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Comment by michelb | Hacker News Reader

Indeed. This just plays into their hands.

Not necessarily. Remember what happened when Digg tried to ban anyone from posting the 09F9 number because it was a secret key to some DVD thing? The users revolted so hard that the people managing the site gave up and let it stand.

Then again... who remembers Digg?

What an interesting read!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controve...

> Then again... who remembers Digg?

I do. It was pretty good, then they destroyed it, de facto paving the way for Reddit's success.

I hope something replaces reddit soon. The creeping features are beginning to rot.

Once Reddit finishes its transformation into an meme image and video board, the current incarnation of its platform will go the way of forums and newsgroups.

Over time, Facebook groups and Twitter have become the de facto discussion hubs for communities that I've been a part of for years. Those platforms make it hard to not reveal your true identity online, and you have to give Facebook and Twitter your phone number just to register. Facebook will even ask users to verify their identities with their driver's licenses. At least for me, this causes a chilling effect on my online participation in these communities.

For example, I won't talk about politics in my neighborhood's Facebook group because I don't want to be harassed. I recently witnessed a single mother get harassed because she respectfully disagreed with someone's politics in the group. People started posting pictures of her kids, putting them into crude memes, and the mayor went through public records to find her full name and address.

Reddit threading is just garbage. Impossible to follow the conversation beyond the comment you directly responded to and the immediate ones thereafter. Anything deeper and you never get a notification.

The last redesign that nobody wanted did it for me, that was the last straw. The mobile app was horrendous as well - from all accounts it sounds like nothing has changed. But yes, I agree, we need a replacement soon.

They haven't removed old reddit yet. I believe you can set old reddit as your default in your profile still.

Completely off topic but there's no way to get to r/friends from the mobile app. It's pathetic.

There are third party apps that allow you to that, and many other things.

I am aware of two open source ones: RedReader and Slide (both Android).

You really think Github will giveup respecting DMCA and copyright infringement? Your example is nice, but it's about the copyright stand of a number... it's much more grey than respecting an actual DMCA notice and being aware of actual copyrighted content on your platform.

I don't think so... instead what I expect would most probably happen is that they automate it even more, which will suck even more. We got enough damage already from Youtube doing it...

Of course Microsoft (the company behind Github) will not give up respecting DMCA and copyright infringement.

The question rather is: how much will developers continue to respect Microsoft?

You’re asking people to not respect Microsoft because they’re doing something they’re legally mandated to do. If Microsoft takes the route many have argued for here (namely, reject the DMCA request as it’s invalid) and the DMCA request ends up being found valid in the courts, Microsoft loses their DMCA safe harbor protections and open themselves up to multi-million dollar lawsuits. Sure, if they’re right, then they’re in the clear, but when their business is at risk of being killed if they’re wrong, they’re going to err on the side of caution.

It’s easy to stand at a distance and mock those who do something we disagree with, but when you’re actually in that situation, your tune is going to change very quickly. A bad example, but if you’re getting mugged, sure, you could fight back, but your life is on the line.

The safe harbor under Section 512 applies to takedown requests for content copyrighted by the person issuing the notice. I don't think there is anybody asserting that the RIAA is the author of youtube-dl and thereby eligible to make a claim under that section.

I would also be curious to see you cite a case that says that refusing a takedown notice in one case costs anyone the Section 512 safe harbor in all other cases where they continue to execute takedown notices, since that would be oppressive and ridiculous.

Not necessarily. If this situation goes viral and leads to an overall increase in piracy, someone at RIAA will have to answer for it.

The question being "Hooray, we can bill our clients more. Piracy is back! Who's name is going on this bonus here then?"

How do you optimize to maximize billing while minimizing effective takedowns? If I recall, you could host youtube-dl like repos in the Netherlands and Turkey on VMs running hosted git, and they'd be out of reach of the copyright cartel.

That is not hard, as the actions are fueled by greed and depend on spreading fear. It has nothing to do with rational thinking. At least not in the way an average consumer would assume.

Copyright cartels live by bullying. It is not important how much of the takedowns are actually effective, as long as they get to dominate the news with their lawsuits. Because only that will already deter al lot of people. Just drag everything on forever and have an occasional success that you can trump on every news channel. That is enough to spread fear. And that works also in other countries, like The Netherlands, because they will have some representative organization there (Brein, in this case) that is happy to take on the role of the bully for a small amount of cash.

I would go further and call them a "Hypnosis Apartment" - they only "work" when the client believes they work the actual realities are irrelevant. Even if they actually stopped all piracy if their clients believed it was because they designed a majestic new American Flag their cartel goes crumbling down.

> Because only that will already deter alot of people.

Thing about software is it doesn't need a lot of people. Just a handful.

Napster was viral.

oink.cd was viral.

PopcornTime is viral.

The Pirate Bay was/is viral.

RIAA doesn't care. Their main business is extortion racket. And it's extremely lucrative.

And it's extortion on all sides. They extort money from DMCA and copyright lawsuits. They extort money from artists. They extort money from music services.

How could someone kill RIAA?

You'd have to kill the Big Four: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry#Consolidation

As long as they act they will be fine. Github will be more at risk, since they are legally responsible for content hosted on their site. They have some protections under the DMCA, but only if they respond to takedown requests in a timely manner. And those takedown requests take time and effort to process.

The RIAA and other copyright holder representatives have automated submitting a DMCA takedown request process ages ago, and now submit thousands a day to e.g. youtube. Youtube in turn has automated taking down content that receives said requests and probably a big part of the appeal process as well. Is Github that far already?

Microsoft is playing a different game than YouTube/Google.

Microsoft bought Github for 7.5 billion dollars. Github is a website wrapping a git-server; you know Microsoft could have built their own for a lot less money. The didn't buy the technology, they bought a network, its data and a brand. They are trying to improve their reputation with the open source community. It's really hard to measure such a thing, but this RIAA take down reduced developer trust. If Microsoft chose to fight a legal battle, win or lose they would win on their branding front. They would signal that they are defending open source.

Is the RIAA actually sending DMCA takedowns? Or are they just doing ContentID claims? The former of which puts a strike on your account and can be appealed in the courts while the latter is entirely Google’s doing and you’re at the mercy of their appeals process.

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