So what are you exactly against? People using your code and improving it without giving anything back? Because that is what Google is doing. Why are you exactly against distributing modified code without source, but not against locking in that code in their own datacenters and never giving anything back? Because the end result is the same - they use the code without contributing back. In fact it's even worser, because it also locks users to their services.
I have a good example of this. I've been using Cryptoheaven as my email provider for several years. They open source their client, but not their server side code. This means you cannot actually use the code without also using them, and I've been locked to paying them because I was stupid enough to use their domains for emails while registering to all kinds of services.
What makes people think that having distributed something under the BSD license, you can unilaterally revoke the license from existing licensees any more than you could with the GPL?
They can't revoke old code, but they can change license terms later, even if others have submitted code patches or forked it with BSD license.
Yes, they adhere to GPL rules, but not the purpose of it (as judged of the many comments in this thread) in that if they use it to profit, they should give out the code to everywhere. They're basically getting around the GPL requirements because they only need to host the code on their servers.
No, it's like saying you have freedom of speech, and if you want to use it you must also let other have freedom of speech.
It's a good analogy, because when you have true freedom of speech, you are actually allowed to say that there should not be freedom of speech. If you wouldn't be allowed to say that, then there would be no freedom of speech after all. That perfectly shows that freedom of speech doesn't limit what you can say based on what others think about it, while GPL does.
So what do you do when companies take your GPL code and only host it on their servers, like Facebook and Google along others? Since they're not distributing it, they're not violating GPL. But they're still profiting from your code without necessarily giving anything back. They don't have to, anyway.
Yes, only in the US penalties can be that insane. And it's not going to change when both sides demand millions in damages for such inane things. It only makes you just as bad as RIAA/MPAA. If you developed a GPL'd software and requested takedown of some company that abuses your rights, without fully knowing the laws and made some error during it, your life would not be ruined because you would now have to pay $1 million.
No, but humans would be able to verify details of the request, especially so that they aren't being done under fake names or contact info. Automatic email address that scans for youtube video urls and automatically takes them down is just made for abuse.
>I simply can't take and not give back.
Unless you don't distribute it. In which case you can do exactly that.
Just like Google does. And GPL doesn't prevent any of that, while it's essentially the same. Google also improves upon GPL'd software, but just because it's server side they don't need to give it away. You're working towards Google profiting while they have no need to give anything back. They aren't distributing the code, but end result is essentially the same.
Why create something, give it out for free, and then allow businesses to take your work, profit from it, and give nothing back?
Because if you truly want to promote freedom and free code, you also have to let people to profit from it. Freedom isn't picking who gets to enjoy that "freedom" based on some rules.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - You are a stupid fucking idiot and a Microsoft shill. I'm surprised you still have enough karma in your sockpuppet accounts to upmod your comments.
What would that even have to do with the issue at hand? I was just purely stating facts - when you search on Bing you get rewards which you can then use for charity. Fanboyism needs an opinion, that is just an easily verifiable fact.
GPL caused too many problems for companies and tried to enforce all software to be open source. GPL itself was very restrictive license, and it's great to see more open licenses like BSD and Apache gaining usage fast.
How is the parent offtopic? It's about charity and helping them. Their reward site is here and if you don't want to use the reward points yourself, you can give them to charity.
If you care about donating to charity, but don't personally have cash to spend, then I suggest using Bing instead of Google. Microsoft lets you donate your Bing rewards (which you gain when you search for something) to charity. Just by signing up you get 250 points, and every 100 points you get lets you donate $1 to charity.
I'd like to see Google doing similar good for the world.
You had a long rant, but nowhere did you state why DMCA isn't a good, especially because it grants non-liability for website owners against copyright infringing users. If there was no DMCA then website owners would be liable for actions their users take, and we probably wouldn't even have YouTube.
Which goes back to the original point that Google should just hire humans to process DMCA notices. This isn't fault in DMCA, this is fault in Google and YouTube.
No it doesn't. Hell, some sites only allow you to send DMCA notices by postal mail to their designated copyright agent (and this is the correct way to read DMCA law). Interestingly, Megavideo is one such site. You have to send your DMCA notice by mail to Hong Kong based address.
There is already heavy penalty for fake DMCA notices. It does require you to go to court to fight it, but you can't just assume that the original party should get penalty when it's only disputed. Remember that you have to look at it from the other side too. If someone was violating your GPL software and you sent the site hosting it DMCA notice, and the other party disputed it, you would now get financial penalty. We have courts to determine legal fights, and they give consequences for wrongful doing.
And what exactly is Google meant to do? Hire loads of people to sift through every DMCA claim
Yes. They don't need to make sure if the actual content is infringing or not, DMCA is very clear on the procedure. If the original uploader think it violates others copyrights, then he can submit counter-notice and get it back. At this point Google doesn't anymore have any responsibility - now it's up to the two parties to fight it over, most likely in court.
The takedown notices are bullshit, it shouldn't just be taken down without question, rather the person who uploaded it should be informed of the infringement and given the chance to defend themselves, without Google having to get involved (or whoever runs the site in question - this doesn't just apply to youtube, after all).
It can't work like that because then all the copyright infringing person could do is not reply to the notice. How long should Google, or other site owner, wait for reply? 14 days? Maybe he is on holiday. One month? Half an year?
DMCA already also has penalties for fake notices. It is already very good law. Thing is, Google has provided copyright owners EXTRA access on top of DMCA to remove videos and isn't processing DMCA notices (and especially counter-notices) as strictly as law allows.
DMCA itself is good. DMCA allows website owners protection against liability if some user of the service spreads copyright infringing content. It also puts liability against fake DMCA notices. Itself, DMCA is better thing than not to have it, because otherwise website owners would be liable for the action their users take.
Now, SOPA/Protect IP is a completely different matter, and should not be passed.
.. to begin with. That's just incompetent management. I don't have the right to delete anyones video at whim either, so why should big companies. Google needs to start running it's business better and hire people to process DMCA request. The worst thing is that they're doing much of this automatically. They have algorithms that look for the url from DMCA requests and automatically disables the video and sends the owner message. That just allows for abuse.
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So what are you exactly against? People using your code and improving it without giving anything back? Because that is what Google is doing. Why are you exactly against distributing modified code without source, but not against locking in that code in their own datacenters and never giving anything back? Because the end result is the same - they use the code without contributing back. In fact it's even worser, because it also locks users to their services.
I have a good example of this. I've been using Cryptoheaven as my email provider for several years. They open source their client, but not their server side code. This means you cannot actually use the code without also using them, and I've been locked to paying them because I was stupid enough to use their domains for emails while registering to all kinds of services.
What makes people think that having distributed something under the BSD license, you can unilaterally revoke the license from existing licensees any more than you could with the GPL?
They can't revoke old code, but they can change license terms later, even if others have submitted code patches or forked it with BSD license.
Yes, they adhere to GPL rules, but not the purpose of it (as judged of the many comments in this thread) in that if they use it to profit, they should give out the code to everywhere. They're basically getting around the GPL requirements because they only need to host the code on their servers.
No, it's like saying you have freedom of speech, and if you want to use it you must also let other have freedom of speech.
It's a good analogy, because when you have true freedom of speech, you are actually allowed to say that there should not be freedom of speech. If you wouldn't be allowed to say that, then there would be no freedom of speech after all. That perfectly shows that freedom of speech doesn't limit what you can say based on what others think about it, while GPL does.
So what do you do when companies take your GPL code and only host it on their servers, like Facebook and Google along others? Since they're not distributing it, they're not violating GPL. But they're still profiting from your code without necessarily giving anything back. They don't have to, anyway.
Yes, only in the US penalties can be that insane. And it's not going to change when both sides demand millions in damages for such inane things. It only makes you just as bad as RIAA/MPAA. If you developed a GPL'd software and requested takedown of some company that abuses your rights, without fully knowing the laws and made some error during it, your life would not be ruined because you would now have to pay $1 million.
No, but humans would be able to verify details of the request, especially so that they aren't being done under fake names or contact info. Automatic email address that scans for youtube video urls and automatically takes them down is just made for abuse.
>I simply can't take and not give back.
Unless you don't distribute it. In which case you can do exactly that.
Just like Google does. And GPL doesn't prevent any of that, while it's essentially the same. Google also improves upon GPL'd software, but just because it's server side they don't need to give it away. You're working towards Google profiting while they have no need to give anything back. They aren't distributing the code, but end result is essentially the same.
Why create something, give it out for free, and then allow businesses to take your work, profit from it, and give nothing back?
Because if you truly want to promote freedom and free code, you also have to let people to profit from it. Freedom isn't picking who gets to enjoy that "freedom" based on some rules.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - You are a stupid fucking idiot and a Microsoft shill. I'm surprised you still have enough karma in your sockpuppet accounts to upmod your comments.
What would that even have to do with the issue at hand? I was just purely stating facts - when you search on Bing you get rewards which you can then use for charity. Fanboyism needs an opinion, that is just an easily verifiable fact.
GPL caused too many problems for companies and tried to enforce all software to be open source. GPL itself was very restrictive license, and it's great to see more open licenses like BSD and Apache gaining usage fast.
How is the parent offtopic? It's about charity and helping them. Their reward site is here and if you don't want to use the reward points yourself, you can give them to charity.
Well, Microsoft has other charity campaigns too. But Google doesn't let users donate just by searching, while Bing does.
If you care about donating to charity, but don't personally have cash to spend, then I suggest using Bing instead of Google. Microsoft lets you donate your Bing rewards (which you gain when you search for something) to charity. Just by signing up you get 250 points, and every 100 points you get lets you donate $1 to charity.
I'd like to see Google doing similar good for the world.
Maybe these news come out because they are serious issues that Google has. Only a fanboy would think we shouldn't report bad things about Google.
You had a long rant, but nowhere did you state why DMCA isn't a good, especially because it grants non-liability for website owners against copyright infringing users. If there was no DMCA then website owners would be liable for actions their users take, and we probably wouldn't even have YouTube.
Which goes back to the original point that Google should just hire humans to process DMCA notices. This isn't fault in DMCA, this is fault in Google and YouTube.
It's not up to the site owners to determine it. If someone sends a fake DMCA notice to your content, you take them to court and they get penalized.
The DMCA requires the process to be automated
No it doesn't. Hell, some sites only allow you to send DMCA notices by postal mail to their designated copyright agent (and this is the correct way to read DMCA law). Interestingly, Megavideo is one such site. You have to send your DMCA notice by mail to Hong Kong based address.
There is already heavy penalty for fake DMCA notices. It does require you to go to court to fight it, but you can't just assume that the original party should get penalty when it's only disputed. Remember that you have to look at it from the other side too. If someone was violating your GPL software and you sent the site hosting it DMCA notice, and the other party disputed it, you would now get financial penalty. We have courts to determine legal fights, and they give consequences for wrongful doing.
And what exactly is Google meant to do? Hire loads of people to sift through every DMCA claim
Yes. They don't need to make sure if the actual content is infringing or not, DMCA is very clear on the procedure. If the original uploader think it violates others copyrights, then he can submit counter-notice and get it back. At this point Google doesn't anymore have any responsibility - now it's up to the two parties to fight it over, most likely in court.
The takedown notices are bullshit, it shouldn't just be taken down without question, rather the person who uploaded it should be informed of the infringement and given the chance to defend themselves, without Google having to get involved (or whoever runs the site in question - this doesn't just apply to youtube, after all).
It can't work like that because then all the copyright infringing person could do is not reply to the notice. How long should Google, or other site owner, wait for reply? 14 days? Maybe he is on holiday. One month? Half an year?
DMCA already also has penalties for fake notices. It is already very good law. Thing is, Google has provided copyright owners EXTRA access on top of DMCA to remove videos and isn't processing DMCA notices (and especially counter-notices) as strictly as law allows.
"and hire people to process DMCA request."
This wasn't a DMCA request.
That special access was given to Universal so that they wouldn't need to hire people to process DMCA requests.
DMCA itself is good. DMCA allows website owners protection against liability if some user of the service spreads copyright infringing content. It also puts liability against fake DMCA notices. Itself, DMCA is better thing than not to have it, because otherwise website owners would be liable for the action their users take.
Now, SOPA/Protect IP is a completely different matter, and should not be passed.
I'm also sure most casual people don't care nor didn't even heard about it. Yes, piracy circles did, but they're pirates to begin with.
.. to begin with. That's just incompetent management. I don't have the right to delete anyones video at whim either, so why should big companies. Google needs to start running it's business better and hire people to process DMCA request. The worst thing is that they're doing much of this automatically. They have algorithms that look for the url from DMCA requests and automatically disables the video and sends the owner message. That just allows for abuse.