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Using the DMCA Against License Violations?
"eBay has several different mechanisms for complaining about this, and I used one of them. Other people have complained too, but so far the result just seems to be that eBay deletes the listings of the items (which have already been sold). Meanwhile the guy is still violating copyleft licenses (as well as selling other copyright-violating stuff, such as screensavers containing commercial porn images).
Apparently the most effective way to deal with this on eBay is to participate in their vero
program, which basically means sending the DMCA Police after the guy. For instance, if I wanted to sue the guy (which I don't), I'd need to know his name and address. The DMCA says that eBay has to provide that info to someone who complains about a copyright violation.
It seems like it would be a similar deal in the software world. The conventional wisdom about how to prevent infringement is to GPL your code, and transfer the copyright to the FSF, which will contact license violators and (theoretically) sue them if it comes to that. So how long will it be until the FSF is asked by an open-source developer to invoke the DMCA in order to deal with a license violation? In my own case, should I go ahead and join eBay's vero program? It would make me feel like I was in bed with the enemy, but it does seem like it would give me some very effective options for dealing with the situation. For instance, members of the program can have eBay run automated boolean searches for copyright-violating items, and get the results e-mailed to them periodically.
One possible reply to my question is 'Why do you care?" The problem here is that this guy is doing exactly what RMS originally designed copyleft to prevent: he's taking free information and making it not-free. His customers don't know that the books are copylefted, and have effectively had their own freedom taken away: they don't know they can modify the books, copy them, or sell them."
A company named Luxuriousity run by Gregg Collins is apparently rebranding well known open source projects and selling them on Ebay. He gives no indications as to the original title of the software, and he even goes as far as to claim, 'Be careful who you buy from, only Luxuriosity offers a complete package including full support and refund services.' and 'We are a licensed Community distributor.'
I've submitted this as a story twice, the first time it was accepted, but not posted (Slashdot went down, I think it got lost), second time rejected. Anyway, it seems like this is a good story to post it under, since it's basically the same story as this one.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
And what's to stop someone distributing all or part of a commercially published book without giving credit?...
Copyright isn't about money, it's about protecting the rights of the author. Whether they choose to make money from it is irrelevant.
Nail him for copyright infringement, plain and simple. He is duplicating your work without authorization (since authorization requires, in your case, distribution of your copying and distribution policies, as well as anything else you may have mentioned in the copyright paragraphs accompanying your work).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
and sue him in a civil court.
that is how copyright matters should be dealt with.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As an authorized technician and reseller, the people that sell Apple Manuals and OS updates without any original material are promoting fraud. Most, who sells tech manuals, even say in their auctions, "Why pay a technician to fix it when you can do it at home?"
This is fine for out of warranty items, but promoting this for items that are still covered by Apple care, is promoting fraud. here's how: if someone ( a novice) takes this manual and then tries to fix a hardware problem themselves while a unit is still under warranty, then can't fix it or breaks something else, then brings the item in for repair under warranty, Apple and I have to pay for it! Hmmmm ...
As for the OS updates, apple has to pay licensing fees for codecs included in some of these updates and they have to pay them based on download totals and CD sales. For instance, last year, Apple paid out $7400 in liscensing for the OS8.6 update. It includes several sorenson codecs and a few TCP/IP network protocols that have to paid for.
Here is some info about this I had posted in a forum on MacCentral in January:
Operating system components such as liscensing and royalties (mpeg and TCIP codecs) are based on yearly distribution totals. It is illegal to redistribute Apple Operating System Updates without permission. Service providers depend on "customers with low bandwidth internet connections" for service revenue. Service providers are ALLOWED to download & charge for the service time to install or burn a CD for their customers. They are NOT allowed to SELL CDRs with updates on them! This is the same thing as taking Adobe Photoshop downloaded from LimeWire and selling CDR copies. Yahoo's reply has been: "Please contact the manufacturer / copyright holder" - I have spent hours on the phone with Quark, Connectix, Macromedia, Apple, and Adobe. These companies, including Apple, don't have the time to worry about a few thousand dollars.
" I can't tape a program off of free TV and sell it. Someone doesn't have access to the free channels I do = someone who doesn't have the bandwidth to download from Apple."
It is also against Apple Non Discloure to distribute part numbers & repair diagrams. How fair is it to the artists/authors of these manuals to redistribute without credit to them? Note: Apple DOES credit ANY author/artist or contractor, these manuals do not. Also, if a customer uses the wrong part number or custom installs, it could void their warranty or ruin their computer!
http://user.auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/user/jily7 0
The question to this seller is? Is it legal to download someone's else's work (or Apple's Property) and then redistribute it for a profit? Much different than file sharing where no profit is transacted.
This seller also claims exclusive rights and distribution with VillageMUG - Village MUG President has confirmed to me no affiliatiion
Interesting subject indeed. I will be interested in a followup from the author of the parent article to see what happens.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Here is the guy doing it on eBay and here is an example of the activity. His feedback is pretty good, though I realize it is anathema to the issue. I only mention it for those who don't have an eBay account and are curious.
My
Limekiller
Actually, as far as I can tell (and IANAL) the GPL says nothing about renaming or rebranding. Perhaps the most relevant article of the GPL in this respect is:
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program. [emphasis mine]
As long as he is including a copy of the GPL on the CD, then he's probably fine (legally that is). The only other issue is to make sure that he did not reassign the copyright (left) for the program itself.
Can anyone else find anything about GPL and renaming?
Who said Freedom was Fair?
1) Send him an enquiry through the "Contact Seller" link on the page (online web form that hides his email address), asking a question about the item that he should answer (something simple, but legitimate question)
2) He replies through normal email (the only way he can... he'll probably use a "real" reply-to address)
3) Contact his ISP or mail provider asking for them to identify him due to copyright infringement. A legal-looking request in a certified letter will many times get an actual response. If not, then you might have to go the DMCA route with them or Ebay.
4) Send him a legal letter from your lawyer outlining the complaint and the ways he can resolve the issue, as well as how he must PROVE that he's in compliance in the future.
IANAL like everyone else, but that's worked for me in the past with some GPL'd shareware.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Well, even if I did want to sue him, I don't think I could without invoking the DMCA to find out his name and address. All I know right now is his eBay username, and that he claims to be in Canada.
I think you're entitled to the profits. :-) Copyright law does allow you to sue for punitive damages in addition to actual damages (provided you've registered your copyright with the copyright office). But I'd have to find a lawyer who'd take it on a contingent fee basis, or else pay a lawyer out of pocket. That doesn't seem very practical to me, since I don't know the guy's name, don't know whether he even has any money, etc.
Looking at his history of transactions, the guy probably only has a few thousand dollars worth of profits, and very little of that is my books. (The porn screensavers seem to be his most successful product
Find free books.
Getting his name and address is no big trick. Bid on one of his auctions and you'll be able to pull his contact info from eBay.
I can't believe someone posted an Ask /. question without a link to their work! As a home-schooling parent, I'd be delighted to have access to free textbooks. Where are they?
I didn't want it to come off as a plug for my own stuff, or a ploy for publicity, but anyway, here it is. Thanks for asking! See my sig for more sources of free books.
Find free books.
Oh, and you can sue an ebay account... You don't have to know who's doing it, if you can prove someone is infringing your copyrights, it should be fairly easy to convince a judge to issue a subpoena for the information. RIAA is suing an IP address right now, right? And it looks as though they'll win.
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
I don't really understand what the problem is, you seem to believe for some reason that the only way to enforce copyrights is by using the DMCA. This isn't the case at all.
In fact, the DMCA only applies to eBay as far as actual copyrighted material in the listing, which they are now required to remove within 48 hours. EBay is also required to turn over the guy's personal info. Before the DMCA, you might have needed to get a court order if EBay felt like being uncooperative (which they probably wouldn't have).
(Other then that, Ebay might need to make sure no one was selling copyright circumvention devices, in the same way they police drugs and gun stuff).
So basically the only difference between now and then is that you might have needed to get a court order back then.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
You don't need the DMCA. File suit against ebay for copyright infringement and subpoena the name and information.
You DO need the DMCA. The type of complaint you need to file against eBay is called a "DMCA Takedown Notice", and is required by law before you sue eBay.
Note that this part of the DMCA is different than the reverse engineering/copyprotection parts. It's a big law.
The pre-DMCA approach was to file a John Doe lawsuit and present it to a Judge. They'd view the facts and then if the case warrants it issue a subpoena to the ISP/eBay/whatever to make them release the information.
This is essentially what the DMCA does minus the Judge and the vetting of the evidence. (This is the problem that Verizon is currently fighting. Though specifically they claim that since the content isn't hosted on their machines then the normal turbo-subpoena process doesn't apply.)
So, you can if you really want go through the proper legal channels and get the abusers information.
The first thing I'd recommend is for everyone here who has an eBay account to give the user a negative review containing the body of the copyleft license and how (s)he's violating it.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
True, but I'd guess that the DMCA has a standard severability clause.
In CA, after several successful ballot initiatives were thrown out because parts of them were unconstitutional, they started adding a severability clause.... Words to the effect that "if any part of this is found unconstitutional, the rest stands".
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
I find it troubling that they could do anything else, i.e., declare part of a law unconstitutional and leave the rest of it in force. When the law was voted for by a sufficient majority of the legislators and signed by the executive, it was the entire law. Some of the legislators may have voted for it by way of compromise because they were willing to accept the parts they didn't like in order to get the parts they did like. Same for the signing of it by the executive. Disabling part of it is the equivalent of breach of contract.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
The majority of the DMCA is uncontroversial. Thanks to this law you can, for example, install copyrighted software on someone's machine to fix it, so long as you delete it afterwards, and there's nothing the copyright holder can do about it. Thanks to the DMCA, your ISP can set up a web proxy and not be violating copyright (before the DMCA, this was technically "republishing").
The only controversial part of the DMCA is the anticircumvention provisions (aka Chapter 12). If your software does not use an anticircumvention device, you are not exercising the "bad part" of the DMCA. You may sleep soundly.
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