>So, both repositories remain up, for now, not because we are powerless to take it down... it is that the process of exercising this power could very literally ruin the actual life of another person.
The whole thing is based on extremely dubious and misleading interpretations of the various laws involved, and designed to instill fear in the developer in question.
Blackmail is a valid explanation if you don't have another more powerful recourse. But they do, they can just report them to the law.
Is it intended as a threat then? Perhaps. But a threat is still much better than the nuclear option of reporting him.
What else could they do between (a) asking him (which they seem to have done already), (b) threatening him with reporting him, and (c) reporting him? Bend over and take it?
As other commenters have pointed out on GitHub, Muse does not appear to have a legal leg to stand on. If they did, they would have simply sent a DMCA takedown notice a long time ago — but that would require Muse to swear under penalty of perjury that they believe the content is really infringing, and they must know it isn’t.
So instead they’re making scary threats and hoping to spook the developer into taking down the repository himself. As you put it, they “don't have another more powerful recourse” and so they’re making threats that they can’t actually follow through on.
Are you sure? This seems to be the same category of software as youtube-dl.
Or that their reporting would be to his country of residence, not to the Chinese, and that the "arrested by Chinese" part is not something they would do, but something his host country might opt to do (extradite him), if he is found to violate their law.
They could also choose to just, y'know, not report them to anything full stop, unconditionally, like any reasonable empathic human would.
That’s blackmail and it’s a felony. Whether the things that Daniel Ray said specifically is blackmail or not, obviously I’d need a lawyer or court to tell me. But it’s not a good look at all.
What are the series of paths someone could take in their lives to care so little about another person's life?
Someone who threatens like that wouldn't hesitate to report him either... only if they could.
> At the same time, the company is legally obligated to enforce violation of copyrighted works licensed to them. There will soon come a time where hesitation is no longer possible.
They’re not showing restraint, they’re saying “we’d rather not destroy your life, but we can and will if you don’t comply.”