Adobe Goes After 27-Year Old ‘Pirated’ Copy of Acrobat Reader 1.0 for MS-DOS
torrentfreak.com
torrentfreak.com
There's a whole secondary and very interesting story to be told here about the nasty relationship that has formed between copyright holders and these firms specializing in takedowns that cling to them like barnacles on a whale.
It's obviously tempting to outsource a job like tracking down copyright violations which doesn't play in to any of your business's competencies, but it also seems quite likely that the companies who provide this "service" typically do so in a way that looks good on a paper report that a manager at the host company receives, but doesn't actually benefit them optimally for the money they spend on it.
Takedown companies seem to go after violations that will net them the fastest and most reliable takedown rates. They want to run up the score so that they can say "last month, we took down 5482 violations of your copyright in Adobe Reader" or what have you. This means, largely, going after posts and uploads on sites that have "quick service" DMCA takedowns like Twitter and YouTube. You're not investing time on random websites that may or may not even respond. No human intelligence is required (indeed, even desirable) in this process. It's effectively humans being paid the lowest possible wage to do an automated job. In some cases I suppose it's probably fully automated.
And Adobe can try to shift the blame however they want, the final responsibility lies with them as the rights owner and as the ones who hired that takedown firm to act in their name.
Ultimately the damage here is relatively minor, but this behaviour could cause serious harm in future.
Yet it seems ok to automate this, knowing full well that there will be false positives that could seriously affect people. Sometimes it feels like we eventually got a soft version of Skynet, ruled by robots, except they aren't trying to kill us yet.
This makes banning expression so much easier.
Funny enough the US tax money also paid for research to circumvent this issue, resulting in what we know as the dark web.
> except they aren't trying to kill us yet.
A lot of people have had their livelihood taken, or greatly reduced, by DMCA.
Because the ones benefiting from this lobbied their way into getting it. And to extract the most value they implemented automated means of doing it. Not only does this allow easily sending a flood of takedown notices thus discouraging anyone from even thinking of crossing you, it also provides an easy scapegoat in the near impossible situation that the company abusing the system is actually called to answer for the abuse. "It was just a technical mishap".
But this isn't a technical problem, it's a corruption problem. And it doesn't have a technical fix, it has a legal one that cannot be applied because of the lobbying (corruption) mentioned earlier.
On the other hand most takedown notices aren't actual "DMCA takedown notices". Platforms like YouTube or Twitter simply have an arrangement with the big "content owners" that they will act on such internal notices. That's to shield themselves from incurring costs when unavoidably they will host copyright infringing content that they don't take down. It's easier and safer to take the side of the big content owners than that of the users.
Governments create the impression that small, widespread corruption is the one that counts. The one where you pay a cop to get out of a speeding ticket, or a doctor to get better medical care. They will go out of their way to commission reports that condemn this as the real danger to society while using obscure metrics to support that idea.
At the same time they invent a word to use when governments and legislators are involved: lobbying. They write off the corruption happening at high levels even if it's responsible for fundamentally changing how society works in ways that small corruption never could. Laws that weaken the educational system, or employee's rights, that protect corporations, etc. not only are the reason for why most small corruption exists in the first place, they also damage society beyond belief. And the kind of money and favors involved dwarf the GDP of many of those "most corrupt countries in the world". Which is why governments go out of their way to make this look like fair game, it's just lobbying.
Getting the "evidence" is next to impossible because of the framework built around this. There are actual laws sending you to prison for giving $50 to a cop to get out of a fine, or the cop for taking it, written by the same people who wrote the law that allows one to pay $50M to a legislator to pass a "favorable" law. Of course there are some nuances that are always the go to for justifying how lobbying isn't bribery but they're all just as solid as saying "beautiful kids, it would be a shame if something... happened to them" is not extortion.
The DMCA was written to shield them from incurring costs.(see OCILLA) They have wholly decided to operate in a realm outside the law in conjunction with copyright holders to actively seek out infringing material on their platform, to the point of limiting fair use and false positives.
"To qualify for the § 512(c) safe harbor, the OSP must not have actual knowledge that it is hosting infringing material or be aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent. It is clear from the statute and legislative history that an OSP has no duty to monitor its service or affirmatively seek infringing material on its system." >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_...
> The "red flag" test contains both a subjective and an objective element. Subjectively, the OSP must have knowledge that the material resides on its system. Objectively, the "infringing activity would have been apparent to a reasonable person operating under the same or similar circumstances."
TL;DR: A half page automated email from a content owner has to be acted on expeditiously, can only be overturned with a lawsuit, and there's no penalty for abusing the system. Big content owners put a lot of money in the pockets of legislators to get such obviously biased laws in their favor.
The takedown example here [0] requires all of 30 minutes of effort to be able to send notices as fast as your internet connection allows it. At this point all protections the OSP (YouTube) has are removed.
The "red flag" process sets the bar just as low for the content owners. No OSP wants to test challenging this out in court knowing they make an enemy out of big content owners and even expose themselves to targeted attacks and more liability.
But worse, the law puts a hell of a burden on the allegedly infringing party (the YouTube user) who has to fight in court against an automated email. Given the imbalance of power you'd expect the legislation to propose some penalty for abuse, like rapidly increasing fines for each false flag. It does not. It is solely aimed at "expeditiously" complying with the demand of the content owner leaving the other party with an impossible fight if they want the situation corrected.
There is no reasonable interpretation where setting such a low bar for content owners but such a high bar for everyone else has anything to do with fairness. Big name content owners payed for this, and the US legislators took the money and delivered. YouTube and Twitter simply have no bone to pick with them and would rather stay out of the fight by complying without objections.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_...
Which is fine, they wish to operate a legal business. But they are going out of their way to create their own system that is more stringent than the law.
>TL;DR: A half page automated email from a content owner has to be acted on expeditiously, can only be overturned with a lawsuit, and there's no penalty for abusing the system.
Per the outline in Wikipedia, Alice does not need to file a lawsuit to get the material reinstated, only send a counterclaim letter, similar to the claim letter sent by the content holder. If the content holder wishes to contest further, they must file a lawsuit, otherwise after 14 days the material may be put back up.
>there's no penalty for abusing the system.
No and that is a problem.
I am not very familiar with the red flag system and there did not seem to be a good description at a glance. My guess would be that if your system is used/ is promoted as enabling infringement, then you may be liable. Like MegaUpload was.
The reason that Youtube and Twitter go above and beyond the law is simple, it gives them more power and they view being content owners as their next step so they are doing what they can to consolidate power on that front. We should not give them a pass for this behavior.
The problem is not the bots, it is that obvious false positives are not punished as they should.
1. Some sites lock accounts on reports rather than just the offending content or have YouTube-style systems which aren’t the DMCA. That’s an indirect problem especially when, as in the latter case, it’s probably a private deal where YouTube avoided lawsuits by agreeing to spare the major holding companies the expense of filing DMCA complaints.
2. The DMCA has penalties for false claims but they’re almost never enforced. This is the best area for reform: if someone’s bot incurred liability for every claim where it misidentified the material or hit a fair use case (e.g. police officers playing music loudly to make YouTube auto-block recordings of them) they would quickly start improving those systems and adding human checks.
Diebold lost a case where someone published internal emails and they used the DMCA to try to get them taken offline, and a judge agreed that this was fair use:
I would like to see such perjury charges be expanded to situations where it is clear the copyright holder's representative has acted in bad faith regarding whether infringement even happened, or whether it was justified infringement (fair use).
These people (as will many lawyers, outsourced or not) will go out of their way to ruin the image of your company and brand in the eyes of customers, even when there is absolutely nothing to be gained.
It just doesn't look great when a devoted fanbase starts getting takedown notices and legal threats over memes, supplementary content, etc.
A legal department with agency is not a good idea. There should be very specific instructions as to what they can initiate on their own.
I remember that being a real problem, but as I learned when I left the Adobe ecosystem last year, there's now a healthy ecosystem of competitive creative tools from ISVs like Affinity, Gravit, Figma, Procreate, Blackmagic Design, etc. The irony is that Adobe helped jump-start this ecosystem when they went subscription-only.
The open source world is doing a really good job of creating free versions of the things that made their products great.
Getting customers used to using you software, just might make them cough up a monthly subscription rip-off at some point? There was a time when you bought the program, and got a reasonable amount of updates. (Sorry about the last line. I know you guys know that.)
Adobe lost my wallet when they got greedy, and figured loyal customers wouldn’t take notice.
(Yes—I know about their student discounts.)
Screenshots: https://winworldpc.com/screenshot/106ec2b0-c389-1cc3-8411-c3...
My pre-teen self didn't get to run games from CD-ROM before 1997 or so. :-(
Running one graphical app under DOS needed less system resources than running one under Windows, so you could get more bang for buck. Also, at that point Windows was still not great at interacting with some hardware devices in real time, so some devices needed DOS to work well.
If I can't buy it or get support, then I shouldn't have to worry about copying it.
Actually, this should be valid for everything.
The PDF standard is open, and there are plenty of reader alternatives with all kinds of licenses; if Acrobat was some kind of unique thing that was no longer supported or you could no longer get a legal copy, then you'd have more of a point.
For that matter, what if I rewrite the whole code base but keep the same general functionality and target audience - does that change things? If so then you've just disincentivised certain types of refactors even though they have very little impact on the users.
Of course there is a big gap, both in code and functionality, between Acrobat 1.0 and the current version but it's still the same product in theory, so it leaves open the question of where to draw the line.
There is an issue with the period right after your WidgetReader 2.0 is released. Most will be perfectly happy with version 1 (many may even prefer it) and you'll have a hard time selling the new version, given that you're competing with your own old and now free version.
Perhaps it should be more like: 10 years after the end of life date. It's tricky, I want software companies to be able to make money on sell their software, and not having to rely on subscriptions, but I also feel that we should be able to legally copy 25 year old video games and software for DOS 6.22.
An expiry time, like 10 years, sounds a lot more reasonable. It's a bit like the expiry for copyright and pantents, at least in their original concepts. Come to think of it, maybe the solution is simply to dramatically reduce copyright expiry, maybe to a simple fixed 10 years for creation point. That would probably benefit everything, not just software.
Which is the case in TFA.
Earlier this week I was setting up an iPod Touch 2G for a friend, maximum iOS 4.2.1, made in 2008. I wanted to install Springtomize, a paid tweak. The Cydia store has shut down, so there's no way to legally buy it. The pirate sites were no longer hosting such an old version.
In the end I emailed the developer, and he was super excited and encouraged that someone is still using his code! He sent me the deb file for free, which installed perfectly of course. He's now working for Apple as a security researcher.
I'm glad that the Internet Archive tries hard to allow people to upload antique data, and endures the DMCA troubles that come with that. Hopefully WinWorldPC will prevail against Adobe in this case too; and I wonder whether the EFF can help.
This is enough info to get him in trouble with his employer. (Apple is very strict about Apple-related side-hustles, especially the ones not through the 'proper' channels like jailbroken devices). Might be worth rewording this.
I wouldn't want to be one of the people who have to prove that, though.
Why does he think he stands a chance? It's not like he linked to a library.
Software patents on the other hand could probably be abolished without much ill effect (as they already don't exist in most of the world).
There's also this software type called Free (Libre) Software.
Free software is great, but most software is not Free, and most companies/organisations that use Free software don't contribute to its development.
That is a big problem. But the underlying issue is competition (a pillar of the capitalist system) and we should address that instead of trying to fix surface symptoms. If there were incentives to cooperate for the interest of humanity instead of competing for private profit, there would not be a problem.
No, it's actually by design. When I write free software (I don't do it a lot), I don't expect anything of my users. There's no obligation on the user, and there's no obligation on from the author. That is the whole point. Other people may have other motivations, but for me, it's always been, ah, maybe this will help someone else out...
Also, a very important point: cooperation and competition are not opposed to one another. They are equally valid and often cooperation arises from competition.
Copyright didn't exist forever, yet we have music and books from before then. Shakespeare was before copyright. Most of the best creatives create for the joy of creation, not for money. Like open source.
Shakespeare made a living from the performances of his plays, not the written documents. Musicians made money from performances too. Most famous historical painters and composers had wealthy benefactors that enabled their work.
Creative people obviously enjoy creating, but professionals are doing it to earn a living. Look at the books on your bookshelf and the movies and TV shows you watch. How many were made purely for joy with no expectation of making money? Maybe some, but not most.
Musicians already earn a large portion of their income from things other than sales of their albums - whether it's touring / merch / advertising deals. All of that could exist in a world without copyright. The equivalent might not exist yet for movies, but in a world where movies were freely distributable, someone would find a way to still make it a business. Maybe the giant blockbusters would go away, but maybe that's an acceptable price to pay.
But if there was no copyright, why did the Globe owners pay him at all? Just perform the old plays for free! He was payed for creating something new, copyright was worthless because we did not live off selling old works.
Copyright couldn't help Shakespeare to create more or better plays anyway, he was limited by how much boot-licking the Queen was acceptable to the audience, and how many "obscene" stuff he could sneak in without angering the Queen or the Church.
And so on.
The fact that he was a businessman demonstrates that copyright isn't completely necessary to make creative works a viable business.
Like that never happens now. How many independent creators did successfully sue a studio since copyright law has come into play? How many pitched a script to a studio, only to be rejected, and having the same idea rewritten on a spec by others?
Is it worth it to keep Steamboat Willie under lock and key?
Might as well tax the IP secondary sales and just give every living author with works registered in the Library of Congress a stipend.
Snark aside, I think there are people who make a living creating things that don't rely on copyright (music artists that make their living off merch and live shows, theatre as mentioned above), and even if there weren't, that's not particularly surprising because copyright laws exist - without them, there would be stronger incentives to discover other revenue streams.
Theatres remount things and profit from it. Theatres do original works without much intention of selling the rights later and profit from it. Obviously there are going to be a ton of examples where copyright is used to generate revenue, because it exists and why wouldn't you copyright something when there's no cost to doing it and potential upside. But there's plenty of evidence that live theatre would still exist without copyright.
Broadway might still exist. All the theaters, especially community theaters, across the country that don't have Eugene O'Neill or Richard Rodgers would have a terrible time pulling a full house if Bob's nephew wrote all the plays. If there was no way to protect the works made for Broadway, the incentive for people to spend the time writing, composing, arranging, designing sets, making costumes, and choreographing those shows largely disappears. The show can be redone down the street or in Omaha the next week, and all the money goes to the theater doing the ripping off. The show can be videotaped and shown on Hulu the next night, and all the money goes to Hulu.
Shakespeare's plays are beyond the time limits on copyright, which there definitely should be. They are also considered classics. The performance, believe it or not, can still be under copyright. You can't generally go in and record the performance and put out your own stream or DVD of it.
This sounds like one of those. Companies might have multiple such services.
What's indeed odd is the takedown is on the referral.
Also, Flash gets a lot of flak, but it saved us from applets and ActiveX. It also enabled multi media content on a web that was not yet as standardised and functional as today's.
Acrobat reader on the other hand, is pure cancer, and has seen many security holes. PDF is useful, but there are far better PDF readers.
But your point still stands, it became popular during Macromedia age.
But I also didn't know about FutureSplash Animator. Thanks, learned something new.
There are still a few dialup services that do 56k.
Thanks for the correction. I didn't know that.
Tangentially related, I worked at Adobe around 2002-2004 on an Acrobat multimedia plugin that supported multiple media players: QuickTime, Windows Media Player, Real Player, and whatever other players were popular. I suggested we should support Flash too. Management was like "sure, whatever, it's good to support a lot of players, but don't spend much time on it."
Obviously this was before the Macromedia acquisition.
Flash was light years better than the HTML + JS platypus we have today.
Flash is notorious for being riddled with security holes.
Also none of the flash content was designed for touch and so it produced a garbage user experience.
Jobs was right not to support it.
Jobs didn't want anybody to be king of his castle. We're all lowly jesters on iPhone.
After Effects was one of the most astounding pieces of software I ever used, it's like pure computing + code + art working together as one.
But neglect and some missteps the past 7 versions or so have ruined it, it's all extremely single core constrained for no good reason and basic things like the playback with sound and basically broken at this point, no matter what the platform or system power it can't consistently play back a ram preview with sound without it slurring or cutting out completely.
Used to work perfectly on a Core 2 Duo 10 years ago, now it feels like a joke on a far more capable machine.