8 ms·

Dropbox blocks API access for Boxopus over piracy concerns

50 points by gilrain 14y ago

aimatt 14y ago
Oh man, Dropbox is really losing it's luster for me. First trying to get rid of the Public folder and now blocking third party apps. It's really too bad all of the hard work put into Boxopus has to go to waste. They won't even have profit to offset their beta testing bandwidth usage. I was really looking forward to having this product at my disposal.
- gyardley 14y ago
  Dropbox isn't blocking third-party apps, they blocked one particular third-party app which was aggressively attempting to pin a giant 'hey, come sue me' target on their back. Both smart and user-friendly, for the subset of users who use Dropbox for things other than piracy.
- wissler 14y ago
  Someone chanting that "it's Dropbox's API and they can do what they want" in 5, 4, 3, 2...
  - stewartbutler 14y ago
    Well... yeah?
    - wissler 14y ago
      The presumption behind the chant is that what is legal is also moral, but that's clearly not the case, particularly in our ever more corrupt legal environment.
      - drivebyacct2 14y ago
        No, the presumption is that it's their API and they can do what they want. It's obviously a business decision. I'm pretty sure Dropbox didn't say "We hate torrenters" or "We want to turn away potential customers". They said "We see a liability and want to mitigate it to protect our business". I don't see how that can be portrayed as "immoral".
        wissler 14y ago
        The subject is "should Dropbox block the API" not "can Dropbox block the API." And yes, the saw liability and wanted to mitigate it -- at the expense of moral principle.
        drivebyacct2 14y ago
        I still don't think you've done any work to show that it's immoral for Dropbox to do this. Even if it weren't in their business interests, I don't think you've done the work to convince me that there is a moral issue at stake.
        wissler 14y ago
        That's because I was already doing that work in a different comment and don't want to repeat myself. Feel free to address my remarks there. I'm not saying it's not a complicated moral issue, but in my judgement it's far simpler when you're talking about big corporations with a lot of money and power. If a tiny business was too scared to take the proper stand, that would be one thing, but the big mega-corp ought to at least try to do the right thing, and then only back down when there are serious legal issues they can't get across (see Twitter vs. the US government regarding releasing user information).
        sliverstorm 14y ago
        ... Dropbox is a megacorp? They have something like 100 employees.
sodiumphosphate 14y ago
Duh.
alsothings 14y ago
I point to this and I point to the arrest of Kim DotCom. That is all.
J3L2404 14y ago
Castles made of sand and all that.
phamilton 14y ago
3 months with 5 people is a $30k investment? Assuming full time, that's around 2500 man hours. I guess that's $30k if you pay them $12/hour.
redslazer 14y ago
Put your hand up if you saw this coming. O/ When I saw the post I asked myself how long it would take for dropbox to block them, it took about a day.
AYBABTME 14y ago
"[$30,000 USD] in developments costs have gone down the drain". It seems kinda silly to put 30k$ in a project that's looking for trouble and where all your eggs are in somebody else's basket. Also, I don't know the nature of Dropbox's app approval system, but my instinct is that it's somehow naive to assume that you're all good just because your app was not rejected. It's like speeding on the highway, not being stopped by the first cop you cross, then whining when another one arrests you further down the road: 'But the other officer cautioned my speeding!' lol sure. When I read the initial post (yesterday?), my first thought was "How long before Dropbox blocks their access to their API".
- aimatt 14y ago
  I don't think it's silly at all. How many app are at Facebook's mercy that cost well over $30k? All of Zynga. I do see there is some risk, but there are certainly plenty of valid, legal reasons to use Bittorrent. I'm sorry, but I certainly think that this really is going the opposite direction of Dropbox's goal of becoming "the internet's file system". This just seems like the natural progression. Maybe they can port it to Google Drive. I just don't see why products can be held accountable for their users' activity. Should we sue Dell because some guy had kiddy porn on his computer?
  - AYBABTME 14y ago
    There are plenty of valid and legal reasons to use P2P file-sharing network, I'll be the first to claim so. But in an objective manner, one can't deny the bad reputation (on the legal side of things) those networks have. And it's pretty easy to understand that Dropbox might not be interested in being related this kind of shenanigans. I also think the Facebook argument doesn't work in the current situation. When you know the risk of being blocked is so obviously high, you don't go and invest 30k$. Facebook have their own rules and somebody who'd be playing on their border should expect and assume the risk of being blocked.
rmc 14y ago
There have been numerous arrests, extraditions, domain name seizes and seizes of servers for companies that do a lot of piracy stuff. How can TorrentFreak and Boxopus claim "It's totally irrational to be afraid of bitorrent" with a straight face?
- sp332 14y ago
  Most of that piracy stuff was not based on bittorrent. Also, Dropbox is currently used for piracy without bittorrent.
  - res0nat0r 14y ago
    Yes, but so is EC2, S3, RackSpace, Azure, MediaFire, FTP, etc etc. The difference is that Dropbox doesn't want to be seen as enabling a service that they think will primarily be used for piracy.
    - chii 14y ago
      The smark thing for dropbox to do is to create a service with similar price structure (perhaps a tiny bit more expensive), and allow this sort of supposedly grey activity to take place there, and brand it differently. Extract as much revenue from their software and infrastructure as possible, while not tarnish their name.
      - rmc 14y ago
        Until AWS shuts it down. Or the assets of the whole company get seized.
feronull 14y ago
I was just wondering the other day how this got approved by Dropbox :)
trustfundbaby 14y ago
pretty smart move to protect their brand IMO
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
wissler 14y ago
On the one hand, this was predictable. On the other, it is unethical by Dropbox. What they said was telling: “It’s come to our attention that latest Boxopus features could be perceived as encouraging users to violate copyright using Dropbox.” "Could be perceived"? An apple "could be perceived" as a hand grenade by a sufficiently insane person. Only a blatantly corrupt legal environment would use "could be perceived" as a standard for punishing someone. Of course, that's the kind of legal environment we live in. Should Dropbox take the risk? As an industry leader who is greatly benefiting from "The System", it is their duty to take the proper moral stand. Otherwise they are clearly just part of the problem.
- AYBABTME 14y ago
  Maybe Dropbox is not interested in being part of the "P2P against RIAA" fight.
- dave_sullivan 14y ago
  I don't know that the apple analogy holds up. Yes, an apple could be perceived as a hand grenade by a crazy person, but a sane person could see how boxopus will likely be used for piracy. And maybe that's just fine, but it's kind of drop box's house, their rules. It's like if you own a building and your new tenant, a computer repair store, decides to pivot to being a medical marijuana dispensary. Hey, it's legal-ish, but you can't really fault the landlord for kicking them out. Plus, once you take 400 million, you're part of the system and you don't need to make yourself a bigger target than you already are.
  - wissler 14y ago
    "but a sane person could see how boxopus will likely be used for piracy." And a sane person could see how a butter knife could be used for murder.
    - richbradshaw 14y ago
      To be fair, Dropbox doesn't allow upload of any type of knife.
jeffool 14y ago
I don't suppose Google Drive or Amazon's Clouddrive have an API?
- gilrain 14y ago
  Drive does, yes. (https://developers.google.com/drive/v1/reference/ https://developers.google.com/drive/v1/reference/)
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    They both do, my sarcasm sensor is going off for jeffool's post.
    - jeffool 14y ago
      Not sarcasm. I genuinely didn't know. But the inference was very obvious and heavy, yes.
praptak 14y ago
Well, make it torrent-to-mail then. It's not like Dropbox was the only good choice for the receiving end of the service. You don't need to be a genius to find other replacements.
- J3L2404 14y ago
  And you don't have to be a genius to see this coming. In fact you have to be amazingly tone deaf. Fanatasies about the great pirate revolution are fine but legitimate businesses have to deal with reality.
  - praptak 14y ago
    Given viable replacements for Dropbox, this is not a huge blow. I'd expect more legal trouble on their torrent end.
suprgeek 14y ago
This was a given [1] (TOS based API key was pulled). Too much liability for Dropbox to take on even if they were not the primary on this one. No matter how much the tech (or HN) audience hopes to the contrary, Dropbox is doing what they perceive to be the best thing for their service in the long run. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4152595 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4152595
MBlume 14y ago
Y'know, I'll bet Dropbox is small enough that one engineer with a resignation letter in hand could've reversed this before it was announced publicly.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  Dropbox engineers don't owe Boxopus anything. Why would you expect them to jump ship?
rome 14y ago
Blocking technology based upon the perception that it could be used illegally isn't sound reasoning especially from a company that advertises their file sharing feature as ideal.
ashray 14y ago
I think it's important to note here that this is one of the main reasons that people shouldn't use cloud storage for sensitive stuff. I'm pretty sure that the feds have access to your dropbox, google drive, etc. Even if they don't, in the case that you do get in trouble for any level of SUSPECTED piracy, all this stuff will be pretty open to them to snoop in. That just sounds like bad news to me. In the whole cloud storage vs. local argument, I do think it's an important point to raise. TLDR; don't backup your porn/torrented-stuff to your cloud storage :P

50 points by gilrain 14y ago

Oh man, Dropbox is really losing it's luster for me. First trying to get rid of the Public folder and now blocking third party apps. It's really too bad all of the hard work put into Boxopus has to go to waste. They won't even have profit to offset their beta testing bandwidth usage. I was really looking forward to having this product at my disposal.

gyardley 14y ago
Dropbox isn't blocking third-party apps, they blocked one particular third-party app which was aggressively attempting to pin a giant 'hey, come sue me' target on their back. Both smart and user-friendly, for the subset of users who use Dropbox for things other than piracy.
wissler 14y ago
Someone chanting that "it's Dropbox's API and they can do what they want" in 5, 4, 3, 2...
- stewartbutler 14y ago
  Well... yeah?
  - wissler 14y ago
    The presumption behind the chant is that what is legal is also moral, but that's clearly not the case, particularly in our ever more corrupt legal environment.
    - drivebyacct2 14y ago
      No, the presumption is that it's their API and they can do what they want. It's obviously a business decision. I'm pretty sure Dropbox didn't say "We hate torrenters" or "We want to turn away potential customers". They said "We see a liability and want to mitigate it to protect our business". I don't see how that can be portrayed as "immoral".
      - wissler 14y ago
        The subject is "should Dropbox block the API" not "can Dropbox block the API." And yes, the saw liability and wanted to mitigate it -- at the expense of moral principle.
        drivebyacct2 14y ago
        I still don't think you've done any work to show that it's immoral for Dropbox to do this. Even if it weren't in their business interests, I don't think you've done the work to convince me that there is a moral issue at stake.
        wissler 14y ago
        That's because I was already doing that work in a different comment and don't want to repeat myself. Feel free to address my remarks there. I'm not saying it's not a complicated moral issue, but in my judgement it's far simpler when you're talking about big corporations with a lot of money and power. If a tiny business was too scared to take the proper stand, that would be one thing, but the big mega-corp ought to at least try to do the right thing, and then only back down when there are serious legal issues they can't get across (see Twitter vs. the US government regarding releasing user information).
        sliverstorm 14y ago
        ... Dropbox is a megacorp? They have something like 100 employees.

sodiumphosphate 14y ago

Duh.

alsothings 14y ago

I point to this and I point to the arrest of Kim DotCom. That is all.

J3L2404 14y ago

Castles made of sand and all that.

phamilton 14y ago

3 months with 5 people is a $30k investment? Assuming full time, that's around 2500 man hours. I guess that's $30k if you pay them $12/hour.

redslazer 14y ago

Put your hand up if you saw this coming. O/ When I saw the post I asked myself how long it would take for dropbox to block them, it took about a day.

AYBABTME 14y ago

"[$30,000 USD] in developments costs have gone down the drain". It seems kinda silly to put 30k$ in a project that's looking for trouble and where all your eggs are in somebody else's basket. Also, I don't know the nature of Dropbox's app approval system, but my instinct is that it's somehow naive to assume that you're all good just because your app was not rejected. It's like speeding on the highway, not being stopped by the first cop you cross, then whining when another one arrests you further down the road: 'But the other officer cautioned my speeding!' lol sure. When I read the initial post (yesterday?), my first thought was "How long before Dropbox blocks their access to their API".

aimatt 14y ago
I don't think it's silly at all. How many app are at Facebook's mercy that cost well over $30k? All of Zynga. I do see there is some risk, but there are certainly plenty of valid, legal reasons to use Bittorrent. I'm sorry, but I certainly think that this really is going the opposite direction of Dropbox's goal of becoming "the internet's file system". This just seems like the natural progression. Maybe they can port it to Google Drive. I just don't see why products can be held accountable for their users' activity. Should we sue Dell because some guy had kiddy porn on his computer?
- AYBABTME 14y ago
  There are plenty of valid and legal reasons to use P2P file-sharing network, I'll be the first to claim so. But in an objective manner, one can't deny the bad reputation (on the legal side of things) those networks have. And it's pretty easy to understand that Dropbox might not be interested in being related this kind of shenanigans. I also think the Facebook argument doesn't work in the current situation. When you know the risk of being blocked is so obviously high, you don't go and invest 30k$. Facebook have their own rules and somebody who'd be playing on their border should expect and assume the risk of being blocked.

rmc 14y ago

There have been numerous arrests, extraditions, domain name seizes and seizes of servers for companies that do a lot of piracy stuff. How can TorrentFreak and Boxopus claim "It's totally irrational to be afraid of bitorrent" with a straight face?

sp332 14y ago
Most of that piracy stuff was not based on bittorrent. Also, Dropbox is currently used for piracy without bittorrent.
- res0nat0r 14y ago
  Yes, but so is EC2, S3, RackSpace, Azure, MediaFire, FTP, etc etc. The difference is that Dropbox doesn't want to be seen as enabling a service that they think will primarily be used for piracy.
  - chii 14y ago
    The smark thing for dropbox to do is to create a service with similar price structure (perhaps a tiny bit more expensive), and allow this sort of supposedly grey activity to take place there, and brand it differently. Extract as much revenue from their software and infrastructure as possible, while not tarnish their name.
    - rmc 14y ago
      Until AWS shuts it down. Or the assets of the whole company get seized.

feronull 14y ago

I was just wondering the other day how this got approved by Dropbox :)

trustfundbaby 14y ago

pretty smart move to protect their brand IMO

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

wissler 14y ago

On the one hand, this was predictable. On the other, it is unethical by Dropbox. What they said was telling: “It’s come to our attention that latest Boxopus features could be perceived as encouraging users to violate copyright using Dropbox.” "Could be perceived"? An apple "could be perceived" as a hand grenade by a sufficiently insane person. Only a blatantly corrupt legal environment would use "could be perceived" as a standard for punishing someone. Of course, that's the kind of legal environment we live in. Should Dropbox take the risk? As an industry leader who is greatly benefiting from "The System", it is their duty to take the proper moral stand. Otherwise they are clearly just part of the problem.

AYBABTME 14y ago
Maybe Dropbox is not interested in being part of the "P2P against RIAA" fight.
dave_sullivan 14y ago
I don't know that the apple analogy holds up. Yes, an apple could be perceived as a hand grenade by a crazy person, but a sane person could see how boxopus will likely be used for piracy. And maybe that's just fine, but it's kind of drop box's house, their rules. It's like if you own a building and your new tenant, a computer repair store, decides to pivot to being a medical marijuana dispensary. Hey, it's legal-ish, but you can't really fault the landlord for kicking them out. Plus, once you take 400 million, you're part of the system and you don't need to make yourself a bigger target than you already are.
- wissler 14y ago
  "but a sane person could see how boxopus will likely be used for piracy." And a sane person could see how a butter knife could be used for murder.
  - richbradshaw 14y ago
    To be fair, Dropbox doesn't allow upload of any type of knife.

jeffool 14y ago

I don't suppose Google Drive or Amazon's Clouddrive have an API?

gilrain 14y ago
Drive does, yes. (https://developers.google.com/drive/v1/reference/ https://developers.google.com/drive/v1/reference/)
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  They both do, my sarcasm sensor is going off for jeffool's post.
  - jeffool 14y ago
    Not sarcasm. I genuinely didn't know. But the inference was very obvious and heavy, yes.

praptak 14y ago

Well, make it torrent-to-mail then. It's not like Dropbox was the only good choice for the receiving end of the service. You don't need to be a genius to find other replacements.

J3L2404 14y ago
And you don't have to be a genius to see this coming. In fact you have to be amazingly tone deaf. Fanatasies about the great pirate revolution are fine but legitimate businesses have to deal with reality.
- praptak 14y ago
  Given viable replacements for Dropbox, this is not a huge blow. I'd expect more legal trouble on their torrent end.

suprgeek 14y ago

This was a given [1] (TOS based API key was pulled). Too much liability for Dropbox to take on even if they were not the primary on this one. No matter how much the tech (or HN) audience hopes to the contrary, Dropbox is doing what they perceive to be the best thing for their service in the long run. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4152595 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4152595

MBlume 14y ago

Y'know, I'll bet Dropbox is small enough that one engineer with a resignation letter in hand could've reversed this before it was announced publicly.

sliverstorm 14y ago
Dropbox engineers don't owe Boxopus anything. Why would you expect them to jump ship?

rome 14y ago

Blocking technology based upon the perception that it could be used illegally isn't sound reasoning especially from a company that advertises their file sharing feature as ideal.

ashray 14y ago

I think it's important to note here that this is one of the main reasons that people shouldn't use cloud storage for sensitive stuff. I'm pretty sure that the feds have access to your dropbox, google drive, etc. Even if they don't, in the case that you do get in trouble for any level of SUSPECTED piracy, all this stuff will be pretty open to them to snoop in. That just sounds like bad news to me. In the whole cloud storage vs. local argument, I do think it's an important point to raise. TLDR; don't backup your porn/torrented-stuff to your cloud storage :P