picture ! Web disrupted journalism, cable, tv, radio, magazines, newspapers and made it permissionless across geographic boundaries Smart contracts can do the same for finance, voting, banking, legal enforcement and more The question here is, can we enforce copyright without the threat of force (like SWAT teams taking down a grandma or Kim DotCom) And do we need artificial scarcity at all, as seems to be the case now with NFTs and metaverse? These are major topics andI can’t do them justice in a small text comment. For whoever is interested, explored these topics and Internet economics in our recent episode of the Intercoin Show: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=72kaDtfuIG4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=72kaDtfuIG4 If you don’t want to have scarcity for digital content but still want to get paid at scale, here is another approach that is completely web based: https://qbix.com/token https://qbix.com/token Ignore the token part and look at the iframes part. Would love feedback:
jrm4 5y ago
Yup. The best thing we can all do is shine a light on it. I'm a lawyer and one thing that's important to remember in all of this is the interconnectedness of things, and being strategic about how to proceed is important. Shine the light everywhere. As in, one thing to consider is that some proponents of Free Software do not actually want certain types of high-profile public cases on the GPL even when they law appears to be very much on their side, mostly because it could be really bad if a judge gets it wrong and sets something stupid as precedent.
- bogwog 5y ago
  > mostly because it could be really bad if a judge gets it wrong and sets something stupid as precedent. At this point, isn't precedent already set? There have been more than a few GPL lawsuits where the courts ruled in favor of the GPL. This wiki has a list (https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases) of them. Some of those are in the US, others in the EU. Not sure if US judges have to consider precedents set in EU countries?
  - jrm4 5y ago
    I'd say there's not "enough," and in a sense, precedent is never binary, like "yes or no?" The law having distinctions and extensions and so on. US will probably find EU law persuasive but not binding. So broadly, I think at least part of the strategy is "don't wake the beast." You really don't want e.g. "Microsoft v. Tiny GPL guy" as a big case because the law is far from perfect and there would be a lot of potential incentive/influence in MS's favor. (True, you'd get lots of Amicus action from Mozilla et al, but that would probably not be enough)
    - pabs3 5y ago
      There is precedent from 2003 in the USA: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-strategy.html#brief-history-of-user-focused-gpl-enforcement https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-st...
markus_zhang 5y ago
Open source software license should include a clause saying that it is mandatory for commercial users to pay a certain amount of contribution annually, let's say 0.01% of gross revenue? So if they find it too expensively they can simply turn away and build their own, which is good for whoever get the chance to do some lower level programming, and if they find it OK the open source authors/maintainers can get some good money. It's a win-win. Of course this might request open source authors/maintainers to form a more rigid organization (how to share the profit).
- ghaff 5y ago
  Then it's not an open source software license.
  - 29083011397778 5y ago
    I suspect you're conflating Free, Libre, and Open-Source Software. The first can be free (as in beer), the second free (as in you can do whatever you please with it), and the last is that the source is publicly available. GP's proposition would be Open-Source, but not FLOSS IIUC
    - ghaff 5y ago
      In general people use the open source definition and the licenses approved by the OSI as what defines open source. These don't allow you to discriminate based on usage, such as commercial use. (If you own the copyrights, you can dual license under both an open source and a non-open source license of course.) "Source available" or "shared source" licenses are not generally considered open source.
    - andrewshadura 5y ago
      You are mistaken. All three terms have the same meaning.
    - andrewshadura 5y ago
      Open source software is a name for free software which was intended to make it sound less ideologically loaded. Libre software, on the other hand, is a name for free software intended to make it less ambiguous while preserving ideology. Anyone who claims otherwise is either: a) trying to be an ideological purist fighting with those not following their ideology to the maximum, or b) trying to mislead you to try and devalue the terms, or has been misled by (a) or (b).
12ian34 5y ago
Could someone please help explain to me and (others who might not know) what is the concrete problem caused by this forking that doesn't comply with the license?
- ilaksh 5y ago
  Read the GPL. You can't fork without releasing the source code. Unless you buy a commercial license (if they sell that).
- kaslai 5y ago
  The GPL requires that any derivative work of GPL licensed code must also be licensed under the same (or compatible) license as the original GPL'd code. This is the "viral" aspect of the license. It applies even if the only interface between your code and the GPL code is dynamic linking, and not a single line of the GPL'd code is in your application. There are acceptable ways to bundle GPL code with closed source software in a single distributable, however it must be made clear which parts of the distribution are licensed under the GPL and the GPL license must be clearly present. Even in the most charitable reading of the situation, TikTok violated this basic requirement.
  - 12ian34 5y ago
    And why is it important for GPL to be honoured in this case? Like.. what protection is GPL providing here and to whom exactly?
    - pabs3 5y ago
      So that the recipients of the code have the four freedoms defined by the FSF: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms: [1] The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2). The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
dangerface 5y ago
It seems like OBS is the opensource software every uses but has no idea because it gets ripped off and repackaged so much.
citizenpaul 5y ago
TikTok is in China. There is no such thing as illegal forks their. Half their economy is based on stealing IP and mass producing it cheaply. Any laws or legality is just lip service to shut up companies and governments that complain.
- leodriesch 5y ago
  The American operations of TikTok have to follow American law and have to follow orders given by an American court. They will then have to comply or leave the American market.
  - citizenpaul 5y ago
    I knew someone would mention this. You are wrong but I'm not going to try to explain international espionage, fraud and laundering in a comment post.
ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
At this point, would it even hurt TikTok to open source their code? The network effect and user profiles are their moat, not their codebase.
- jackTheMan 5y ago
  if they remove all surveillance stuff.. maybe not
  - hkalbasi 5y ago
    Isn't (important part of) surveillance stuff on the server side?
- dodgepong 5y ago
  If the app includes ByteDance's proprietary BVC1 or BVC2 encoders, it's possible those would have to be open-sourced.
s7r 5y ago
First thought while reading headline: this is why copyleft is useful.
literallyWTF 5y ago
It’s almost like licensing is completely pointless unless you have the money to sue.
- tobltobs 5y ago
  Enough money to sue the CCP.
oolonthegreat 5y ago
apparently OBS devs don't want to share direct evidence yet and resolve it privately probably due to their GPL Cooperation Commitment. while I'm sure we all appreciate that, it would be nice to see the decompiled binaries and the exact violations, just so we can explicitly point them out and argue. I find it VERY easy to believe that Tiktok are indeed in violation, but right now all we have are statements and a 302 redirect to Microsoft Directx download page.
dvt 5y ago
How can you be so inept that you're literally stealing software, but are too incompetent to properly obfuscate it?
- entropie 5y ago
  Right? They are not even trying. Probably there is also a little spike in the logs of obsproject.org which could lead to some investigation.
- 1_player 5y ago
  Thieves are known not to be smart. If you're smart enough, you'll know that stealing probably isn't worth it.
- tzs 5y ago
  I find it amusing that there are (at the moment) 8 comments that label this "stealing", as does the submitted Tweet, with no one objecting to that terminology. Whenever such usage comes up when movie or music piracy is discussed any such usage is quickly objected to. Anyone want to have a go at trying to distinguish the two?
  - jancsika 5y ago
    > Whenever such usage comes up when movie or music piracy is discussed any such usage is quickly objected to. How can you state "quickly objected to" when the commonly accepted term-- including here on HN-- is "music piracy?"
- pabs3 5y ago
  Its entirely possibly the devs responsible for this hadn't even heard of the GPL or hadn't even read the license or just did it and didn't care about the consequences for their employer.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
soheil 5y ago
How do we make sure people invoking China-stealing-intellectual-property-yet-again don’t pile on this thread? If this is a case of a company wrongfully using IP we need to very much have a discussion about that topic alone.
- yorwba 5y ago
  You can flag such comments.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- sophacles 5y ago
  Why? What's wrong with pointing out a pattern?
Vinnl 5y ago
I think it's useful for developers to have a rough mental model of how open source licensing works, as it's not that complicated yet affects what you can legally do, both as a user of open source software as well as as a contributor. Coincidentally I recently did a Twitter thread on it, in case anyone's interested. I know not everyone like the medium, but at least it's also posted on Mastodon, so there's that: https://fosstodon.org/@VincentTunru/107382356640669971 https://fosstodon.org/@VincentTunru/107382356640669971
- nick__m 5y ago
  There is less correct but funnier comparison. It's a cartoon comparing the various licences as if they were a dad: http://www.wtfpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/wtfpl-strip.jpg http://www.wtfpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/wtfpl-strip.... TikTok probably tought that OBS was licensed under the WTFPL ;)
  - Flankk 5y ago
    - dang 5y ago
      Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? We're trying for something different here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
gunapologist99 5y ago
The use of the word "illegal" seems problematic if this is a contractual dispute over (GPL) license terms. No one seems to be claiming that TikTok actually committed a criminal act (although, perhaps they did, if this was intentional as it appears, and TikTok is engaging in criminal-levels of distribution. Not a lawyer, so just speculating here.) It probably would have been better if the OP had said "violated the license agreement". Still, many other companies have eventually caved under GPL lawsuits, but apparently none in China; probably because it's virtually impossible as a foreigner to win a tort case against a Chinese company. https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The use of the word "illegal" seems problematic if this is a contractual dispute over (GPL) license terms No, it's not. > No one seems to be claiming that TikTok actually committed a criminal act “Criminal” is not the same as “illegal”, the latter includes any violation of law whether or not it is criminal.
  - gunapologist99 5y ago
    This definitely looks like egregious and apparently intentional infringement, but violating the GPL is not violating a law in most countries; it's violating a license agreement. Contracts are not law. Therefore, violating the GPL by itself probably isn't illegal (but it could probably become illegal if other statutes, like CFAA or RICO were brought into play.) If I violate deed restrictions on my property by building a shed, then that wouldn't be illegal per se; it'd simply be a breach of contract and the private organization could sue me for redress. But, if I built that same shed in the middle of a public street, then that might be illegal and the city might have me arrested and prosecuted.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > This is not violating a law; it's violating a license agreement. Contracts are not law. Following legally-valid contracts outside of any legally-valid excuse is law, which is why breach of contract is a cognizable legal cause of action.
greatjack613 5y ago
China, China, China, China
o_p 5y ago
They could simply make a library with the OBS code, open source that and dynamically link it into their app. Forcing copy-left doesnt really benefit the open source community, those who already want to contribute will do so without contract obligations.
zfxfr 5y ago
So concretely what are the risks they encours ?
JoeCee 5y ago
Sorta side question: is it legal/ethical to say, “open source unless you’re a company of more than X people then it’s X * $Y to license”
- jmull 5y ago
  That's fine, except don't call it an "open source" license. That's a commercial license.
  - joebob42 5y ago
    I think it's still open source, it's just not free right?
    - pabs3 5y ago
      The Open Source Definition precludes that type of license, since it discriminates against Persons or Groups or Fields of Endeavor: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd You can of course create such a license, but it would not be an open source license, more like a shared source license or ethical license or something else.
- dnissley 5y ago
  It's perfectly legal/ethical, but it would not be open source at that point. Same as licenses that prevent companies from running the licensed product as a cloud service, even if the source is freely available to view or use in a private capacity.
Buttons840 5y ago
Could GPL include a clause such that, when abused like this, the code of the offending app would become GPL code as well? Imagine people start "stealing" TikTok code, TikToc sues, and now the defendant has their day in court to defend the GPL, at TikToks expense.
- lmm 5y ago
  Remember that what you're legally entitled to is statutory damages ($50k per act of infringement or $150k for wilful infringement) plus whatever actual damages you can prove (probably 0 for a hobbyist). You can negotiate whatever alternative settlement you like, which might mean e.g. regular audits of their code at their expense (the BSA does this kind of thing for a lot of commercial software). But they always have the option of just ponying up that $50k/copy, so you can't be too onerous.
  - mannerheim 5y ago
    Can each download be considered an act of infringement?
    - lmm 5y ago
      Maybe; that's the argument that the MPAA etc. used to threaten people with, but I'm not aware of any court having ruled definitively one way or another.
  - Buttons840 5y ago
    I'm thinking of infringers in China, for example. You wont win any damages from them, but if the GPL says that by using it, you agree to also release you own code under GPL, then at least everyone could start copying China's code. And if they complain, just point to the GPL code they used and say "you agreed to this by using the GPL code in the first place".
    - grayfaced 5y ago
      That only works if they "agreed" to the license in the first place. Without a license, it's just copyright infringement which is controlled by statute. There is no shrink wrap license on source code.
paxys 5y ago
Not strictly enforcing license terms only deteriorates the standing of the license. A tweet or blog post is fine, but unless someone is willing to take TikTok to court over this the takeaway is clear - violate GPL if you want and nothing will come out of it.
- xwdv 5y ago
  This is exactly how licenses work. If there isn’t some entity willing to take people to court for instances in which the license is violated, it will have no teeth and people will steal and use licensed code with glee.
- pabs3 5y ago
  The principles the FSF and Software Freedom Conservancy use when doing copyleft compliance actions encourage making legal action a last resort for when they refuse to comply. Legal action is a costly and time consuming process, so it makes sense to avoid it where possible. https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.htm... Legal action is a last resort. Compliance actions are primarily education and assistance processes to aid those who are not following the license. Most GPL violations occur by mistake, without ill will. Copyleft enforcement should assist these distributors to become helpful participants in the free software projects on which they rely. Occasionally, violations are intentional or the result of severe negligence, and there is no duty to be empathetic in those cases. Even then, a lawsuit is a last resort; mutually agreed terms that fix (or at least cease) further distribution and address damage already done are much better than a battle in court.
  - zucker42 5y ago
    I think a "last resort" is warranted to stop such blatant copyright infringement as this or the Onyx violation of the Linux GPL.
    - pabs3 5y ago
      Agreed, but only if the violator refused to fix the issue or didn't fix it in a timely manner after being notified.
nneonneo 5y ago
The actual Studio app is in beta and is only available to a select group of testers. If you're on the list, you can grab the installer from https://tiktok.com/Studio/Download https://tiktok.com/Studio/Download. If you're not on the list, like me, you can go to a cached version of that page, find the JS code that retrieves the download links (https://lf16-tiktok-web.ttwstatic.com/obj/tiktok-web-us/tiktok/webapp/main/mobile/studio-download.ffbed50df291d3bca0f0.js https://lf16-tiktok-web.ttwstatic.com/obj/tiktok-web-us/tikt...), hit the API that serves up the download links (https://tron-sg.bytelemon.com/api/sdk/check_update?branch=master&pid=6974351561648511246&uid=&buildId= https://tron-sg.bytelemon.com/api/sdk/check_update?branch=ma...) and grab the download links to share with everyone (the files are identical, these are mirrors): https://lf16-live-studio.tiktokcdn.com/obj/tiktok-live-studio-us/6974351561648511246/releases/7383765/0.1.0-beta.10/win32-ia32/tiktok_live_studio-v0.1.0-beta.10-win32-ia32.exe https://lf16-live-studio.tiktokcdn.com/obj/tiktok-live-studi... https://lf1-ttcdn-tos.pstatp.com/obj/tiktok-live-studio/6974351561648511246/releases/7383765/0.1.0-beta.10/win32-ia32/tiktok_live_studio-v0.1.0-beta.10-win32-ia32.exe https://lf1-ttcdn-tos.pstatp.com/obj/tiktok-live-studio/6974...
rubyist5eva 5y ago
China doesn't give a flying f*ck about your software license LOL
- majani 5y ago
  Something tells me that TikTok has somehow managed to get people to forget their country of origin
- okprod 5y ago
  LOL neither did Cisco, until they got sued by the FSF
  - rubyist5eva 5y ago
    Cisco is an American company that follows American law. Chinese companies don't give a damn about American law, especially intellectual property law.
alkonaut 5y ago
Is it clear whether it's a "fork" (i.e. the entirety or a significant portion of the code is used in the derivative work), or whether they just found some utility snippet in an open source project and forgot to wash it? Also isn't TikTok Chinese?
- zucker42 5y ago
  Chinese companies operating in the U.S. are subject to U.S. copyright law.
- okprod 5y ago
  Also isn't TikTok Chinese What's your point?
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    That Chinese corporations traditionally don’t care much for IP law. I doubt that there would be any way to even target their operation in western countries.
    - mr_toad 5y ago
      There are many sanctions a court could impose. Including forcing Apple & Google to remove the app from their stores. It will never get that far. It will be settled.
      - alkonaut 5y ago
        If this is just a snippet copied then I assume the settlement will be “oops, the beta contained a class with code but we removed it” (I.e anonymized the code). If it’s more substantial use of the OBS code then I guess it could be more involved. My money is on that there won’t even be a legal process.
ShrigmaMale 5y ago
Chinas whole economy is built on illegal copying amd stealing ideas, who is surprised? Not me.
- magpi3 5y ago
  I would say the entire world economy is based on people taking other people's ideas and running with them. Steve Jobs was a Silicon Valley folk hero, no? Was he known for implementing his original ideas?
  - rhemingway 5y ago
    What ideas did Steve Jobs illegally copy?
    - rizzaxc 5y ago
      that's an oxymoron. ideas are inherently non copyrightable
- kzrdude 5y ago
  American economy with the likes of youtube and facebook are built on copying and stealing copyrighted video and audio. That's literally how youtube captured all the users: become the go-to place for anyone to upload videos, also spreading copies of music videos. Facebook captures a lot of video viewers by not controlling video sources either in a similar way.
  - shukantpal 5y ago
    There’s no evidence that they are doing that intentionally or deliberately. Sure some creators do that.
    - Dah00n 5y ago
      Sure there are. There was a huge uproar on Facebook on how if you shared a video Facebook itself would show it from Facebook, not link the original source. That is 100% intentionally and deliberately. American companies are absolutely no better. If anything they are worse.
NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
How can I help make sure the people who could sue because of this actually do?
larodi 5y ago
Honestly, open source and GPL are doomed if this does not get sued. Will set an irreversible precedenet.
- phkahler 5y ago
  It would set a bad example, but not a legal precedent.
  - larodi 5y ago
    is it bad example or legal precedents that change people's minds...? it depends, of course.
baud147258 5y ago
So will all those outlets that had "Trump's social network is violating the GPL" stories be jumping on this with equal fervour? Considering they didn't cover the compliance with the GPL that "truth social" (awful name) did, I think we can safely assume they won't.
grouphugs 5y ago
i hope this is not going to be used to fuel more racial tensions or advocate for war
mleonhard 5y ago
Perhaps Bytedance forgot to make the Github repo public [0]? They have released a lot of internal tools as FOSS. [0] https://github.com/orgs/bytedance/repositories?q=live&type=all&language=&sort= https://github.com/orgs/bytedance/repositories?q=live&type=a...
pipeline_peak 5y ago
Not trying to be pessimistic, but has any company ever been sued for illegally forking software as long as their end product was free (as in beer)?
jhatemyjob 5y ago
Not illegal in China.
akagusu 5y ago
TikTok and other companies only represent the ethos of the modern society: take whatever you want no matter how, give nothing in return.
sally1620 5y ago
I remember reading that one of the main activities of FSF is to enforce GPL. Isn't this time they get involved.

1545 points by cwaffles 5y ago

I worked at a medium size software company in New York and our team lead would always say "Why make what you can take?" when referring to finding open source code and running with it, regardless of licensing or anything.

oliwarner 5y ago

It's concerning how many self-labelled software engineers on Twitter are chipping in with comments like "it's open source so it's fair game" or "they just need to add attribution".

mikeryan 5y ago
So, I’m unclear on this if, and I don’t know if this is true, TikTok just creates a UI that “execs” commands to an unmodified OBS executable cli - What is their actual responsibility here?
- pavon 5y ago
  They are distributing the OBS executable, therefore they have an obligation to also distribute the source to those same people on request, and to let them know about their rights to receive the source under the GPL. If OBS really is running standalone, then that is the extent of their responsibilities. If on the other-hand, OBS is being combined with other software to create a derivative work, then they must distribute the full source of that derivative work as well. What constitutes a derivative work is more complicated. It is ultimately a decision for courts, though many folks (including FSF) have opinions on what should and shouldn't be considered a derivative work.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
criddell 5y ago
It might not be like this everywhere, but in the US all software engineers are self-labelled. It's not like medical doctor (MD) or professional engineer (PE) where the title actually implies some license to practice.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  Common misconception, but Software Engineer is actually a licensed profession in many states (with vague industry exemptions): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_professionalism#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_professio... But virtually nobody does it. The NCEES even abandoned their Software Engineer licensing exam a few years ago because nobody was taking it.
  - anthk 5y ago
    In Europe being an engineer has civil accountability on issues. You can be fined really high if you hire a self-called engineer without a proper degree. Or at least decades of alleged experience in the field.
    - k12sosse 5y ago
      Especially without the accountability. Call yourself a software engineer? Did your code break? Is it vulnerable to exploits? What was the damage? Did you ship it knowing it was not fit for public usage? Congratulations! you're no longer allowed to program for a living and the state is suing you and your employer for damages.
      - saghm 5y ago
        I think part of the problem is that compared to more traditional forms of engineering, software engineering is still really young and not as rigorous. Right now, _nobody_ can write code without any bugs it in whatsoever. If we banned people who wrote buggy code, pretty soon we'd have no software engineers left. Regardless of whether you think that's a good idea, it seems pretty clear that at the very least there is a lot of demand for programmers, so it's unlikely the industry would get behind limiting that further in such a drastic way.
skeeter2020 5y ago
In many jurisidictions "Engineer" is a licensed and regulated title, and their professional organizations have tried to regulate it, but lost the war. We know have actual engineering programs that focus on software and 6-week bootcamps graduating people who claim to be "Software Engineers", so add it to the list of appropriated words right next to "Geek".
- lainga 5y ago
  The attitude on (mostly American) HN is against licensing bodies, as far as I've seen in the past.
  - tata71 5y ago
    If you saw, or were exposed to, how many thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours it takes native professionals to get licensed to do hair braiding or cutting, you'd be disenfranchised, too.
    - lainga 5y ago
      Native professional like native-born American? In my case I pay about 300 CAD a year to EGBC and have not heard from my colleagues that getting a P.Eng in BC is a significant time-sink. You have to have 4 years of work experience, get your work certified, and then do a couple exams. I would believe dozens of hours, but not hundreds.
- emaginniss 5y ago
  Right, "geek" should go back to the original definition: a person who bites the head off of a chicken in a carnival show.
  - mometsi 5y ago
    And he is a foole, a sotte, and a geke also, Which choseth a place vnto the same to go, And where diuers wayes lead thither directly He choseth the worst and most of ieopardie https://www.otago.ac.nz/english-linguistics/tudor/BarcEclogues.html https://www.otago.ac.nz/english-linguistics/tudor/BarcEclogu...
throwhauser 5y ago
It's reminiscent of people adding "no copyright intended" (sic) when posting other people's music online. It seems like intuitions about copyright have been shifting, even if the law hasn't.
- minimaxir 5y ago
  At the least, the internet eventually realized that "you must delete your video game ROMs within 24 hours of obtaining them" is not a valid legal stance.
  - ludamad 5y ago
    Oh that jogs forgotten memories.
    - codetrotter 5y ago
      Anyone remember that disclaimer some pirate websites used to have where they said something starting with something like “On October 28, 1998, President Clinton signed into law the Digital Millennium Copyright Act”, and the disclaimer went on to mention some DMCA exceptions like learning and teaching or something? Always gave me a chuckle. As if saying that the DMCA does not apply for you is enough to make it actually so.
- slantyyz 5y ago
  > It seems like intuitions about copyright have been shifting, even if the law hasn't. I think people actually know it's wrong and legally questionable. I believe they do it because they simply want to do it and in the back of their minds, hope adding some bogus disclaimer will let them get away with it... because other people seem to be getting away with it.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    I think people think it's legally wrong but not morally wrong, and so they add a bogus disclaimer hoping that they can get away with it because other people have.
yumraj 5y ago
Probably they are employed at companies who are themselves violating GPL and have seen this being done there.
- delusional 5y ago
  How do you think companies end up violating GPL. Maybe sometimes it's a heartless executive, but a lot of enterprise software devs are completely unconcerned with licenses. If they can get their hands on it, the license doesn't matter.
  - jermaustin1 5y ago
    I had a senior dev at a past job who did this constantly. And when it was found out how much he actually stole, our entire team was laid off and replaced by the company that did the audit. He just refused to believe that software licenses were real. That and I dont think he could actually code anything from scratch without stealing large swaths of code from open source repositories.
    - vkat 5y ago
      Copy/paste without attribution to license or permission is more blatant.
      - jermaustin1 5y ago
        Organizationally he was given free reign to do whatever he wanted, and that lead to the entire teams downfall. He canceled code reviews... for himself. Well, he actually stated, all code reviews go through him, thus he "code reviewed" his own code. I remember he was once a few weeks late on delivering a basic landing page, and when it finally got to QA at 9pm on a Friday, our entire team was forced to work the weekend and QA gave me a TFS export of more than 200 defects I had to fix because he was unreachable. Needless to say, our entire team was upset we all got laid off, but also relieved because we all ended up in better jobs. At least everyone I've talked to, which is everyone but him, as he has never responded to a single text message or email since he quit after the layoff (he refused severance, and just walked out), all his socials went off line, and any record of his name has disappeared from the internet. I'm fairly certain he was a conman, but I have no way of finding out.
SavantIdiot 5y ago
There are subtleties not captured by this quick overview which are not fully understood by (in my experience) the vast majority of programmers: https://choosealicense.com/licenses/ https://choosealicense.com/licenses/ If your project is going to be "real" (e.g., not some personal throwaway), you really need a lawyer if you are including anything other than MIT. Even Apache can be problematic when it comes to patenting.
- gus_massa 5y ago
  What about BSD?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - krylon 5y ago
    I am not a lawyer, but the (2-clause) BSD and MIT licenses look nearly identical to me. The wording is slightly different, but I think they express the same intent.
znpy 5y ago
> self-labelled software engineers are you implying there should be requirements to label yourself as an engineer? like a degree in engineering ?
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  This is already a thing in the US.
908B64B197 5y ago
I wish "software engineer" meant something. There are CMU/MIT grads using the tittle alongside 3 month bootcamp grads. I also have to wonder, with the owners of Tik Tok really being ByteDance (字节跳动) if the dissrespect for IP really isn't cultural.
- paxys 5y ago
  The title isn't what's important, it's your skills and what you can do with them. The MIT grad and 3 month bootcamp grad both have the same opportunity to complete and prove themselves, which is unique to the software field. Lack of artificial barriers and gatekeeping is the very reason why the industry is able to thrive.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    But you get these twitter threads that are highly missleading. Would be great to have some quality control at some point. This doesn't make real engineers look good in the eyes of the public. Same thing with medical profesionnals spreading anti-vaxx news around.
koonsolo 5y ago
Maybe it's a generational thing. In the olden days, Open Source was basically GPL. But nowadays, Open Source is basically BSD. So I get it that all the npm developers don't really consider that some licenses might be restrictive.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dang 5y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592556.
viktorcode 5y ago
Most likely that's the reason of OBS' code ending up in TikTok's product. Some engineer disregarded the license with no insidious intention to steal.
- mr_toad 5y ago
  It’s even possible that the developer tried to get the product to be compliant and was ignored.

mrweasel 5y ago

Are they technically obligated to provide the source code online, or could they just say: "Well it's available on request, and no one has done so"? The just mail out a USB stick or DVD to anyone who asks? I believe that's with in the limits of the GPLv2.

Karunamon 5y ago
Yep. "available on request" is perfectly allowed, there's no requirement that it be on a publicly available webpage.
- teddyh 5y ago
  No, the offer of source code must be explicit, not just available if anyone happens to ask.
  - dspillett 5y ago
    The offer yes, but the code does not need to be that easy to publicly access. Of course once the first person to request the source via that offer gets it (assuming they come good in that respect) it might be made more easily available.
    - teddyh 5y ago
      Sure, but did anyone installing the TikTok streaming software get such an explicit offer? If not, then, hey, GPL violation.
- DannyBee 5y ago
  This is totally wrong. It must be an explicit offer for source. " 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: ... b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, " Note accompany it. The only exception is this: "If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code. "

msarrel 5y ago

It ends up being close to impossible to enforce these licenses.

neyme 5y ago

I've always wondered if these license are legally enforceable. What if TikTok ignores the criticism and does nothing. Do the developers sue the company and will they get any money?

vineyardmike 5y ago
They could try to get money but they could also try to get a cease and desist order to compel them to stop if they don’t even post suit. Not sure if that means violating is criminal or anything but means you’re ignoring a court order which is a big no-no legally.
pabs3 5y ago
Enforcement of the GPL was done way back in 2003 against Linksys and resulted in the OpenWRT project. In Europe the GPL Violations project brought a lot of other cases. So there is plenty of precedent. The principles the FSF and Software Freedom Conservancy use when doing enforcement actions emphasise using legal action as a last resort and not prioritising financial gain (they usually just ask for legal costs and costs for verifying the violation). https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-strategy.html#brief-history-of-user-focused-gpl-enforcement https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-st... https://gpl-violations.org/ https://gpl-violations.org/ https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.htm...

jetsetgo 5y ago

When Logitech and StreamElements do it; it's fine?

xvector 5y ago

okprod 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

a2tech 5y ago

Well not illegal. It looks like they need to acknowledge and include the OBS license.

NeutronStar 5y ago
Illegal until then.
Rygian 5y ago
If they are not already acknowledging and including the OBS license, then it's already in breach of the license (ie. "illegal" in the informal sense that you used).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
1_player 5y ago
Not only the license, the source code as well. The GPLv2 license exists for a reason. """ These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it. For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights. """ https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/COPYING https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/COPYING
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

The original Tweet (embedded one from HunterAP) says TikTok installs OBS and uses it in the background with a TikTok front-end. It doesn’t say that they’ve illegally forked it. EDIT: See comments from OBS developer below for a more clear explanation of the issues than the linked Tweet

yorwba 5y ago
> The original Tweet (embedded one from HunterAP) says TikTok installs OBS and uses it in the background with a TikTok front-end. It doesn’t say that they’ve illegally forked it. It does say "illegal fork" below HunterAP's username and above the screenshot.
r1ch 5y ago
OBS developer here. It doesn't "install OBS in the background". They ship several executables as part of their software that contain code derived from OBS and there is no offer of source code. They're currently in violation of the GPL, but per our GPL Cooperation Commitment we are trying to work this out with them privately.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. Is there anywhere where this is written up more clearly? Even on Twitter? Would be good to circulate a more clear explanation of what's going on.
  - r1ch 5y ago
    Not at the moment, we're trying to resolve it in private. Similar to how the Streamlabs situation unfolded, we don't want to "go public" until all other options have been exhausted, though it's looking like this choice may be out of our hands.
- pabs3 5y ago
  A link to that commitment for those who are looking: https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/COMMITMENT https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/COMMITM... I'd encourage you to also adopt the FSF/SFC's "Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement": https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.htm...

throwawayay02 5y ago

> OBS is free for anyone to use, for any reason. Other developers can use the OBS code in their own projects as long as they obey the guidelines set forth in the GPLv2 license. OBS has no watermarks or other limitations and can be used commercially with no restrictions. So I guess there's nothing wrong with that.

dtech 5y ago
It depends on how they integrated. GPLv2 requires that TikTok's version is either GPL-compatible itself (I doubt it), or they use OBS as an external program. edit This comment [1] claims GPL code is compiled into their non-GPL program, which is a huge no-no [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592556
jmcs 5y ago
It would depend if Tiktok Editor is legally considered a derivative application or not. If it is, then it's in breach of GPLv2.

ghusbands 5y ago

People are misunderstanding this and claiming it's not problematic. Ben Torrell (an OBS developer) notes later in the thread that there is indeed GPL code compiled into TikTok's executables; since source is not available and they have not got another license, it is unlicensed and hence illegal.

mynameismon 5y ago
Relavant Tweet: https://twitter.com/dodgepong/status/1471522226520346632 https://twitter.com/dodgepong/status/1471522226520346632
- trynewideas 5y ago
  See also https://twitter.com/dodgepong/status/1471528656199692292 https://twitter.com/dodgepong/status/1471528656199692292 and https://twitter.com/dodgepong/status/1471524716477300737 https://twitter.com/dodgepong/status/1471524716477300737 too twitter; didn't read: there's apparently OBS code evident in the decompiled app, and other GPL code as well, and OBS found out independently and are working to resolve it
  - mynameismon 5y ago
    Also important to note: OBS developers also found incidents of OBS code outside of that instance, and they are working with TikTok on the same.
  - 4684499 5y ago
    That's pretty fast for a beta released yesterday. Are the devs actively monitoring and reverse engineering every binary released that related to streaming? Also, where can I get the live studio executable? None of the links I found works, is that public release?
    - r1ch 5y ago
      I'm the one on the OBS team who originally found this. I saw a tweet yesterday from someone that's in the beta, and as with any desktop live streaming software (and especially with "Studio" in the name) I was curious if they were using any OBS Studio code or if it was developed all in-house. The download link is available in their JS, you can find the most recent installer link here: https://tron-sg.bytelemon.com/api/sdk/check_update?branch=master&pid=6974351561648511246&uid=&buildId= https://tron-sg.bytelemon.com/api/sdk/check_update?branch=ma... (note: you probably won't be able to actually use it without being in the beta group) Without even installing it, opening the setup files showed some immediate red flags, notably the "GameDetour64.dll", "Inject64.exe" and "MediaSDKGetWinDXOffset64.exe" look awfully similar to the way the OBS Studio game capture hooks work with our "graphics-hook64.dll", "inject-helper64.exe" and "get-graphics-offsets64.exe". I don't jump straight in to disassembling everything I come across, but when it's this obvious it begs further investigation, and after some disassembly I was able to confirm that OBS code was present in their binaries.

pshushereba 5y ago

China stealing intellectual property? If only we could have seen this coming!

c0balt 5y ago
Not like US companies would be any better. They usually just take more care of hiding it, cause you know, cause you know lawsuits.
- adventured 5y ago
  US (and European) companies are typically a lot better about it, precisely because they fear lawsuits, they fear the consequences. China and its large companies don't fear lawsuits the way US corporations do. That's how Jack Ma was able to steal Alipay from Yahoo shareholders and laugh all the way to the bank, there were no consequences to worry about. It's why Yahoo capitulated in dealing with Alibaba as a major shareholder, they knew the end result would have been their ownership stake could just be zero'd out at any time. That's why China can arbitrarily point at Didi and tell them to delist, regardless of what it does to foreign shareholders - there's nothing to worry about, there will be no meaningful consequences. You can't get at them domestically if they don't want you to, because they're a nation that operates by the shielded, arbitrary dictate of the CCP rather than laws, and nearly everyone is afraid of their retaliation (including the richest corporations in the world like Apple). Nobody much fears the US will retaliate the way China does. That's why the EU has been pounding US tech companies with mega fines, and wouldn't dare behave that way toward China. It's why the green virtue signalers are so very scared to publicly lambast China, and they'll harangue the US and EU all day. It's why the NBA will intentionally ignore any and all atrocities of China (they're intensely terrified to utter even the slightest of negative words toward China), yet they have almost zero fear of jabbing the US 24/7 - it's because for the most part nobody is afraid of the US.
  - throwaway473825 5y ago
    The Swedish bank oligopoly once illegally used Moxie Marlinespike's GPL code in their closed-source app: https://mobile.twitter.com/moxie/status/530252445725642752 https://mobile.twitter.com/moxie/status/530252445725642752 They even refused to get in touch. Why would they when they have most Swedish political parties in their pocket? And that's in one of the world's least corrupt countries.

h2odragon 5y ago

So will all those outlets that had "Trump's social network is violating the GPL" stories be jumping on this with equal fervor? Considering they didn't cover the compliance with the GPL that "truth social" (awful name) did, I think we can safely assume they won't. That said, TikTok using and backing OBS makes perfect sense, the terms of the license aren't onerous and everybody benefits. "Open source works like its supposed to" isn't a eyeball grabbing headline tho.

vmception 5y ago

“Right click and save as” jokes not looking so funny anymore?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

londons_explore 5y ago

The commitment[1] appears to say, in summary, "you can violate the license anytime, and as long as you stop violating soon after we tell you to, there can be no financial penalties". That makes the GPL substantially weaker, since now a company can use GPL code in any place they think nobody will look. They will never be on the hook for court ordered damages going back years for unlicensed use. [1]: https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/COMMITMENT https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/COMMITM...

zinekeller 5y ago
> That makes the GPL substantially weaker, since now a company can use GPL code in any place they think nobody will look. They will never be on the hook for court ordered damages going back years for unlicensed use. In OBS' case, maybe. But OBS' developers' generosity doesn't automatically translate to other developers, and even in proprietary cases, there have been cases of a exact-copy contract that have gone significantly different ways.
phkahler 5y ago
I'm not a fan of the GPLv3 limiting the available response to copyright violations. Time limits in particular. It's one of the less clear parts of the license IMHO, and it affects the primary means of enforcement. Fortunately a lot of GPLv3 code is actually 3+ so maybe if a version 4 ever comes along this nonsensical restriction on enforcement will be more limited. I do understand the reasons around accidental misuse, but I haven't really seen anyone getting into big trouble from accidental misuse. I have seen these high profile cases of deliberate misuse by big corporations.
- lucasyvas 5y ago
  I'm not personally a fan of protecting against accidental misuse. No other law offers significant leniency for ignorance that I am aware of.
  - r_hoods_ghost 5y ago

AustinDev 5y ago

So people that have ripped off OBS so far and violated GPL include TikTok, StreamLabs (Logitech), and StreamElements. Any other people I missed?

detaro 5y ago
StreamLabs afaik kept clear of GPL violations?
the-dude 5y ago
How did StreamLabs violate the GPL?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pineconewarrior 5y ago
  The OBS project has accused StreamLabs of copying their name and stealing their trademark (By naming their software StreamLabs OBS). I'm not sure about any source code thievery.
  - r1ch 5y ago
    Streamlabs violated OBS' trademarks, their fork has always complied with the GPL.
    - AustinDev 5y ago
      There were 6 to 12 months iirc where they did not distribute their source required by GPL. I have close friends on the OBS team.
      - wccrawford 5y ago
        If nobody asked for the source and was denied, they were not yet in violation. They aren't required to actually post it online. They can simply send it to someone when asked.

orliesaurus 5y ago

I hope they donate to the OBS project at least...

lucasyvas 5y ago
Doubt

nunez 5y ago

Damn two big names stealing from OBS in one year! It is great software, though; I can see why companies would go that route.

lucasyvas 5y ago

In almost all cases, TikTok's offering would be considered a derived work because you cannot swap out the OBS part for another and still have it work. So they are likely in full violation unless they agree to open source all their code. Seems like a pretty open and shut case to be honest - that is, if they intend to pursue legal action and the powers that be rule appropriately.

_fat_santa 5y ago
Like others have said though, any derivative works of OBS must also contain the same GPL License. It was pointed out in that thread that Reddit also forked OBS for their live steaming but they didn't get into hot water because they followed the rules and open sourced their software like the License required them to.
thebean11 5y ago
I'm out of my depth here, but what makes you say they can't swap out the OBS part for something else? Do you mean they can't swap it without modifying the rest of the code, or can't swap it at all?
- randomNumber7 5y ago
  If they swap it out, they have to build code which does exactly the same/ has the same interface. It can still be considered a "derived" work. I'm not a lawyer but that was what op meant.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    I'm not sure, that sounds a lot like the Oracle v Google argument on whether an API is copyrightable.
    - lucasyvas 5y ago
      I don't think the API part matters as much. What matters most is that they'd have to rebuild OBS capabilities from scratch and prove there is a clean separation. Otherwise, it's a derived work because separating them makes the TikTok offering useless / not functional.

Shubhi_29 5y ago

Tiktok is ban in India

andrew_ 5y ago

I'd like to see HN shy away from posting twitter threads as news. There's almost always a hard link to the source material, and twitter threads are filled with emotional, truncated, nuance-lacking, trite clips that more often than not do little to promote healthy discussion of a topic. The goal of quality here really is noble.

platz 5y ago
sometimes thats where the news is
- Kinrany 5y ago
  Including this case. The "original" original is a Discord message.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Oddskar 5y ago
Why would a newspaper article that regurgitates the Twitter thread be any better? If the source is Twitter then I much prefer a link to Twitter.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  But the news isn’t that somebody on Twitter found this license issue, the news is that there’s a license issue. A tweet could be a good tip for a journalist to do journalistic things like finding out if its true and writing up some context of how this has happened before and what GPL is, that way the story can be understood by a wider audience. Twitter is popular for people obsessed with hearing the latest rumor, but if TikTok is an illegal fork of OBS, I’d rather hear a few days later the well researched details - or if its a nothingburger overreaction, then I’d rather not hear about it at all.
galgalesh 5y ago
From the HN guidelines: > Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.

sergiotapia 5y ago

Hope there is a multi-million dollar pay-off for OBS.

jaywalk 5y ago
OBS is willing to work with TikTok to get them into compliance. That would either mean open-sourcing the software or paying for a license.
- bilbo0s 5y ago
  At this point, it's not even clear to me that paying would rectify the legal issue with respect to the GPL. It's an amalgamation of source contributions over time. Any one contributor could, in theory, refuse any consideration other than an open sourcing of the software. Of course, now I think about it, that could be an easy problem to fix. They say every man has a number.
  - ghusbands 5y ago
    Almost all relicensing efforts are actually most hindered by not being able to contact people. If you can't contact someone who holds the copyright to something, you can't change the licensing rights over it. A lot of projects have copyright assignment, to allow for relicensing. They typically ask for you to assign copyright to them or to a company they control, so that they can still relicense as they see fit, in future.
    - dodgepong 5y ago
      It's worth noting that if someone can't be contacted, the maintainers aren't out of luck yet. If the contribution is deleted (and then possibly reimplemented later by someone with whom the project _is_ in contact) then the issue is resolved. It can be a lot of work, though, depending on the size and importance of the contribution, and reimplementing the code in a way that doesn't derive from the original submission can be difficult or ambiguous.
- SergeAx 5y ago

endisneigh 5y ago

People expecting OBS to get millions from this are naïve. Almost certainly TikTok will change the software to just use OBS independently to avoid the issue. If OBS wants money they should use a dual license.

selfhoster11 5y ago
Nobody says they want money. They likely just want the GPL violation to stop, one way or another.
- pabs3 5y ago
  Indeed, enforcement actions should always be about making the compliance happen and never prioritize financial gain. https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.htm...
VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
did anybody say OBS wanted millions? > Almost certainly TikTok will change the software to just use OBS independently to avoid the issue. this is a perfectly acceptable outcome.
paulryanrogers 5y ago
And yet it could be argued that TikTok saved millions they'd otherwise have had to pay to produce or license equivalent software.
Trumpi 5y ago
I imagine that OBS merely want others to abide by their license.
phkahler 5y ago
>> People expecting OBS to get millions from this are naïve. IANAL but copyright violation has already happened. Due to our insane lobbyists the penalties for that are something like $150K per copy. If/when some copyright holder wants to make an example and get rich instead of settling for compliance, they should be quite able to do so. I would love to see a big evil company smacked down like that. >> If OBS wants money they should use a dual license. That's just an opinion.

EGreg 5y ago

Some people on HN make fun of “code is law”, but in this the “law about code” is hardly enforceable internationally. Putting the snark aside - let’s at the broader picture ! Web disrupted journalism, cable, tv, radio, magazines, newspapers and made it permissionless across geographic boundaries Smart contracts can do the same for finance, voting, banking, legal enforcement and more The question here is, can we enforce copyright without the threat of force (like SWAT teams taking down a grandma or Kim DotCom) And do we need artificial scarcity at all, as seems to be the case now with NFTs and metaverse? These are major topics andI can’t do them justice in a small text comment. For whoever is interested, explored these topics and Internet economics in our recent episode of the Intercoin Show: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=72kaDtfuIG4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=72kaDtfuIG4 If you don’t want to have scarcity for digital content but still want to get paid at scale, here is another approach that is completely web based: https://qbix.com/token https://qbix.com/token Ignore the token part and look at the iframes part. Would love feedback:

jrm4 5y ago

Yup. The best thing we can all do is shine a light on it. I'm a lawyer and one thing that's important to remember in all of this is the interconnectedness of things, and being strategic about how to proceed is important. Shine the light everywhere. As in, one thing to consider is that some proponents of Free Software do not actually want certain types of high-profile public cases on the GPL even when they law appears to be very much on their side, mostly because it could be really bad if a judge gets it wrong and sets something stupid as precedent.

bogwog 5y ago
> mostly because it could be really bad if a judge gets it wrong and sets something stupid as precedent. At this point, isn't precedent already set? There have been more than a few GPL lawsuits where the courts ruled in favor of the GPL. This wiki has a list (https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases) of them. Some of those are in the US, others in the EU. Not sure if US judges have to consider precedents set in EU countries?
- jrm4 5y ago
  I'd say there's not "enough," and in a sense, precedent is never binary, like "yes or no?" The law having distinctions and extensions and so on. US will probably find EU law persuasive but not binding. So broadly, I think at least part of the strategy is "don't wake the beast." You really don't want e.g. "Microsoft v. Tiny GPL guy" as a big case because the law is far from perfect and there would be a lot of potential incentive/influence in MS's favor. (True, you'd get lots of Amicus action from Mozilla et al, but that would probably not be enough)
  - pabs3 5y ago
    There is precedent from 2003 in the USA: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-strategy.html#brief-history-of-user-focused-gpl-enforcement https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-st...

markus_zhang 5y ago

Open source software license should include a clause saying that it is mandatory for commercial users to pay a certain amount of contribution annually, let's say 0.01% of gross revenue? So if they find it too expensively they can simply turn away and build their own, which is good for whoever get the chance to do some lower level programming, and if they find it OK the open source authors/maintainers can get some good money. It's a win-win. Of course this might request open source authors/maintainers to form a more rigid organization (how to share the profit).

ghaff 5y ago
Then it's not an open source software license.
- 29083011397778 5y ago
  I suspect you're conflating Free, Libre, and Open-Source Software. The first can be free (as in beer), the second free (as in you can do whatever you please with it), and the last is that the source is publicly available. GP's proposition would be Open-Source, but not FLOSS IIUC
  - ghaff 5y ago
    In general people use the open source definition and the licenses approved by the OSI as what defines open source. These don't allow you to discriminate based on usage, such as commercial use. (If you own the copyrights, you can dual license under both an open source and a non-open source license of course.) "Source available" or "shared source" licenses are not generally considered open source.
  - andrewshadura 5y ago
    You are mistaken. All three terms have the same meaning.
  - andrewshadura 5y ago
    Open source software is a name for free software which was intended to make it sound less ideologically loaded. Libre software, on the other hand, is a name for free software intended to make it less ambiguous while preserving ideology. Anyone who claims otherwise is either: a) trying to be an ideological purist fighting with those not following their ideology to the maximum, or b) trying to mislead you to try and devalue the terms, or has been misled by (a) or (b).

12ian34 5y ago

Could someone please help explain to me and (others who might not know) what is the concrete problem caused by this forking that doesn't comply with the license?

ilaksh 5y ago
Read the GPL. You can't fork without releasing the source code. Unless you buy a commercial license (if they sell that).
kaslai 5y ago
The GPL requires that any derivative work of GPL licensed code must also be licensed under the same (or compatible) license as the original GPL'd code. This is the "viral" aspect of the license. It applies even if the only interface between your code and the GPL code is dynamic linking, and not a single line of the GPL'd code is in your application. There are acceptable ways to bundle GPL code with closed source software in a single distributable, however it must be made clear which parts of the distribution are licensed under the GPL and the GPL license must be clearly present. Even in the most charitable reading of the situation, TikTok violated this basic requirement.
- 12ian34 5y ago
  And why is it important for GPL to be honoured in this case? Like.. what protection is GPL providing here and to whom exactly?
  - pabs3 5y ago
    So that the recipients of the code have the four freedoms defined by the FSF: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms: [1] The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2). The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

dangerface 5y ago

It seems like OBS is the opensource software every uses but has no idea because it gets ripped off and repackaged so much.

citizenpaul 5y ago

TikTok is in China. There is no such thing as illegal forks their. Half their economy is based on stealing IP and mass producing it cheaply. Any laws or legality is just lip service to shut up companies and governments that complain.

leodriesch 5y ago
The American operations of TikTok have to follow American law and have to follow orders given by an American court. They will then have to comply or leave the American market.
- citizenpaul 5y ago
  I knew someone would mention this. You are wrong but I'm not going to try to explain international espionage, fraud and laundering in a comment post.

ravel-bar-foo 5y ago

At this point, would it even hurt TikTok to open source their code? The network effect and user profiles are their moat, not their codebase.

jackTheMan 5y ago
if they remove all surveillance stuff.. maybe not
- hkalbasi 5y ago
  Isn't (important part of) surveillance stuff on the server side?
dodgepong 5y ago
If the app includes ByteDance's proprietary BVC1 or BVC2 encoders, it's possible those would have to be open-sourced.

s7r 5y ago

First thought while reading headline: this is why copyleft is useful.

literallyWTF 5y ago

It’s almost like licensing is completely pointless unless you have the money to sue.

tobltobs 5y ago
Enough money to sue the CCP.

oolonthegreat 5y ago

apparently OBS devs don't want to share direct evidence yet and resolve it privately probably due to their GPL Cooperation Commitment. while I'm sure we all appreciate that, it would be nice to see the decompiled binaries and the exact violations, just so we can explicitly point them out and argue. I find it VERY easy to believe that Tiktok are indeed in violation, but right now all we have are statements and a 302 redirect to Microsoft Directx download page.

dvt 5y ago

How can you be so inept that you're literally stealing software, but are too incompetent to properly obfuscate it?

entropie 5y ago
Right? They are not even trying. Probably there is also a little spike in the logs of obsproject.org which could lead to some investigation.
1_player 5y ago
Thieves are known not to be smart. If you're smart enough, you'll know that stealing probably isn't worth it.
tzs 5y ago
I find it amusing that there are (at the moment) 8 comments that label this "stealing", as does the submitted Tweet, with no one objecting to that terminology. Whenever such usage comes up when movie or music piracy is discussed any such usage is quickly objected to. Anyone want to have a go at trying to distinguish the two?
- jancsika 5y ago
  > Whenever such usage comes up when movie or music piracy is discussed any such usage is quickly objected to. How can you state "quickly objected to" when the commonly accepted term-- including here on HN-- is "music piracy?"
pabs3 5y ago
Its entirely possibly the devs responsible for this hadn't even heard of the GPL or hadn't even read the license or just did it and didn't care about the consequences for their employer.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

soheil 5y ago

How do we make sure people invoking China-stealing-intellectual-property-yet-again don’t pile on this thread? If this is a case of a company wrongfully using IP we need to very much have a discussion about that topic alone.

yorwba 5y ago
You can flag such comments.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sophacles 5y ago
Why? What's wrong with pointing out a pattern?

Vinnl 5y ago

I think it's useful for developers to have a rough mental model of how open source licensing works, as it's not that complicated yet affects what you can legally do, both as a user of open source software as well as as a contributor. Coincidentally I recently did a Twitter thread on it, in case anyone's interested. I know not everyone like the medium, but at least it's also posted on Mastodon, so there's that: https://fosstodon.org/@VincentTunru/107382356640669971 https://fosstodon.org/@VincentTunru/107382356640669971

nick__m 5y ago
There is less correct but funnier comparison. It's a cartoon comparing the various licences as if they were a dad: http://www.wtfpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/wtfpl-strip.jpg http://www.wtfpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/wtfpl-strip.... TikTok probably tought that OBS was licensed under the WTFPL ;)
- Flankk 5y ago
  - dang 5y ago
    Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? We're trying for something different here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

gunapologist99 5y ago

The use of the word "illegal" seems problematic if this is a contractual dispute over (GPL) license terms. No one seems to be claiming that TikTok actually committed a criminal act (although, perhaps they did, if this was intentional as it appears, and TikTok is engaging in criminal-levels of distribution. Not a lawyer, so just speculating here.) It probably would have been better if the OP had said "violated the license agreement". Still, many other companies have eventually caved under GPL lawsuits, but apparently none in China; probably because it's virtually impossible as a foreigner to win a tort case against a Chinese company. https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases

dragonwriter 5y ago
> The use of the word "illegal" seems problematic if this is a contractual dispute over (GPL) license terms No, it's not. > No one seems to be claiming that TikTok actually committed a criminal act “Criminal” is not the same as “illegal”, the latter includes any violation of law whether or not it is criminal.
- gunapologist99 5y ago
  This definitely looks like egregious and apparently intentional infringement, but violating the GPL is not violating a law in most countries; it's violating a license agreement. Contracts are not law. Therefore, violating the GPL by itself probably isn't illegal (but it could probably become illegal if other statutes, like CFAA or RICO were brought into play.) If I violate deed restrictions on my property by building a shed, then that wouldn't be illegal per se; it'd simply be a breach of contract and the private organization could sue me for redress. But, if I built that same shed in the middle of a public street, then that might be illegal and the city might have me arrested and prosecuted.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > This is not violating a law; it's violating a license agreement. Contracts are not law. Following legally-valid contracts outside of any legally-valid excuse is law, which is why breach of contract is a cognizable legal cause of action.

greatjack613 5y ago

China, China, China, China

o_p 5y ago

They could simply make a library with the OBS code, open source that and dynamically link it into their app. Forcing copy-left doesnt really benefit the open source community, those who already want to contribute will do so without contract obligations.

zfxfr 5y ago

So concretely what are the risks they encours ?

JoeCee 5y ago

Sorta side question: is it legal/ethical to say, “open source unless you’re a company of more than X people then it’s X * $Y to license”

jmull 5y ago
That's fine, except don't call it an "open source" license. That's a commercial license.
- joebob42 5y ago
  I think it's still open source, it's just not free right?
  - pabs3 5y ago
    The Open Source Definition precludes that type of license, since it discriminates against Persons or Groups or Fields of Endeavor: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd You can of course create such a license, but it would not be an open source license, more like a shared source license or ethical license or something else.
dnissley 5y ago
It's perfectly legal/ethical, but it would not be open source at that point. Same as licenses that prevent companies from running the licensed product as a cloud service, even if the source is freely available to view or use in a private capacity.

Buttons840 5y ago

Could GPL include a clause such that, when abused like this, the code of the offending app would become GPL code as well? Imagine people start "stealing" TikTok code, TikToc sues, and now the defendant has their day in court to defend the GPL, at TikToks expense.

lmm 5y ago
Remember that what you're legally entitled to is statutory damages ($50k per act of infringement or $150k for wilful infringement) plus whatever actual damages you can prove (probably 0 for a hobbyist). You can negotiate whatever alternative settlement you like, which might mean e.g. regular audits of their code at their expense (the BSA does this kind of thing for a lot of commercial software). But they always have the option of just ponying up that $50k/copy, so you can't be too onerous.
- mannerheim 5y ago
  Can each download be considered an act of infringement?
  - lmm 5y ago
    Maybe; that's the argument that the MPAA etc. used to threaten people with, but I'm not aware of any court having ruled definitively one way or another.
- Buttons840 5y ago
  I'm thinking of infringers in China, for example. You wont win any damages from them, but if the GPL says that by using it, you agree to also release you own code under GPL, then at least everyone could start copying China's code. And if they complain, just point to the GPL code they used and say "you agreed to this by using the GPL code in the first place".
  - grayfaced 5y ago
    That only works if they "agreed" to the license in the first place. Without a license, it's just copyright infringement which is controlled by statute. There is no shrink wrap license on source code.

paxys 5y ago

Not strictly enforcing license terms only deteriorates the standing of the license. A tweet or blog post is fine, but unless someone is willing to take TikTok to court over this the takeaway is clear - violate GPL if you want and nothing will come out of it.

xwdv 5y ago
This is exactly how licenses work. If there isn’t some entity willing to take people to court for instances in which the license is violated, it will have no teeth and people will steal and use licensed code with glee.
pabs3 5y ago
The principles the FSF and Software Freedom Conservancy use when doing copyleft compliance actions encourage making legal action a last resort for when they refuse to comply. Legal action is a costly and time consuming process, so it makes sense to avoid it where possible. https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.htm... Legal action is a last resort. Compliance actions are primarily education and assistance processes to aid those who are not following the license. Most GPL violations occur by mistake, without ill will. Copyleft enforcement should assist these distributors to become helpful participants in the free software projects on which they rely. Occasionally, violations are intentional or the result of severe negligence, and there is no duty to be empathetic in those cases. Even then, a lawsuit is a last resort; mutually agreed terms that fix (or at least cease) further distribution and address damage already done are much better than a battle in court.
- zucker42 5y ago
  I think a "last resort" is warranted to stop such blatant copyright infringement as this or the Onyx violation of the Linux GPL.
  - pabs3 5y ago
    Agreed, but only if the violator refused to fix the issue or didn't fix it in a timely manner after being notified.

nneonneo 5y ago

The actual Studio app is in beta and is only available to a select group of testers. If you're on the list, you can grab the installer from https://tiktok.com/Studio/Download https://tiktok.com/Studio/Download. If you're not on the list, like me, you can go to a cached version of that page, find the JS code that retrieves the download links (https://lf16-tiktok-web.ttwstatic.com/obj/tiktok-web-us/tiktok/webapp/main/mobile/studio-download.ffbed50df291d3bca0f0.js https://lf16-tiktok-web.ttwstatic.com/obj/tiktok-web-us/tikt...), hit the API that serves up the download links (https://tron-sg.bytelemon.com/api/sdk/check_update?branch=master&pid=6974351561648511246&uid=&buildId= https://tron-sg.bytelemon.com/api/sdk/check_update?branch=ma...) and grab the download links to share with everyone (the files are identical, these are mirrors): https://lf16-live-studio.tiktokcdn.com/obj/tiktok-live-studio-us/6974351561648511246/releases/7383765/0.1.0-beta.10/win32-ia32/tiktok_live_studio-v0.1.0-beta.10-win32-ia32.exe https://lf16-live-studio.tiktokcdn.com/obj/tiktok-live-studi... https://lf1-ttcdn-tos.pstatp.com/obj/tiktok-live-studio/6974351561648511246/releases/7383765/0.1.0-beta.10/win32-ia32/tiktok_live_studio-v0.1.0-beta.10-win32-ia32.exe https://lf1-ttcdn-tos.pstatp.com/obj/tiktok-live-studio/6974...

rubyist5eva 5y ago

China doesn't give a flying f*ck about your software license LOL

majani 5y ago
Something tells me that TikTok has somehow managed to get people to forget their country of origin
okprod 5y ago
LOL neither did Cisco, until they got sued by the FSF
- rubyist5eva 5y ago
  Cisco is an American company that follows American law. Chinese companies don't give a damn about American law, especially intellectual property law.

alkonaut 5y ago

Is it clear whether it's a "fork" (i.e. the entirety or a significant portion of the code is used in the derivative work), or whether they just found some utility snippet in an open source project and forgot to wash it? Also isn't TikTok Chinese?

zucker42 5y ago
Chinese companies operating in the U.S. are subject to U.S. copyright law.
okprod 5y ago
Also isn't TikTok Chinese What's your point?
- alkonaut 5y ago
  That Chinese corporations traditionally don’t care much for IP law. I doubt that there would be any way to even target their operation in western countries.
  - mr_toad 5y ago
    There are many sanctions a court could impose. Including forcing Apple & Google to remove the app from their stores. It will never get that far. It will be settled.
    - alkonaut 5y ago
      If this is just a snippet copied then I assume the settlement will be “oops, the beta contained a class with code but we removed it” (I.e anonymized the code). If it’s more substantial use of the OBS code then I guess it could be more involved. My money is on that there won’t even be a legal process.

ShrigmaMale 5y ago

Chinas whole economy is built on illegal copying amd stealing ideas, who is surprised? Not me.

magpi3 5y ago
I would say the entire world economy is based on people taking other people's ideas and running with them. Steve Jobs was a Silicon Valley folk hero, no? Was he known for implementing his original ideas?
- rhemingway 5y ago
  What ideas did Steve Jobs illegally copy?
  - rizzaxc 5y ago
    that's an oxymoron. ideas are inherently non copyrightable
kzrdude 5y ago
American economy with the likes of youtube and facebook are built on copying and stealing copyrighted video and audio. That's literally how youtube captured all the users: become the go-to place for anyone to upload videos, also spreading copies of music videos. Facebook captures a lot of video viewers by not controlling video sources either in a similar way.
- shukantpal 5y ago
  There’s no evidence that they are doing that intentionally or deliberately. Sure some creators do that.
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    Sure there are. There was a huge uproar on Facebook on how if you shared a video Facebook itself would show it from Facebook, not link the original source. That is 100% intentionally and deliberately. American companies are absolutely no better. If anything they are worse.

NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago

How can I help make sure the people who could sue because of this actually do?

larodi 5y ago

Honestly, open source and GPL are doomed if this does not get sued. Will set an irreversible precedenet.

phkahler 5y ago
It would set a bad example, but not a legal precedent.
- larodi 5y ago
  is it bad example or legal precedents that change people's minds...? it depends, of course.

baud147258 5y ago

So will all those outlets that had "Trump's social network is violating the GPL" stories be jumping on this with equal fervour? Considering they didn't cover the compliance with the GPL that "truth social" (awful name) did, I think we can safely assume they won't.

grouphugs 5y ago

i hope this is not going to be used to fuel more racial tensions or advocate for war

mleonhard 5y ago

Perhaps Bytedance forgot to make the Github repo public [0]? They have released a lot of internal tools as FOSS. [0] https://github.com/orgs/bytedance/repositories?q=live&type=all&language=&sort= https://github.com/orgs/bytedance/repositories?q=live&type=a...

pipeline_peak 5y ago

Not trying to be pessimistic, but has any company ever been sued for illegally forking software as long as their end product was free (as in beer)?

jhatemyjob 5y ago

Not illegal in China.

akagusu 5y ago

TikTok and other companies only represent the ethos of the modern society: take whatever you want no matter how, give nothing in return.

sally1620 5y ago

I remember reading that one of the main activities of FSF is to enforce GPL. Isn't this time they get involved.