Can people realize by now how ludicrous it is that a bot or idiot is able to take down 116 repositories without any oversight or validation, and your only recourse is to (a) deal with it (b) take time from your day to jump through flaming hoops for bureaucrats? GitHub's brand of DMCA compliance is much like YouTube's: lazy to the point of unequivocally benefiting copyright owners, not content producers. Hosting your code on GitHub is senseless because anybody can take your code down at a moment's notice.
> GitHub's brand of DMCA compliance is much like YouTube's: lazy to the point of unequivocally benefiting copyright owners, not content producers.
I believe the text of the DMCA is written to cause this. If you are an ISP, and you don't want to be liable for infringments, you have to take things down after receiving a DMCA takedown notice. The end.
You can put it back up after the user has followed the right procedure to challenge and assume liability themselves. I admit I'm not sure exactly what procedure the DMCA outlines for this.
I think what ISP's _could_ do is facilitate user's filing challenges more easily. But they've got to take it down after receiving a takedown request, that's pretty much what the law says (or else the ISP can be sued for the copyright infringement too).
Theoretically you can sue someone for issuing a takedown request in bad faith. Perhaps ISP's could help their users do this too, but it could get sticky for them.
And now we live in this wonderful world where companies don't actually file DMCA takedowns at all, but rather have gentleman's agreements to take down content in a manner indistinguishable from the DMCA except the part that actually gives the uploader any legal recourse to challenge it. :-/
The hope is that this sort of shit hastens the hardening of the Internet to the point where anyone can host whatever the hell they want, anonymously, with no possible recourse for any old asshole to do anything about it, DMCA and laws be damned, and supported by default by all major browsers and operating systems.
Do you think you could start a class action lawsuit on this basis? If companies aren't going to bother to stand up to this, and individuals don't have the money to do so, then short of actually fixing the law, class action suits seem the only (legal) way forward. But proving that a significant enough portion of takedowns are illegal might be difficult.
There's an EFF fair use test case involving a YouTube takedown of a toddler bouncing around to a 29 second clip of a Prince song playing in the background: Lenz v. Universal. It was filed in 2007 and has yet to be resolved.
The fact is that while section 512(f) of the DMCA provides consequences to misrepresentations by those making takedown requests, it is damned impossible to actually enforce that.
Now, I guess, if an ISP ignores a DMCA takedown request, all that happens is that they too can be sued for copyright infringement of the content.
Now, I guess an ISP _could_ individually evaluate each DCMA takedown request, decide that some of them are completely illegitimate and there was in fact no infringing material, and thus that they have little legal risk to leaving it up, and probably nobody's going to take them to court over it, and if someone does, the ISP will probably still win and they're willing to deal with it.
I think it's pretty obvious that it's not really reasonable to expect a business to do this (by assigning an actual lawyer to evaluate every request? By trusting less trained/certified people to make the determination? Even paying them minimum wage it's probably not affordable), although it would be pretty exciting if one decided to anyway.
"Theoretically you can sue someone for issuing a takedown request in bad faith. Perhaps ISP's could help their users do this too, but it could get sticky for them."
This needs to be done by larger companies. Right now all a
person has to do is claim copyright infringement, and companies take down. There is a guy on Ebay who claimed he owned the copyright to a old
watch making school workbook(Chicago School of Watch Repair). Well
he didn't own the copyright, but Ebay wouldn't even bother
to look into it. There should be clear penalties for falsely claiming ownership to a copyright? I understand small companies caving in, but larger companies should do a
little due diligence?
> This needs to be done by larger companies. Right now all a person has to do is claim copyright infringement, and companies take down.
Yes, see, that's the law. That's the way the DMCA is written. If someone files a DMCA takedown, companies have to take it down (or risk liability themselves). Right.
To change it, Congress would need to change it, there's nothing larger companies can do.
Now I'm wondering if it's possible to DDOS a DCMA takedown system with a randomized spam of takedown requests.
You know, like a mad-lib "Your site has our content askjdh12312312.avi on the link yourtube.io/5h0rtur1/ and must be removed to comply with yadda yadda yadda".
It's probably five kinds of illegal and three kinds of immoral, though.
A normal DMCA takedown request is taken under penalty of perjury (sadly, a lot of the big common carriers, like Youtube, have gentleman's agreements with Big Media, so they don't rely on formal DMCA takedowns), and knowingly and falsely claiming to be the copyright holder is likely an infringement of the author's moral rights, which is at the criminal end of copyright law, so that's two flavours of illegal right there.
Also questionable is how the computer that sends out the e-mail can have a "good faith belief"? Especially given that their detection rates are often abismal.
One of the big problems with the DMCA and a lot of similar laws is that they have no built-in protections for abuse. Anyone is allowed to claim anything and because of legal fears, many content hosts immediately side with the alleged copyright holder when there is no proof whatsoever. The only way I can see this not being a problem (other than a repeal of the DMCA itself) is if such actions start to have consequences.
Bot or not, this is an intentional action by Qualcomm. Github should push back against this if it wants to remain credible in the open source community. Are there some general provisions in the law that allow it to respond to abuse (which this is a clear case of) with their own lawsuit?
Of course, the Qualcomm repository should be pulled. Permanently.
Someone should make a bot that DMCAs accounts belonging to employees and their connections in the parent company. For each unverified DMCA they enact.
They're the employees who will have to get in and make changes to the system and they work for the companies that have to make noise and say no to the DMCA issuers.
If they blanket exclude their own employees of the policies everyone else has to abide, well, that'll say something won't it. There seems to be no negative effect of making false DMCAs so play that game.
> There seems to be no negative effect of making false DMCAs so play that game.
Unprosecuted crimes (e.g. the perjury one must commit to file a false DMCA notice) have a strange way of suddenly becoming prosecuted crimes when people act in blatant disregard for the law.
I believe there's only a perjury penalty if you misrepresent the fact that you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder.
So if you say, "I'm requesting you take this down because it infringes on Star Wars and I'm an authorized agent of Disney" when you have no relation with Disney, you're up for perjury.
However, if you say, "I'm requesting you take this down because it infringes on blahblah.avi and I hold copyright to blahblah.avi" which is true, then no perjury penalty. Even if blahblah.avi has nothing to do with the github repo being taken down. "Oops, my bad, honest mistake, wink wink." The person on the receiving end of the DMCA still has to jump through all the hoops to get their own copyright material reinstated.
So if you do your bot right, there's no penalty. None at all. If there is, I'd love to know about it, because these bots need to die in a fire.
The most worrying part is the flip side, which is the takedown notice must state that “under penalty of perjury, that the information contained in the notification is accurate.” [512(c)(3)(A)(vi)]. In fact, here it is[1]:
> Qualcomm is the owner of an exclusive copyright for each of these documents. Cyveillance is authorized to act on behalf of Qualcomm, and has a good faith belief that the publication and/or disclosure by your web site is not authorized by Qualcomm, any of Qualcomm’s agents, or the law. I certify, under penalty of perjury, that the information in this notice is accurate.
Honestly, I'm ok with this. The specific case is dumb, but I can't imagine a change to the laws that could make things better. You can't outlaw dumb.
Recently I found that one of my popular posts on startups had been boosted without permission or credit by some wannabe-accelerator in Texas. I filed a DMCA request and their host took the page down promptly. It just worked.
I'd hope Github is doing some basic checks on requests like this. But I don't want them to try to become a mini-court. We already have a perfectly good court system for resolving ownership disputes.
> I'd hope Github is doing some basic checks on requests like this.
You're not allowed to do that without losing the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA. Anything that shows up that matches the format must be obeyed. That's why counter-notifications exist.
Are you sure about that? My guess is that if I, say, forge some DMCA notices as being from major media companies trying to take down stuff belonging to other major media companies, YouTube will happily ignore me.
Certainly I don't see anything in the law itself that prevents them from verifying that the notice actually comes from the entity claimed, or saying, "Hey buddy, are you sure you really own that?" Which is all I meant by basic checks.
Are you aware of some case law that demonstrates otherwise?
My guess is that if I, say, forge some DMCA notices as being from major media companies trying to take down stuff belonging to other major media companies, YouTube will happily ignore me.
On what do you base your guess? Because as I understand it, your guess is 100% wrong.
One, if I read the safe harbor stuff correctly, then if you ignore a DMCA notice it means you can now be sued for hosting the content. If a host decides they are willing to run that risk, I believe they can happily ignore a DMCA notice.
Two, basic business knowledge. YouTube partners with a lot of the major media companies, and taking down large volumes of their stuff in a way that looks dumb would harm their partnerships. Companies are very reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them.
Three, if someone could take down everything on YouTube by forging a zillion DMCA notices, I expect some enterprising troublemaker would have done it long ago just for the lulz.
Ok! Your turn. What's your evidence? Because that's what I asked for before and nobody replied.
Some companies seem to believe that the "losing the safe harbor provisions" risk is in respect to that particular dispute rather than in general. If so, they can knowingly take that particular risk by questioning a particular notice.
I'm not a layer, but I don't think so. IMO if they don't comply, they can be sued for copyright infringement caused by ignoring that notice. If there is no infringement, there is nothing to fear.
These type of bots have many problems. I have see similar situation on Youtube where a content provider mistakingly takes down their own content along with the infringers.
Also, I have heard of this happening with people sharing open source software on bit torrent. This isnt the original article I read but the closest one I could find.[1]
CDA §230 could be amended to immunize intermediaries for all liability for copyright violations (just as they're immunized for liability from other civil lawsuits).
Even in a notice and takedown system, the time required to act on the notice could be increased to ensure that the target has an opportunity to counternotice, and the counternotice could be made immediately effective, rather than effective with a delay.
I think the first would make it useless for purposes of enforcement, so I think that's a bad idea.
But the opportunity for counternotice seems like a great idea, perhaps including some discretion for the hosting company. When the DMCA was written, they would have had to allow for a relatively long period. But now that we all have the internet in our pockets, it seems like a few days or maybe a week would be plenty of time.
I gather you must not be a native speaker of English. "Perfectly good" does not mean perfect. It means something like "serviceable" or "adequate for the purpose at hand":
> "Hosting your code on GitHub is senseless because anybody can take your code down at a moment's notice"
While I agree with the sentiment, this statement is a bit extreme. Especially since it's a distributed system so you're not exactly losing your work. Also, you can get it back online if you jump through the flaming hoops. In reality there is no better option for hosting OSS code right now than GitHub.
> In reality there is no better option for hosting OSS code right now than GitHub.
You're right that your code isn't permanently lost, but you're wrong that GitHub is the only option or even the best option for hosting your code. GitLab and gogs are incredible pieces of software and if your needs are small, you can even just use cgit or the built-in gitweb tool. DigitalOcean is one host that can trivially provision GitLab instances.
I've hosted my own git server for about a year at https://stealthis.ca. It costs less money than GitHub's cheapest plan and supports unlimited mirrors and private repositories with any amount of collaborators. It also has never went taken my code offline, ever, for any reason. You can guess what'd happen if somebody sent me a DMCA request.
If you don't include "regaining access to your code because you upset somebody and they filed a false DMCA complaint that GitHub blindly obeyed" as admin work then you're indeed correct!
It's what the law requires. GitHub, YouTube, etc... don't have a choice in the matter. They are required to take down the content until they receive a formal counter-notice from the recevier of the takedown.
/*
* This file was originally distributed by Qualcomm Atheros, Inc.
* under proprietary terms before Copyright ownership was assigned
* to the Linux Foundation.
*/
I still don't understand how a bot can sign a takedown request that is executed under the penalty of perjury and why no one has gone after misfilings legally.
Because there is no pay-out. You'd be fighting an uphill battle just to see someone get a slap on the wrist.
In the legal profession you have to do someone extremely egregious to see any action taken against you. Just look at examples like Jack Thomas, or Prenda Law. It took extreme actions for Bar Associations and Courts to even consider the idea that a lawyer might not be acting in good faith.
1. When you're talking at the company-level, $125k seems like a slap on the wrist. For example, do you think that Qualcomm would really change their practices to avoid a $125k fine rather than just accepting it as the cost of doing business?
2. Diebold probably spent significantly more than $125k just in defending the lawsuit, so the end result of forcing them to pay out $125k is more of a moral victory than anything else.
3. The Diebold case had the benefit of the content itself (internal emails discussing issues with voting machines) being unquestionably in the public interest.
>>Because there is no pay-out. You'd be fighting an uphill battle just to see someone get a slap on the wrist.
No, it's much more important than that. If you win, it would establish legal precedent, which would make companies think twice before pulling this type of shenanigans in the future.
Only part of it is under penalty of perjury, and that's the part that is true in this case:
"A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."
It's legally unclear whether automated takedown notices (especially when they end up taking down legitimate material) are legitimate or not. The only case I know of was a countersuit in the Warner Brothers/Hotfile case, but unfortunately Hotfile lost the original suit (WB had sued them for copyright infringement), closed and settled both cases.
People seem to be misunderstanding the point, and requirements of the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions. The take down procedure is to allow companies such as Github to avoid being involved in a dispute in any way. Meaning if a lawsuit should occur they don't win because they complied with DMCA they get to avoid the suit altogether.
Given one lawsuit can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in litigation even for the winning side, it would be impossible for any ISP to operate in a climate where they could be dragged into every argument over content rights. Github is not the authority. They don't know if the code is inferring or not, so the DMCA says they can defer the authority (and liability) to those who should know, the ones who put the code up in the first place.
It is unreasonable to expect Github to vet every open source project, and it is also unreasonable for Github to bare any legal responsibility just because one of their users, or a litigious copyright holder did something wrong. The DMCA Safe Harder is designed specifically to account for this.
Although technically possible it is not legally possible to issue a DMCA take down by bot, since a bot can not provide: a statement by the copyright owner, a statement of the accuracy of the notice, or a statement under penalty of perjury that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner.
[My opinion is, if a real person uses a bot and then makes these statements under penalty of perjury, then every time that bot makes a mistake we (the tech community) should be filing Amicus curiae[1] with the court that they have perjured themselves. If you are a technically competent person you cannot honestly make a statement that your bot has not made any mistakes without human review.]
The weakness of the DMCA Safe Harbor arises not in the above issues but rather in the fact that the DMCA requires that materials be taken down immediately before response by the allegedly infringing party[2]. To balance that (to some degree) if the allegedly infringing party follows the procedure to have the materials restored, then the ISP must restore the materials in 14 days unless the complaining party has shown evidence they have filed a case.
In other words if a complaining party fails to immediately follow with a lawsuit the materials MUST be restored.
> To balance that (to some degree) if the allegedly infringing party follows the procedure to have the materials restored, then the ISP must restore the materials in 14 days unless the complaining party has shown evidence they have filed a case.
This is not, in fact, true. The provider is not required to restore the materials. The provider is, however, no longer protected from any liability to the user whose material was taken down that would have existed without the DMCA if they don't restore the material in response to a proper counternotice, but most proviers have already structured their contractual relationships with users so that they have no liability for that in the first place, so they don't need the safe harbor from the user, only the one from the copyright owner.
Which is the real source of asymmetry -- the safe harbor is superficially symmetrical, but one side is protecting from liability that doesn't exist in the first place, so there is no incentive for compliance.
If the copyright owner does not bring a lawsuit in district court within 14 days, the services provider is then required to restore the materials to it's location on its network.
Edit: You cannot contractually exempt yourself from portions of the DMCA. It either applies, and you are protected under the Safe Harbor provisions, or it doesn't and you are not.
No. The provider is required to restore the materials if they wish to continue receiving the protections from 512(g)(1). If the user has already agreed that the provider can remove work at will, there's no reason for the provider to care about the 512(g)(1) protections.
I understand this argument, but it's a mistake. It's an incredibly dangerous position for an ISP to take and for what benefit? Why risk stepping outside the DMCA's protection?
Here's why it's dangerous for the ISP:
If I'm a copyright holder and find infringing materials on your service I will issue a take down notice.
You take the materials down. All good you think.
Nope. I then sue you (you've got more money then the infringer anyway).
You say "but, but, your honor we complied with the DMCA"
But I say "oh no you didn't you don't allow for your users to file counter-notices. Time for the court to decide."
And now we're in trial, because you don't have DMCA protection.
Is it an absolute fact this will happen? No, but the problem is it could happen, and that is exactly the liability the ISP is trying to avoid. And why, just so they can be an asshole to their users? There is absolutely no upside to exempting yourself from the counter-claim procedure.
> I understand this argument, but it's a mistake. It's an incredibly dangerous position for and ISP to take and for what benefit?
Its really not.
Unlike with copyright owners, the ISP usually has the advantage in terms of resources and ability to maintain a legal challenge when compared to users.
Unlike with copyright owners, the ISP usually has a contract with users which already allows them to take down any material, for any reason, in their sole discretion, making the DMCA safe harbor superfluous.
Unlike with copyright owners, even if there were liability to users, that liability would (under well-established contract principles) be almost certainly limited to no more than the amount the user had paid for the service for the time in which the material was improperly kept down.
> But I say "oh no you didn't you don't allow for your users to file counter-notices. Time for the court to decide."
How does that have any bearing. Each half of the DMCA safe harbor expressly applies based on whether or not you did the act you are required with regard to the party with liability in that case. So, the fact that you didn't do something with regard to some other party on the opposite side of a DMCA notice/counternotice exchange in a different case is irrelevant.
> Is it an absolute fact this will happen? No, but the problem is it could happen
Anyone could theoretically raise any argument no matter how little basis it has in the law, but that doesn't make it a real substantial risk.
Well you and I disagree on the risks involved. And to what degree any organization can contractually exempt themselves from law. If they could they could also simply have a service agreement that says if you use the site you can't sue for copyright infringement and we wouldn't need the DMCA in the first place.
My point is that the DMCA can be used as a get out of a lawsuit free card only if you comply with it. In all other cases you are exposed to a 'question' of compliance which requires the involvement of a finder of fact. That equals risk to me, and again to what end?
However, if you comply fully with the DMCA you cannot theoretically or otherwise raise any argument against the ISP under copyright infringement or unlawful takedowns, period. Move away from complete compliance with the DMCA and yes you can still 'argue' that you are protected but you must pay to make that argument in the course of a suit. That to me is a liability, even from a winning position. Plus you are also exposing yourself to broader actions by cilvl liberties and other organizations working for the 'users' rights who did not agree to your questionable contract.
That is a lot of risk to assume, for what purpose exactly? Laziness?
Edit: Personally though I agree the DMCA is a poor tool for the job and needs to have much stronger teeth in favor of the users (read: citizens).
> Well you and I disagree on the risks involved. And to what degree any organization can contractually exempt themselves from law.
Its not an issue of "contractually exempting themselves from law". There's no law providing general liability to a user for an ISP taking down material. The only liability that would exist for doing so would be for breach of contract. Which would mean that there would have to be a contractual obligation not to take down the material for there to be a need for the DMCA safe harbor. Which ISPs routinely already avoided, before the DMCA even existed, by having contracts which expressly included provisions indicating that the ISP could take down material in their sole discretion. As regards to the user facing side, the DMCA safe harbor is, therefore, usually irrelevant. (There are no doubt some exceptional cases with atypical contract schemes where the contractual relationship is different --
but they aren't usual ISP or other content host to typical public user agreements.)
> My point is that the DMCA can be used as a get out of a lawsuit free card only if you comply with it. In all other cases you are exposed to a 'question' of compliance which requires the involvement of a finder of fact.
That's almost 100% backwards. Asserting an immunity to liability based on compliance with the DMCA is asserting a defense which requires the involvement of a finder of fact -- compliance with the DMCA is a question of fact. But whether question is relevant requires there to a basis for legal basis for a claim under which you could be held liable before considering the DMCA safe harbor -- which is often what is missing on the user-facing side.
> However, if you comply fully with the DMCA you cannot theoretically or otherwise raise any argument against the ISP under copyright infringement or unlawful takedowns, period.
Incorrect. You get to raise the argument first. The provider/host can then use its compliance with the specific DMCA safe harbor provisions relevant to its liability to you as a defense against that claim, and if it does so, it is immune from any liability. But they don't have to show that they "comply fully with the DMCA", they have to show that they complied with the requirements related ot the claim being advanced. If you are a copyright owner, they show that they complied timely with the takedown notice to get out of the copyright claim. If you are a user, they show that they complied with the counternotice to get out of whatever claim (presumably, contract-based) that the brought. But you first have to have a claim that doesn't get thrown out as a matter of law before raising the DMCA safe harbor defense even matters.
> That is a lot of risk to assume
Really? A lot of risk? Can you name one case where a succesful lawsuit was brought against any content host, ISP, etc., for failure to restore content subject to a DMCA counternotice? Or even for policies that involve more drastic than takedown penalties -- like contract termination -- for suspected copyright violation without any advance notice or opportunity to respond?
Haha, well damn, isn't this just the problem with law. You try to speak figuratively to communicate the gist of an idea abstractly (given the forum), and then someone comes along to explain how your figurative speech isn't literally correct.
Ah well, like I said we disagree on the risk. In which I mean the cost of doing business, not the danger of losing a lawsuit. I think you've missed my point, and are conflating 'legal certainty' and 'winning argument'. Also you avoided addressed why a service would act against their own users in such a way, even if the perceived risk is small. (By the way I would argue many if not most, DMCA related litigation in which ISPs have lost shows that failure to comply strictly with all aspects of the DMCA was the ISPs downfall, please forgive me for not including citations ;)
Nevertheless, you have excellent points as to why we need to replace the DMCA, and why there may be a perception that there is less risk in ignoring a restoration demand then complying with it.
No. All I lose by not following 512(g)(2) is the protections that 512(g)(1) gives me, which are entirely limited to being sued over having taken down the material - eg, the customer suffers financial harm as a result of their website being unavailable, but can't sue me because I followed the terms of 512(g). The protection I have from the copyright holder suing me is under 512(c)(1). The 512(c)(1) protections are not conditional upon 512(g) at all.
As I've said elsewhere I disagree with this position. And at the risk of beating a dead horse the text specifically says in various ways, and in various places the general concept that a service provider shall not be liable only if a number of general principals are followed that include the fact they are not participating in the selection process of the material. If they begin to participate they are not protected under Safe Harbor.
For example 512 requires that:
"the transmission, routing, provision of connections, or storage is carried out through an automatic technical process without selection of the material by the service provider"
Demonstrable proof of non automated selection such as failure to comply with a lawful counter-notice voids the ENTIRE protection.
Companies such as Vimeo have lost protections under the DMCA safe harbor provisions for exactly this reason.
> My opinion is, if a real person uses a bot and then makes these statements under penalty of perjury, then every time that bot makes a mistake we (the tech community) should be filing Amicus curiae
Has this ever been done successfully? I found an example in Disney v. Hotfile[1] but it was eventually settled out of court and not in Hotfile's favour.
An honest mistake shouldn't constitute perjury, but the shotgun approach is not acting in good faith.
Yeah this doesn't seem to be done very often. I'm trying to encourage the behavior though because I often see that courts are easily confused by technical issues that are well understood by the community.
This may or may not be such a case, but is calming your code is flawless under penalty of perjury an honest mistake?
I did not take a position one way or the other on incorrect takedown notices.
I said it is my opinion that we as a technical community should try to help the court. Wether we have before, or wether it was successful or not, doesn't enter into it.
Issuing a false DMCA takedown notice may not be sanctionable under the DMCA, but how is it not the false, fraudulent assertion of copyright ownership? Surely there is nothing that excuses false assertion of copyright.
Nothing may excuse it, but to take two infamous examples where entities sued based on fraudulent assertions of copyright ownership, as determined in court, the SCO Group and Righthaven (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas_Review-Journal#Copyr...), nothing serious happened to the plaintiffs, other than of course losing their lawsuits and going bankrupt. (Others have mentioned Prenda Law, but that cit's behavior was so aberrant it's not a very useful example.)
This is just as much on Github as it is on Qualcomm. There is no reason Github should grant preliminary takedown on any repository no matter who the client is, and a quick run-through on some of these requests show that many of these were made in error. It should be Github's responsibility to make sure that erroneous claims are not capable of actually removing or blocking content on their service.
They are absolutely required to by law immediately. They must wait 2 weeks before putting the files up again to give Qualcomm a chance for further action.
Ah Cyveillance is part of QinetiQ. I guess when they're not giving or receiving bribes or orchestrating government sell-offs that result in their management personally gaining huge pools of wealth they take time off to spam DMCA take downs. Makes sense.
Quite a few of them appear to be part of the Qualcomm Vuforia AR Toolkit. I happen to have this lying around from a few years back and the license for the example code seems to be "All rights reserved, Qualcomm Confidential and Proprietary". I suspect this was an oversight they may have corrected so I will be interested to see what happens with the DMCA requests.
Seems like a lot of people have taken the Vuforia kit and just pushed it into their public source repositories. I don't think there's a problem with using the kit, but Qualcomm apparently doesn't want people incorporating the kit into their repos.
I had no idea dmca could be used for source code. I feel like the merits of the claim could require argument. It's not like media where you're very clearly using some ones so g or picture.
Copyright's pretty crucial for a lot of software. The GPL, in particular, depends on copyright law to have any useful effect. Why would you think code isn't a creative work but a photo is?
I'm not saying its not legitimate copyrightable work. I'm saying the claims are hard to verify. There's no content id for closed source code. There's not even manual identification or just skimming to see if the claim might even have merit. All you have is a complaint.
This is different from when its say a song. Its not hard to look at the song and say "yep thats metallica".
Sort of fuzzy in some countries. In Australia categorising data is something not protected by copyright, say a phone books listings of numbers, because there's only one way to do that and there's no creative process involved. Some code could probably be argued to fit into that as well.
