Here's the relevant part of the GitHub issue comment, before he edited it to remove most of it: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E6p_DcrUcAMWFtB?format=jpg&name=...
To steelman it, let's assume for the sake of argument that he genuinely believes it is copyright infringement, and that it actually is copyright infringement; and criminal copyright infringement, to boot.
He claims that they're refraining from filing a lawsuit because they don't want him to be deported and handed over to the CCP - that they are being "empathetic", and that this "is not at all a threat, but an informed assessment of your own personal legal risk".
Now let's assume their case is a lot shakier than that. Maybe he believes it's strong, maybe he doesn't, but let's say it's not a clear-cut case. That completely changes the implied framing: it's more like "take this down... or you might die". It's potentially a way of strongarming someone into compliance while bypassing the legal system, perhaps because that may have a higher chance of success than filing a lawsuit.
I don't think he actually wants him to be killed, but the tactics here still come across as very shady and intimidating. If you believe you need to file a lawsuit, then just file the lawsuit. Let the defendant handle it as they choose based on if they think they're in the right and their perceived chances of winning and chances of being charged or convicted with a crime. The author is probably already aware that a criminal conviction could result in deportation. (And, more importantly, there's basically zero chance of criminal liability here.) If you want to be "empathetic", provide a settlement offer where you'll drop the suit if he takes everything down. If he refuses the offer, then it's in the court's hands.
I also find the line "what I have described in this post is not at all a threat" interesting, perhaps not unlike "this isn't racist, but", or "this is perfectly legal". This can potentially be a kind of psychological defense mechanism that kicks in when, deep down, you know you're basically threatening someone to at least some extent but need to convince yourself and others that you're not. The lady doth protest too much, etc.
Lines like "I do not mention which country [he lives in] out of courtesy or any other details such as the basis of residency out of respect for personal privacy" also seems interesting. This could easily be interpreted as "FYI, I know all of these details about you, but I'll mercifully protect your privacy, and then we'll sort all this out, right?" It feels like piling more and more things on to project a show of power and force.
I certainly can't claim these are his conscious or subconscious intentions with high confidence - else I'd be spouting Freudian-esque pseudoscience - but I think they're plausible.
Additionally, even if one assumes he has a decent chance of being found civilly liable, I think the implication that he might be criminally charged is extremely spurious and makes it seem much more like an intimidation attempt. (I wrote more here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27928028) Again, it seems like piling more things on to instill fear and project power. The threat of criminal charges seems so absurd that it seems like it's necessarily either a malicious threat or unfathomable incompetence / lack of care for facts. He could've easily researched the law or consulted others beforehand; this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment comment he wrote.
I agree that intimidation or extortion is probably not 100% of the intent. But, at the moment, I'm sticking to my assessment that it likely essentially is partly a "it would be a shame if something happened to it"-type strongarming / "out-of-band settlement attempt". Or at least that it very, very much comes across that way and can easily be read that way.
It's ambiguous and maybe he really doesn't have any bad intentions whatsoever, but I think it's quite possible it is an attempt to pressure him because they don't want to incur the costs of a lawsuit and the risk of losing, and isn't just out of claimed empathy. And it could possibly be half and half, and possibly a mix of conscious and subconscious behavior.
>There may be more to it that puts it in a different light, and I'll also definitely admit that I might have a bit of bias just from seeing that it came from twitter. My default assumption about anyone getting outraged about anything on twitter is that they've likely jumped to conclusions and gotten one or more salient facts wrong, and that generally has served me well. Twitter, as a medium, seems to work best in expressing extreme emotions and not delivering all the useful facts, so incentivizes such things.
For what it's worth, I didn't find out about it from Twitter and don't know if that's the original source. I first found it from an HN thread. (The Twitter thread does seem to predate the oldest HN thread on it, though.) If my first exposure to it was from a Twitter thread, my opinion probably would've been colored in a similarly skeptical way, as I (and probably most HN readers?) fully share your view of Twitter. Framing and first impressions can have powerful effects.
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Additionally, this is in the context of the other Muse Group developer previously adding this at the end of the initial takedown request emailed to the author:
>Otherwise, I will have to transfer information about you to lawyers who will cooperate with github.com and Chinese government to physically find you and stop the illegal use of licensed content.
The combination of these two messages from two employees, plus the supposedly leaked Chief Product Officer quote saying "His actions are total copyright infringement. So I suppose none of us should worry about his feelings." afterwards, makes intimidation seem like the most likely hypothesis, IMO.