3 ms·

But hang on, there would only be a DMCA violation if copyright infringement had in fact occurred, right? So fair use would be a perfectly legitimate defence, ca

But hang on, there would only be a DMCA violation if copyright infringement had in fact occurred, right? So fair use would be a perfectly legitimate defence, causing the DMCA not to apply. Look, proving copyright infringement is downright trivial here, if copyright law applies. And that shows where GitHub’s defence will—must—lie. (And for other readers unfamiliar with the parent comment’s phrasing: “end-run” is apparently an American sporting term which here makes “as an end-run around” mean “to circumvent” or “to work around”.)

speeder 4y ago
That unfortunately, is not how the DMCA works. DMCA was designed to catch not just normal pirates that share the copied content, but also "crackers" that figure out how to share content that is protected somehow, as such it offers various ways to infringe it without infringing the copyright itself. Basically they are accusing MS of behaving like crackers, by removing stuff from code to allow it to get shared illegally.