Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by jsiepkes | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

jsiepkes

> The company says it’s just following its DMCA takedown policy.

They are a Dutch company (Gitlab B.V.). So why do they even bother with the DMCA?

View on HN

GitLab is a US listed remote-only company with no HQ: https://ir.gitlab.com/ir-resources/investor-faqs.

Yes but they have EU sub companies. They also have a GmbH here in Germany.

Why does that matter?

why do you think a German GmbH would need to obey US law in Germany?

The German GmbH doesn't need to obey US law. The GTLB that's listed on Nasdaq needs to obey US law.

Because a user sitting in the United States could be served copyrighted content by GitLab. It would likely even come from one of GitLab's servers in the US. In that hypothetical instance, GitLab is in clear violation under US law.

In theory GitLab could decide to ignore the DMCA, as you suggest, but that would mean removing all US servers, firing all US staff and cancelling all contracts with US customers (including those that GitLab has with the US government itself). Even in that instance, you would just move the copyright lawsuit to Dutch courts.

I'm no expert on Dutch copyright law, but it seems like such a lawsuit would go nowhere. Presumably, there's no copyright violation at all here: the emulator's source code is FOSS and contains no Nintendo source code, as is usually the case with emulators. What it's used for is irrelevant; the only thing that matters is whether someone actually copied something without authorization from Nintendo, which (I assume) they did not.

The use of the code only becomes relevant with the US DMCA, with its stupid "infringing uses" clause. US law only applies inside the US though.

But a company like that, which does a lot of business in the US, can't afford to thumb its nose at the US's stupid copyright law, if they want to continue doing business there. So business and money take priority over copyright ethics.

My understanding of the DMCA is that whether or not there's any infringing actually going on is irrelevant, you have to take the content down first and then have a court battle to decide whether you can put it back up.

Only if the entity who published the content does not oppose. And then it doesn’t have to go to the court. But if they oppose, the content should stay online until the court decision

No, strangely enough US law is extraterritorial .

https://www.ibanet.org/article/CF85E59E-6564-4AA3-9408-3F47C...

Holland and every EU country also has an anti-circumvention provision similar to the DMCA.

Indeed, it's an easier case than in the US in many EU nations IMO, and with criminal rather than civil penalties in some of them.

Well in that case, never mind. Why did the EU adopt such awful laws? Did they look at the US and think "let's make an even worse copyright law!"?

There's this weird thing where people don't understand that Europe has a long history of very strong copyright law. The life + 70 years term of copyright comes from Germany, not the US, and globally companies harmonised there.

There's also an international treaty, WIPO Copyright Treaty, that requires signatories to enact anti-circumvention provisions. The EU and the US both agreed and signed it before the DMCA.

GitLab Inc. is a Delaware corporation[0] like pretty much all other startups that seek US-based VC funding.

[0] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1653482/000162828021...

Even if they are you can't do business in a country and ignore that country's laws just because you're domiciled somewhere else.

You often can actually. Unless the country you're trying to ignore is the US.

Or China. Or the EU. Or many other countries who don't like having their laws ignored.

Or the EU.

Even EU.

> Unless the country you're trying to ignore is the US.

Well, that really depends on where in the world you are.

If you are in a Western country, the US will probably find a way of getting to you.

If you are in China or Russia, maybe not – especially if your business isn't dependent on the US (and its allies) for its inputs or outputs.

DMCA is sometimes just used as shorthand for all similar notice-and-takedown regimes.

For the same reason US sites must comply with EU regulations.

Many sites block EU users because they don't want to deal with GDPR.

Seems to me that Gitlab could just block US users from DMCA'd repos.

Well, like others here, I was under the impression that GitLab was a Dutch company but it turns out that they are actually incorporated in the US, which makes that whole line of thinking pointless.

Well, that would cut a sizable portion of gitlab's revenues

Isn't Gitlab listed in the Nasdaq?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com