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Comment by ab_testing | Hacker News Reader

I think the long term solution for this problem is the developers of open source software like the bit torrent client, youtube-dl and other similar software will have to host their code outside of the reach of DMCA regualation. That will usually mean something like Github like site hosted in Russia, China or some other bloc where DMCA does not apply.

Right now, lots of users in the US scientific community use Scihub or how millions of US students use libgen, millions of users of open source software will have to get used to a non US controlled domain to get access to their software. Also development of these software will be done in the shadows so as to avoid the reach of the DMCA.

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Relying on other countries can't ever be a long term solution.

That pirate bay and scihub are still around, that their authors are walking around freely, is a miracle that should not be taken for granted.

We need to work on fixing these problems in our own countries. We need to talk about the freedoms we care about, put a good brand to those freedoms and win popular attention and enshrine those freedoms into law. And build a society that depends on those freedoms so much that rolling them back would be unthinkable.

That would be an actual long term solution. It is hard but if we all contribute, we can do it. Probably.

I agree in principle, but a much easier fix would be to host such code on a tor hidden service. That way the physical server can be located more or less wherever.

Then we just have to normalize the use of Tor so that banning it becomes unthinkable ...

In other words, instead of trying to change the laws, which is the whole idea of a democracy, just give up on laws altogether.

The vast majority of people don't give a shit about this, so the money being pumped by rights holders will win out.

> That pirate bay and scihub are still around, that their authors are walking around freely

Let's not equate these sites. scihub gives people what they are likely already paid for. Academic publishing business is a fraud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PriwCi6SzLo (recent video on the topic that I liked)

> scihub gives people what they are likely already paid for

No, as long as the researcher was not bound by the grant to publish in the open and published in a journal/conference with a copyright, you do not have the legal right to get it, even if taxpayers funded the research.

It’s fucked that the law doesn’t stipulate open publications for taxpayer funded research, but that’s an issue with the law. Academic publishing isn’t a “fraud” in the normal definition.

You're countering what I perceive to be moral argument with a legal one, which would be a category error.

Yet whether the authors walk freely is entirely a legal issue, not a moral one.

“Fraud”

"Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström were all found guilty and sentenced to serve one year in prison and pay a fine of 30 million SEK". I wouldn't call it walk freely.

Yeah, Sweden doesn’t allow for zeroing debts due to legal judgements in personal bankruptcy, IIRC.

This means that they were effectively sentenced to lifelong debt slavery. This is another dark part of the Scandinavian model that most aren’t aware of. Same system in Norway.

I know a friend of one of those 4 mentioned and he is doing absolutely fine (money-wise at least)

Do you know any details? I had the distinct impression that these debts would never be discharged.

Are the authorities just not following up on using the legal framework to seize any of their earnings towards the debt?

>Relying on other countries can't ever be a long term solution.

It is the only solution that can put any pressure on the US in a macro sense. The DMCA is a uniquely American creation, and it will remain in tact until the US starts losing intellectual capital to other countries. Such a thing is not likely to happen any time soon, but in a decade or two, the US will still be arguing which Larry owns the copyright to a header file, while China and others would have moved on to far more interesting challenges.

> I think the long term solution for this problem is the developers of open source software like the bit torrent client, youtube-dl and other similar software will have to host their code outside of the reach of DMCA regualation

I'm not sure about that. I think the real long term solution is to have a decentralized version of YouTube/video publishing platform that is resistant (invulnerable?) to censorship. I'm not saying that it's not difficult, or even impossible, but I would love to see more discussion regarding true web decentralization, not legal semantics.

LBRY.tv is a decentralized Youtube alternative. Another one is : bittube.tv

Zeronet [0] has implemented a decentralized website model, a Github alternative on there could be more resilient, though it does require additional client software to run. I believe the site owner can update their decentralized website with their cryptographic keys.

Perhaps WebTorrent [1] can be the basis for an in-browser implementation, along with service workers to stay cached and self-update without requiring a running host. Talk about serverless :^)

[0] https://zeronet.io/ [1] https://webtorrent.io/

Zeronet is very underrated, though I've never been able to exactly grok their high level architecture, for some reason.

> outside of the reach of DMCA regualation.

What's the latency to the Moon again? :)

2.5s is the minimum roundtrip. Add server and satellite hops and you get something closer to 3s minimum. Every time.

Thanks. Sounds like it'd be workable as a backup target then, but would probably suck being the primary place to grab source code.

That being said, maybe it would be ok as a primary location if there are more localised caches (eg lower response times) commonly available.

It's git - what do you need low-latency for? Download directories, trees, as the initial requests, then send a second request for the source code you want to download. Then the bottleneck is download speed instead of latency.

For just git, sure.

For a web application to present it (eg Gitea, GitLab, etc), then the lower latency would be helpful. ;)

eh, web applications are overrated. :)

Not a problem for Git or even PR workflow then.

It would not be an issue even in the Earth-Mars case, where the roundtrip latency is 20m-1h15m depending on the time.

Well, you probably wouldn't want to try using standard TCP connections with that. ;)

I wonder how this will work out in practice. Funny thing old pre-Internet protocols migh even work out of the box in this case. Interplanetary email & newsgroups! :-)

Hosting the git repository on ipfs might be a solution.

There is also git-ssb

It appears there is already a recent copy of the Git repository hosted on IPFS:

http://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmNaDfmdDdahE2c4jxSuptSxMefQEZPw...

The most recent commit is from October 23.

Nah, that won't work. China is a member of WTO and follows the TRIPS agreement. Therefore, I guess the RIAA will just go court in China, and they can still take down any repository which they'd like to. Lots of companies from the western country have won intellectual lawsuits in China.

Sites like sci-hub works in a way tricky manner. You can't expect an ordinary company which is in another country to do so, because they are still inside the framework of the international capitalism.

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