7 ms·

DMCA takedown on GPL-copyrighted code

81 points by classicpm 13y ago

cbhl 13y ago
This post would have been more useful if it had included copies of the text of the DMCA takedown notices (both received and sent), if possible.
- classicpm 13y ago
  Sure, that can be arranged. It's just the strangest thing that ever happened to me.
  - munchor 13y ago
    >Sure, that can be arranged. I would very very much appreciate those then.
    - matthuggins 13y ago
      Also some info about the plugin. As the post stands, I have no idea what this is in reference to.
mariuolo 13y ago
Site is down now, but perhaps they're merely trying to appropriate themselves of your code and this is a water-muddling tactic.
- AimHere 13y ago
  That's a possibility; or perhaps the OP is recruiting Hacker News as a vigilante mob to scare off the person whose code he ripped off; or perhaps this is an experiment or a prank to see what sort of internet vigilanteism can be whipped up on Hacker News. So far, I'm leaning slightly in favour of the guy sending out the DMCA takedowns, in that someone claiming to be him put his code on the internet first by about 6 months, if the internet's timestamps are to be believed, and OP hasn't provided a convincing rebuttal even to that. Whether these guys are talking about the same code or whether there's some other evidence that clears the OP remains to be seen.
  - lunixbochs 13y ago
    It's the same code; haven't yet found anything to suggest OP is telling the truth: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6624199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6624199
Mithrandir 13y ago
Cache: http://archive.is/xIxIe http://archive.is/xIxIe
classicpm 13y ago
Sorry about the downtime, unless you're Twitter or Facebook, you can't cope with the HN frontpage effect :)
- conductor 13y ago
  That's not true. A static site served by Nginx (or a non-static one but with proper cache implementation) can do miracles even on a relatively cheap VPS.
  - __david__ 13y ago
    Heck, my wordpress site (with cache plugin) survived the front page served over my home cable modem (5Mbps upstream)! And that is old-school Apache prefork…
    - bennyg 13y ago
      People just expect 10 Heroku dynos to handle the load when that's not even close to necessary haha.
    - Danieru 13y ago
      My nginx with uncached wordpress on digital ocean held up as well.
  - brazzy 13y ago
    I've had a static site hosted on the cheapest shared hosting plan I could find take a stint on the HN frontpage without any problems.
  - classicpm 13y ago
    You are totally right, but this is a low-traffic blog, i wasn't expecting anything above 2k daily visitors and supercache, for some strange reason, acted funny before not updating the pages correctly.
- edent 13y ago
  Not really. I've got a bog-standard Wordpress site and it coped just fine. I use Cloudflare to save on bandwidth costs though.
fiatmoney 13y ago
Until someone goes to jail or loses a ton of money on a bogus DMCA takedown this tomfoolery will continue.
- JanneVee 13y ago
  Like Dmitry Sklyarov? https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/04/21-20 https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/04/21-20
  - spullara 13y ago
    I think he meant on the bogus side not the accused side.
iancarroll 13y ago
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.class.pm/2013/strange-days/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
edwardio 13y ago
It might help to mention what plugin it was, the link to your plugin, the link on their site, and the link on envato.
mjg59 13y ago
See also: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2007/12/mpaas-university-toolkit-hit-with-dmca-takedown-notice-after-gpl-violation/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2007/12/mpaas-...
crb3 13y ago
Sounds to me like it's time to hit the Wayback Machine for prior-existence references and instances of your code, just in case.
- code937 13y ago
  And that my friend will bite the person who started this thread ... in the bum ... as will a google cache ... as will other site caches. Because I am the person who sent him the DMCA Notice and if he does not drop this right now, i will use all of my evidence to prove that he's lying out of his bottom :) I'm giving him the opportunity to drop this now before I provide this site among other news site, all the evidence and all my proof :) It is beyond me why a person would take a lie this far as to start a thread on NH, especially when he knows the person who sent him the DMCA did create the code. Now I'll give him the BOD and perhaps he didn't write the code himself and he is sticking up for a friend who is lying to him. But he's started digging now so i'm giving him one chance to stop and apologise. Let me be clear on one thing. This is not a threat, I'm just not one to stir trouble - but I'm certainly not fond of being called a liar, or someone taking donations for code I've written.
  - wheaties 13y ago
    I believe no one until I see proof. When it's just one guy's word vs the other, it's kinda hard to believe either side. And no, I didn't downvote you.
  - DigitalSea 13y ago
    If this is the case, then why don't you just present your evidence regardless? I don't think anyone knows who to believe, for all we know you and the author are the same person and have created some weird situation to drum up PR for your plugin...
  - code937 13y ago
    Thats a fair point. http://www.class.pm/projects/jquery/classyedit/ http://www.class.pm/projects/jquery/classyedit/ use any cache on that domain and look at the "released date" It was changed to May 2102 today so that it was 1 month before my release which was June 2012. Originally his was December 2012. I'll get you started, heres googles cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:25Pk7IxoM8AJ:www.class.pm/projects/jquery/classyedit/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:25Pk7Ix... My plugin: http://codecanyon.net/item/pure-rich-text-editor-lite/2512642 http://codecanyon.net/item/pure-rich-text-editor-lite/251264...
DigitalSea 13y ago
This whole situation seems very strange to me. In the left corner we've got someone claiming their GPL'd code was stolen and sold on Codecanyon by someone else who subsequently filed a DMCA request against the original author. And in the right corner we've got the person who supposedly is accused of stealing the script code and selling it posting here in this thread saying it's the other way around and the blog post author stole the code. I've made some strange observations here about the situation: 1. The original author didn't post any copies of the DMCA request, no copies of emails, no links to the offending item on Codecanyon nor any links to the original repo that contained the code. 2. The person accused of stealing the code commented on this submission and claimed the situation is the other way around and the blog post author stole the code that was being sold. How did the accused know about this submission? There's a chance that maybe he frequents HN, but no links were provided in the post, so how does this commenter know it's even his plugin being spoken about in the post? 3. Why have neither sides of the fence provided any evidence whatsoever? Both the defender and accused have provided no links, no emails, nothing and it's been a word against word situation. While I could be wrong here, it feels like this whole situation could be fake. I am not saying that it is, but it feels a little too weird that neither side have made their case clear with actual evidence. Is this a publicity attempt to get sales for a Codecanyon plugin? I hope my suspicions are wrong and that it's just a case of the original author wanting to give the supposed thief a chance to take his item down which given the situation would be unusually generous.
- code937 13y ago
  I'm happy to explain! Upon finding my code on his site i emailed him. He didnt reply, i commented on a post, he didnt reply so i sent him a notice. 4 hours later he sends me the same notice back + to the marketplace and my host. The blogs about it! I click the tweet button on the blog to monitor why and what he does, i come across this blog, i send him an email warning him to remove my code, delete the blog and move on. He hasn't done so and continue's his story so i'm happy to provide all my evidence to show this person is lying. still, I've absolutely no idea why he would take a lie this far, but i have all the proof which i will be providing on this thread very shortly!
  - 13y ago
maaku 13y ago
Did you notify the FSF? This guy deserves more than just a DMCA.
nonchalance 13y ago
Appears the entire domain is down (getting 403). code937: based on the comments here as well as the comments from a year ago (http://codecanyon.net/item/pure-rich-text-editor-lite/discussion/2512642#comment_2307430 http://codecanyon.net/item/pure-rich-text-editor-lite/discus...) , it is pretty clear that the OP misrepresented the situation. I wish you all the best as you muddle through this situation.

81 points by classicpm 13y ago

cbhl 13y ago

This post would have been more useful if it had included copies of the text of the DMCA takedown notices (both received and sent), if possible.

classicpm 13y ago
Sure, that can be arranged. It's just the strangest thing that ever happened to me.
- munchor 13y ago
  >Sure, that can be arranged. I would very very much appreciate those then.
  - matthuggins 13y ago
    Also some info about the plugin. As the post stands, I have no idea what this is in reference to.

mariuolo 13y ago

Site is down now, but perhaps they're merely trying to appropriate themselves of your code and this is a water-muddling tactic.

AimHere 13y ago
That's a possibility; or perhaps the OP is recruiting Hacker News as a vigilante mob to scare off the person whose code he ripped off; or perhaps this is an experiment or a prank to see what sort of internet vigilanteism can be whipped up on Hacker News. So far, I'm leaning slightly in favour of the guy sending out the DMCA takedowns, in that someone claiming to be him put his code on the internet first by about 6 months, if the internet's timestamps are to be believed, and OP hasn't provided a convincing rebuttal even to that. Whether these guys are talking about the same code or whether there's some other evidence that clears the OP remains to be seen.
- lunixbochs 13y ago
  It's the same code; haven't yet found anything to suggest OP is telling the truth: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6624199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6624199

Mithrandir 13y ago

Cache: http://archive.is/xIxIe http://archive.is/xIxIe

classicpm 13y ago

Sorry about the downtime, unless you're Twitter or Facebook, you can't cope with the HN frontpage effect :)

conductor 13y ago
That's not true. A static site served by Nginx (or a non-static one but with proper cache implementation) can do miracles even on a relatively cheap VPS.
- __david__ 13y ago
  Heck, my wordpress site (with cache plugin) survived the front page served over my home cable modem (5Mbps upstream)! And that is old-school Apache prefork…
  - bennyg 13y ago
    People just expect 10 Heroku dynos to handle the load when that's not even close to necessary haha.
  - Danieru 13y ago
    My nginx with uncached wordpress on digital ocean held up as well.
- brazzy 13y ago
  I've had a static site hosted on the cheapest shared hosting plan I could find take a stint on the HN frontpage without any problems.
- classicpm 13y ago
  You are totally right, but this is a low-traffic blog, i wasn't expecting anything above 2k daily visitors and supercache, for some strange reason, acted funny before not updating the pages correctly.
edent 13y ago
Not really. I've got a bog-standard Wordpress site and it coped just fine. I use Cloudflare to save on bandwidth costs though.

fiatmoney 13y ago

Until someone goes to jail or loses a ton of money on a bogus DMCA takedown this tomfoolery will continue.

JanneVee 13y ago
Like Dmitry Sklyarov? https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/04/21-20 https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/04/21-20
- spullara 13y ago
  I think he meant on the bogus side not the accused side.

iancarroll 13y ago

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.class.pm/2013/strange-days/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

edwardio 13y ago

It might help to mention what plugin it was, the link to your plugin, the link on their site, and the link on envato.

mjg59 13y ago

See also: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2007/12/mpaas-university-toolkit-hit-with-dmca-takedown-notice-after-gpl-violation/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2007/12/mpaas-...

crb3 13y ago

Sounds to me like it's time to hit the Wayback Machine for prior-existence references and instances of your code, just in case.

code937 13y ago
And that my friend will bite the person who started this thread ... in the bum ... as will a google cache ... as will other site caches. Because I am the person who sent him the DMCA Notice and if he does not drop this right now, i will use all of my evidence to prove that he's lying out of his bottom :) I'm giving him the opportunity to drop this now before I provide this site among other news site, all the evidence and all my proof :) It is beyond me why a person would take a lie this far as to start a thread on NH, especially when he knows the person who sent him the DMCA did create the code. Now I'll give him the BOD and perhaps he didn't write the code himself and he is sticking up for a friend who is lying to him. But he's started digging now so i'm giving him one chance to stop and apologise. Let me be clear on one thing. This is not a threat, I'm just not one to stir trouble - but I'm certainly not fond of being called a liar, or someone taking donations for code I've written.
- wheaties 13y ago
  I believe no one until I see proof. When it's just one guy's word vs the other, it's kinda hard to believe either side. And no, I didn't downvote you.
- DigitalSea 13y ago
  If this is the case, then why don't you just present your evidence regardless? I don't think anyone knows who to believe, for all we know you and the author are the same person and have created some weird situation to drum up PR for your plugin...
- code937 13y ago
  Thats a fair point. http://www.class.pm/projects/jquery/classyedit/ http://www.class.pm/projects/jquery/classyedit/ use any cache on that domain and look at the "released date" It was changed to May 2102 today so that it was 1 month before my release which was June 2012. Originally his was December 2012. I'll get you started, heres googles cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:25Pk7IxoM8AJ:www.class.pm/projects/jquery/classyedit/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:25Pk7Ix... My plugin: http://codecanyon.net/item/pure-rich-text-editor-lite/2512642 http://codecanyon.net/item/pure-rich-text-editor-lite/251264...

DigitalSea 13y ago

This whole situation seems very strange to me. In the left corner we've got someone claiming their GPL'd code was stolen and sold on Codecanyon by someone else who subsequently filed a DMCA request against the original author. And in the right corner we've got the person who supposedly is accused of stealing the script code and selling it posting here in this thread saying it's the other way around and the blog post author stole the code. I've made some strange observations here about the situation: 1. The original author didn't post any copies of the DMCA request, no copies of emails, no links to the offending item on Codecanyon nor any links to the original repo that contained the code. 2. The person accused of stealing the code commented on this submission and claimed the situation is the other way around and the blog post author stole the code that was being sold. How did the accused know about this submission? There's a chance that maybe he frequents HN, but no links were provided in the post, so how does this commenter know it's even his plugin being spoken about in the post? 3. Why have neither sides of the fence provided any evidence whatsoever? Both the defender and accused have provided no links, no emails, nothing and it's been a word against word situation. While I could be wrong here, it feels like this whole situation could be fake. I am not saying that it is, but it feels a little too weird that neither side have made their case clear with actual evidence. Is this a publicity attempt to get sales for a Codecanyon plugin? I hope my suspicions are wrong and that it's just a case of the original author wanting to give the supposed thief a chance to take his item down which given the situation would be unusually generous.

code937 13y ago
I'm happy to explain! Upon finding my code on his site i emailed him. He didnt reply, i commented on a post, he didnt reply so i sent him a notice. 4 hours later he sends me the same notice back + to the marketplace and my host. The blogs about it! I click the tweet button on the blog to monitor why and what he does, i come across this blog, i send him an email warning him to remove my code, delete the blog and move on. He hasn't done so and continue's his story so i'm happy to provide all my evidence to show this person is lying. still, I've absolutely no idea why he would take a lie this far, but i have all the proof which i will be providing on this thread very shortly!
- 13y ago

maaku 13y ago

Did you notify the FSF? This guy deserves more than just a DMCA.

nonchalance 13y ago

Appears the entire domain is down (getting 403). code937: based on the comments here as well as the comments from a year ago (http://codecanyon.net/item/pure-rich-text-editor-lite/discussion/2512642#comment_2307430 http://codecanyon.net/item/pure-rich-text-editor-lite/discus...) , it is pretty clear that the OP misrepresented the situation. I wish you all the best as you muddle through this situation.