GitHub has received a DMCA from MPA about torrent tracker nyaa.si

https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/01/2021-01-14-mpa.md

by livueta • 6 years ago

580 310 6 years ago

akerro3• 6 years ago

transmission and qbittorrent next?

tristanc• 6 years ago

This is not a torrent client. They’re referring to a torrent tracker. Trackers generally serve to help peers find each other.

akerro3• 6 years ago

They took down youtube-dl first, then torrent tracker, so torrent clients, browsers and ffmpeg are next.

notatoad• 6 years ago

a tracker isn't any more infringing than a client is though.

Hamuko8• 6 years ago

Indeed, copyright infringement is so prevalent within the Project that infringement plainly is its predominant use and purpose.

Directly from the claim. If they can ban a torrent index (I don't know if there's actual tracker code in the project) for it being predominantly used for piracy, why not a torrent client?

rapfaria2• 6 years ago

No, probably gazelle

bitcharmer• 6 years ago

Can someone knowledgeable explain to me how a tracker source code violates DMCA?

What's next, hard disk manufacturers? Internet providers?

dimgl• 6 years ago

Spoiler alert: it doesn't.

almaember4• 6 years ago

And neither does it violate any similar law (because not many people know, but the DMCA is not an idea from the US, just barely the US implementation of the 1996 WIPO treaty), in the European Union or anywhere else.

So it really, isn't illegal anywhere (well except obviously authoritarian regimes).

sodality28• 6 years ago

It really shouldn't. their argument is probably that infringement is the main use case of a torrent tracker.

edit: I don't have access to the taken down repo but maybe not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836800

bluGill4• 6 years ago

In which case it should be easy to show the non-infringing uses. Many linux distributions have torrent downloads just as one example.

dahfizz• 6 years ago

The issue is that (supposedly, we can't know because the repo has been taken down) the code was pre-configured to host copyrighted material. From the complaint:

The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law.

I don't know if they mean that the code is preconfigured to connect to a torrent network which is known to host copyrighted material, or if there was a host_copyrighted_contet.cfg file, etc. Its hard to know how much they are stretching the truth because the code is gone.

TheBill• 6 years ago

I don't think it does - I think this is just a grab to see what microsoft caves on.

wilshire_nc• 6 years ago

I never saw the repo, but to play devil's advocate it's possible that there's a unit test or something that downloads copyrighted material. That's what got youtube-dl taken down.

sodality28• 6 years ago

Doubt, there would be no reason for it to be copyrighted material, it would just be a torrent test

pluc• 6 years ago

It shouldn't, and we can't know what was in the offending files because they've been removed.

For the avoidance of any doubt, we are also providing you with the attached file tilted “GitHub_code_Nyaa” which shows code hosted on GitHub that provides all of the source code, templates, and utility API tools needed to host a copy of the Nyaa.si Bittorrent site, used to access infringing copies of motion pictures and television shows for which Nyaa.si provides torrent files and magnet links for the infringing content that users are looking for. The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law.

That's the real issue, but again it's hard to discuss since the files have been removed.

phh2• 6 years ago

Can someone knowledgeable explain to me how a tracker source code violates DMCA?
What's next, hard disk manufacturers? Internet providers?

Hard drives are already taxed in France because of piracy (well not exactly, but that's the real reason)

tmpxgdqrcKFuG• 6 years ago

By name it wouldn't but they link to several files where the "offending code" resides, so if they're using examples where someone is downloading a movie then that would prompt for a DMCA.

wolrah• 6 years ago

Based on the way certain files are listed in the complaint I suspect this is something along the lines of what happened with youtube-dl where there's some part of the test suite, some example, or even some comment in the code that refers to a copyrighted work.

With the repo down I obviously can't verify this hypothesis but it fits.

ratww• 6 years ago

What's next, hard disk manufacturers? Internet providers?

You're joking, but in some countries there are taxes on blank recording media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy

La1n• 6 years ago

And in the Netherlands those used to make sense. As downloading copyrighted material was legal for personal use

https://mashable.com/2014/04/10/downloading-pirated-content-...

throwaway09223• 6 years ago

Some countries including the USA, for those who haven't bothered reading the link.

This is why decades ago you could buy blank CDR media designated for "music" at a slightly higher price. They are identical to "computer" CDRs, but the seller pays a fee to the copyright office.

m4rtink• 6 years ago

In the Czech Republic you need to pay this levy on blank media (see point number 1 & 6 on https://www.mkcr.cz/frequently-asked-questions-953.html?lang...) to a shadowy state mandated cartel of "designated rightholders" where the money preaty much disappears from the face of the Earth.

AFAIK there is no way around it, even in professional environment - we build a couple hard drives for a an internal company server and this levy was clearly marked there.

Same thing for all the other extortion money they extract from music festivals, pubs, hotels, radio stations, etc. - they do use some of it to bribe the most prominent and vocal old school artists to basically do advertising for their cause but the rest safely hits their coffers.

jitendrac4• 6 years ago

Torrent trackers are responsible to introduce Peers to each other who are downloading/uploading the same files[torrent]. Its basically the backbone of torrent.

say for example, you have a torrent file or a magnet link. And you start downloading the file using client application, it will go to known trackers and ask them the address of peers who are uploading the file based on unique hash of it. Torrent breaks files in the chunks with size of few MB referred as pieces, Tracker will get the current status of downloaded and remaining chunks from you and give you the list of peers with same file available, at same time it will register your address for the other new peers to connect. now connecting peers have knowledge of one anther's address they will share pieces to others and download remaining from other peers to complete the download.

so, basically peer is backbone of system, its a tool which can have multiple use legal or not, one cannot simply call its source code violating the IPs, that's just an absurd argument.

ubercow13• 6 years ago

Next is mpv I'm guessing

Hamuko8• 6 years ago

by virtue of the operation and further development of the Bittorrent website Nyaa.si’s “nyaa” repository (the “Project”)

Basically the fact that the world's most predominant installation of the site (Nyaa.si) is serving a whole bunch of copyrighted materials through torrents makes the code itself violate DMCA.

mayli• 6 years ago

I guess most user use Chrome to access that site, does it making Chrome violate DMCA?

room5002• 6 years ago

It is stated in the complaint:

Specifically, at the URL, the Repository hosts and offers for download the Project, which, when downloaded, provides the downloader everything necessary to launch and host a “clone” infringing website identical to Nyaa.si (and, thus, engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows).

This is not a generic BitTorrent tracker. This is source code for duplicating the nyaa.si website (which in the github source code, they state is "A BitTorrent community focused on Eastern Asian media including anime, manga, music, and more" [1]).

I think it would be a stretch to say you are interested in this source code so you could then rip out large pieces of it to host your Linux ISO's on...

I agree that some DMCA crosses the line. But in this case, I don't see a legitimate use for this source code other than enabling copyright infringement.

[1] https://github.com/seco/nyaa-1/blob/master/nyaa/templates/ho...

Hamuko8• 6 years ago

It's a torrent index with search, categories, user management and so on. I don't see how I can't use this for hosting Linux ISOs by just renaming the categories.

appleflaxen• 6 years ago

all of those topics can have legitimate, non-infringing content; such as fan fiction released under a permissive license.

bdowling• 6 years ago

Technically, the code is alleged to violate copyright, not DMCA. A DMCA notice is just the process that copyright owners use to tell service providers about allegedly infringing content.

The argument is for contributory copyright infringement via inducement, ala MGM v Grokster 545 U.S. 913 (2005) or Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. v. Fung 710 F.3d 1020 (9th Cir. 2013), the isoHunt case. Inducement occurs where someone distributes a device with the intent of promoting infringement and actual infringement occurs. Here, the argument is that nyaa intends to promote copyright infringement because it provides a tool that is tailored for copyright infringement. The notice letter cites various references in the code to nyaa.si. Exhibit A of the letter comprises "a series of screenshots taken from the Nyaa.si website for the Project that include images of copyrighted works available through the Project." The implication here is that the devs here are encouraging similar use of the code for infringing copyright.

I'm not saying I agree with it, but that's their argument.

minitoar• 6 years ago

Haha love the alembic migration in the mix there.

matthewmorgan• 6 years ago

We need a bonfire of these rentseekers

kleiba4• 6 years ago

No, we need to show strong opposition but using civil and democratic means.

wizzwizz43• 6 years ago

To play devil's advocate: how, when they won't let us?

jokethrowaway2• 6 years ago

That's extreme and violent. We can do better than this.

As someone who makes money selling software, I think we should abolish copyright and let these companies give contracts to their users which bind them not to share the songs and movies they bought.

Then it's up to the company to report when actual violation is occurring and bring, in a fair court case, whether a certain user shared the material or not, breaching their contract with the company.

If you access material shared breaching a contract you're not doing anything illegal.

If you're selling passively too many copies that enforcing all these contracts is too problematic or expensive, you can consider it a natural market tax on the huge profits you're making.

We shouldn't give shortcuts for companies to enforce their copyright, they have this problem specifically because they are the richest 1%.

mmastrac• 6 years ago

The MPA seems to be getting braver with these takedowns, considering how quickly the youtube-dl one got flipped around. This one seems particularly shaky as you could not use it to explicitly download anything - rather to host data of your own (with no explicit requirement for it to be unauthorized copyright violation).

EDIT: perhaps just a ploy to unmask the authors of the torrent site?

toomuchtodo5• 6 years ago

Github needs to go on the offensive and begin to take action against fraudulent DMCA notices, including justification to seek damages for these claims.

daheza• 6 years ago

Agreed that Github needs to push back, but we should also be contacting our legislature so that they are aware of the abuse of law.

judge2020• 6 years ago

Anything requires MSFT legal review, so it'll be at the very least 24 hours or so before they can make decisions like not honoring DMCA complaints.

fartcannon3• 6 years ago

Microsoft would never do that unless their hands were forced. Too much potential business with them.

We could try forcing their hands by removing all our code from Github?

slg2• 6 years ago

IANAL, but I am pretty sure Microsoft has little recourse here. The requests would need to be knowingly fraudulent for recourse and that is a huge hurdle to prove that the MPA is knowingly acting in bad faith rather than just being overaggressive.

The DMCA desperately needs to be reworked at the very least.

jacquesm• 6 years ago

Github = Microsoft.

afavour• 6 years ago

It's weird that we expect Github to do that, in a way. The repo might well be hosted on there for free, but we all want Github to spend a ton in legal fees to defend something they make zero cash from.

I'm not sure what my point is here other than finding it sad that code hosting is so centralised.

hedora2• 6 years ago

Sooner or later, one of these projects will counter-sue for misuse of copyright.

Misuse of copyright is when a copyright holder attempts to illegitimately expand the rights granted to them by their copyright in some work (in this case, quashing competition from distribution channels that are used to distribute unrelated copyrighted material).

The normal punishment for misuse of copyright is the rendering of the copyright unenforceable. The letter clearly sets the scope of the copyrights that would be at stake in this case:

" each of the major motion picture studios in the United States, specifically, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Universal City Studios LLC, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Netflix Studios, LLC, and their respective affiliates (collectively, the “MPA Member Studios”), which own or control exclusive rights under copyright in and to a vast number of motion pictures and television shows."

I'm not a lawyer, but misuse of copyright / trademark should be covered in any decent introduction to intellectual property law course. The MPA lawyers are either incompetent or working under the assumption that their clients are invincible / above the law.

I think pushing back on this take down notice would be a slam dunk case.

dan-robertson• 6 years ago

I’m not a lawyer but this feels like a fantasy to me. It seems crazy the MPA would take such a risk if they thought it was likely.

barkingcat• 6 years ago

I think the assumption is true in this case, that "their clients are invincible / above the law." - they can lobby to create the laws themselves (which is what they did to create the DMCA in the first place) so they are in effect "above the law"

c2h5oh3• 6 years ago

Actually no. DMCA is super one sided.

All you need for DMCA takedown notice is "a good faith belief" that reported content is infringing copyright you own (or is owned by someone you represent).

The opposing party has to prove that the claim was knowingly false and malicious for the claimant to be charged with perjury.

The opposing party has to prove actual damages in court to get any compensation. You may get legal fees back too (up to the court), but that's only likely to happen if it's obvious at the first glance that the claim was bogus.

This is all you can do to someone filing the notice. Notice doesn't even establish a jurisdiction (and cease-and-desist letter does) - so you can't counter-sue in your jurisdiction to get declaratory judgment that copyright is invalid.

einpoklum7• 6 years ago

IANAL, and my limited legal knowledge is not of US law.

However, if you have copyrights which are of vast economic significance, to a very large number of copyrighted works, it seems unlikely that the law would would deprive you of all of that due to your suing someone for infringement. That seems highly disproportionate.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have no sympathies for the MPAA, but are you sure you're not overstating the effect of a "misuse of copyright" finding (regardless of the odds of such a finding being made)?

sjy• 6 years ago

You can’t “counter-sue” for misuse of copyright, nor is it a “normal punishment.” It’s a defence you can use to avoid liability when someone else sues you, and an exceptional one at that [1]. As noted on Wikipedia, the court in Lasercomb [2] made it clear that copyright misuse does not render the copyright permanently unenforceable:

This holding, of course, is not an invalidation of Lasercomb's copyright. Lasercomb is free to bring a suit for infringement once it has purged itself of the misuse.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_misuse

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20100516061057/http://bulk.resou...

bagacrap• 6 years ago

The case seems to rest on this precedent:

""" See Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. v. Grokster Ltd., 545 U.S. 913, 940 n.13 (2005) (“the distribution of a product can itself give rise to liability where evidence shows that the distributor intended and encouraged the product to be used to infringe”) """

Hamuko8• 6 years ago

EDIT: perhaps just a ploy to unmask the authors of the torrent site?

Who needs to respond to the DMCA claim with a GitHub repo? If I'd contributed to the source code repository but wasn't involved with hosting the site (I imagine there's quite a few of these), can I file a counter claim?

boogies• 6 years ago

The youtube-dl demands were from the RIAA (Recording Industry Artist’s Association). This is from the MPA (Motion Picture Association), the only one of the three major supporters of SOPA and PIPA that GitHub’s parent company (Microsoft) is not an official member of (the third is the ESA — Entertainment Software Association).

athms• 6 years ago

Recording Industry Association of America. It doesn't represent artists, it represents organizations that publish and distribute music.

niea_113• 6 years ago

I think they already know the guys behind the website. From an article [1] mentioned by [2] :

Documents obtained by TorrentFreak dated September reveal the MPA, acting through legal representatives, attempting to pressure individuals who they believe are important at Nyaa and could have the ability to shut the site down.

...

While emailed threats are still a common anti-piracy strategy, we are informed that at least two of the individuals were personally served with legal documents at their homes. Others were served with similar documents via regular mail.

[1] https://torrentfreak.com/mpa-lawyers-are-trying-to-shut-down...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836709

molticrystal• 6 years ago

The Nyaa.si devs addressed those notices described in the torrentfreak article on their twitter back in November:

To briefly address this, we have no plans to shutdown or quit at this time. If we do choose to shutdown eventually we will make a public database dump for any successor entity to use, we will not be just disappearing like our predecessor site leaving everyone else on their own. [0]
By the way what the fuck is an "anime cartel" MPA? Do we sell cocaine now in your head-canon? Please limit your fanfic posting in public, it is giving me second hand embarrassment. [1]

[0] https://twitter.com/NyaaV2/status/1324168129522511872

[1] https://twitter.com/NyaaV2/status/1324171441479196672

proverbialbunny7• 6 years ago

When it comes to case law, they have to show intent, and the way they do that is they have to show their software is used for more than just piracy.

So, eg, if it's generic torrent tracker software, it's fine, because anyone can use it in a legitimate way (though it helps if someone actually is using it in a legitimate way), but if this is just for the site nyaa.si and no other trackers, they might lose this case if it goes to court.

synctext• 6 years ago

Specifically, we request that you remove or disable access to the infringing Project’s repositories referenced herein in accordance with either 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(ii) (DMCA “representative list” provision), 17 U.S.C. § 512(i)(1)(A) (DMCA “repeat infringer” provision), and/or GitHub’s Terms of Service, which prohibit use of your facilities for copyright infringement, ...

So such dual-use technologies are now under pressure. This is quite a step towards banning certain mass-dissemination protocols in general. See "inducement rule" [1] in the US.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inducement_rule

jitendrac4• 6 years ago

Torrents were great threat in past years, but now in world with streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime,Hulu and all others torrent is not a serious threat. So,that's a baseless argument, Its like don't sell knives they can be used to murder. Torrents are also useful for many others purposes, like distribution of big opensource software, downloading files with unreliable connection and slow speed, to distribute things [kind of]anonymously peer-peer etc.

rapfaria2• 6 years ago

Until you are paying for 10 distinct services, and the music colossi start to create services of their own.

Who you gonna call? Plex+sonarr

bobthepanda3• 6 years ago

A music colossus already tried this, and Tidal landed with a thud.

People are loyal to artists, not labels, and artists change labels on a fairly regular basis. It's not like TV where shows generally live and die on a single channel, and maybe get salvaged onto a second one.

vorticalbox• 6 years ago

This is why Netflix was great, it showed the TV world they were doing it wrong by having 100's of services rather than one with everything.

Now people want a cut of Netflix pie and making the same mistake again.

FalconSensei3• 6 years ago

Maybe unpopular opinion: you don't need to pay for 10 distinct services at the same time. Like, there's a show that I want to watch on Crave, I pay for a month and watch it - along with other stuff that might interest me. Then there's something else on Starz - I do the same.

2 concurrent streaming service is good enough for most people, I think, specially considering most streaming services add full seasons at once, instead of weekly episodes. And even in that case, you can just wait a couple months until the whole show is available, and spend 10 bucks for a month's subscription.

password321• 6 years ago

They were never a great threat. People actually do like to spend money and throw money even at free content.

jitendrac4• 6 years ago

yup, I agree. They just can't wait for duration and want instant access to released content.

phh2• 6 years ago

A few years ago, I would have agreed. However nowadays I can't even list the SVoD offerings in my country, and last time I searched (or was Stargate SG1), I couldn't find any offering. (One SVoD has it... Only seasons 8 and 9).

jitendrac4• 6 years ago

yeah, I think telegram has taken the place of torrents for this purpose.

tpxl• 6 years ago

We were watching Harry Potter around new year and it vanished off of Netflix on first of January. As long as that keeps happening torrents are going to be superior to streaming services.

erk__• 6 years ago

Seems that it is something that MPA have gone after for some time they tried to shut down the website late last year.

https://torrentfreak.com/mpa-lawyers-are-trying-to-shut-down...

francis_t_catte• 6 years ago

yeah, this reads as more of an attempt against the torrent tracker site, rather than the tracker software itself.

voidwtf• 6 years ago

I hope GitHub is willing to put a stop to this, seems like a stretch.

Where this thread of logic end? Should python be blocked by DMCA because it is used to compile code that facilitates copyright infringement?

dunefox• 6 years ago

Personal computers make copyright infringement possible. They need to go.

fsflover2• 6 years ago

I guess this is exactly what Apple thinks when they remove root from your devices.

EvanAnderson2• 6 years ago

The industry is working on that.

We're still getting people used to the idea of "phones" in beautiful and "safe" walled gardens. (We all know that "phones" aren't actually personal computers so it's not like we're giving anything up!)

It's easier to control infringing uses of technology in the walled garden, where the imprimatur of the "gardener" reigns supreme and software can be sent down the memory hole if it angers the establishment.

If this goes according to plan nobody (at least, nobody who isn't part of an aged and miniscule market segment) will notice when the personal computers are brought into the "safety" of the garden too.

speeder2• 6 years ago

Well... they already succeeded in screwing some hardware and software this way.

When Windows Vista was about to launch, MPAA pushed hard for DVD copy protection, this resulted in a sudden push against CRT monitors, in favor of then lower quality LCD, to force the usage of HDMI cables (because they have DRM), they also pushed hard for Microsoft to change what soundcards were allowed to do, again because of DRM.

This contributed to a sudden death of CRTs right when some companies were about to have breakthrough in lightweight CRT, and also basically killed the soundcard market... they still exist, but nowhere near important as they were, and nowhere near awesome, the changes that were pushed to support DRM killed 3D Audio, back then you had people buying sound cards as if they were like GPUs but for audio, some games used this to great effect (Thief for example), where the game would raytrace the audio, calculating it reflecting, refracting and difracting around the 3D models, allowing for sound simulations that let players to figure out the environment by audio alone...

Vista came and changed drastically how the driver stack for video and audio worked, MS back then blamed "stability" but they killed hard anything that could be used to circunvent DVD, HDMI and related DRM.

PAPPPmAc• 6 years ago

Good old

Right to Read (Stallman, 1997) https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html

and

The Coming War On General Purpose Computing (Doctorow, 2011) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_on_General_Com...

warning us that entities really are going to try exactly that bullshit. And, as usual, sounding paranoid at the time and "oh, yeah, of course that happened" later.

Nextgrid• 6 years ago

This nasty industry tried to make the VCR illegal back in the day so you're not that far off.

EvanAnderson2• 6 years ago

A lot people on HN probably weren't alive to know that this happened. It would do people well to read the testimony given before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives back in 1983[1] to get some idea of exactly how willing and eager to destroy innovation copyright maximalists really are.

Nothing suggests the attitudes motivating the MPAA's lack of foresight re: the VCR in 1983, aand their general unwillingness to allow anything to upset the status quo, have gone anywhere in the ensuing decades.

[1] http://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm

(If nothing else, read Jack Valenti's testimony.)

f311a3• 6 years ago

Python does not contain preconfiguration that allows you to download particular files. The DMCA mentions configs with data samples.

chewzerita• 6 years ago

I thought GitHub said they were going to assume good faith by the repository and allow it to stay up until a ruling has been decided (as well as funding legal costs), rather than immediately taking it down under the hand of the "rightsholder".

Did I misread their previous statement after the youtube-dl fiasco?

Griffinsauce• 6 years ago

The relevant part of their "youtube-dl is back" post:

Given the cost to developers of an unwarranted takedown of code, we ensure we have a complete notice before we take action. We distinguish between code that merely can be used in an infringing way and code that is preconfigured to be used a certain way. We also recognize that code can provide access to copyrighted content without violating the law (for example, fair use). In some cases we can keep a project up because the content identified in the takedown notice is not in fact infringing or circumventing a TPM that controls access or copying of copyrighted works.

So basically: no. But they surrounded it with so much fluff that's its easy to misinterpret.

ihuman5• 6 years ago

I think that was just for section 1201 claims, not all claims.

"Going forward, we are overhauling our 1201 claim review process..."

https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-yo...

fireattack2• 6 years ago

Nothing will change much, as soon as GitHub is still a user-generated content host. They have to follow DMCA safe harbor practice, which is to obey the claim until proven false, in trade with not get sued themselves as a host.

cush• 6 years ago

Ten forkbots and 1000 forks later...

coldcode• 6 years ago

Browsers are open source. I can download illegal content via a browser. Clearly they should DMCA all the browsers.

Make as much (non) sense as this.

Shish2k• 6 years ago

The accusation being made here isn’t “this software can be used for piracy”, but rather “this software is primarily designed for piracy”

dmaz• 6 years ago

Reading the complaint, it's clear their focus is not on generic tracker source code but on copyrighted file metadata being preloaded into the tracker source code:

The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law.

f311a3• 6 years ago

Yes, people should really read the DMCA before jumping into conclusions. I see a lot of false assumptions in the comments.

sodality28• 6 years ago

To be fair, reading

The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law.

could easily be interpreted as "oh MPA took it down because sharing files = bad", not necessarily "their code is very specificlaly designed to analyze and collect pirated media". The companies behind this are very loose with their wording so it looks terrible.

kmeisthax2• 6 years ago

In the defense of the falsely-assuming people the actual legally actionable bits are all the way at the end of the complaint, and the first few paragraphs sound like the MPA is alleging that merely publishing the source code of a BitTorrent tracker is itself infringement.

I swear, it's almost as if the people who work for these publisher trade groups are trying to pull aggro and look crazy.

gnomewascool2• 6 years ago

I've looked at all the "infringing" files that they link to, from a bundled zip download from the web archive, and I don't see anything that's "preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content".

The most iffy is the list of categories in utils/api_uploader_v2.py but there's no category that doesn't contain works out of copyright or under a license permitting redistribution, and even if that were not the case, that would still not be tantamount to being "preconfigured to find" anything in particular.

There's also the URL of the pirate site, but google also provides it, as do some comments here...

jhare• 6 years ago

Github bowing to these requests is really disappointing. Makes me sad.

meibo• 6 years ago

U.S. organizations need to follow U.S. law.

Github has shown that they're trying to fight these things, with yt-dl reinstatement and a recent donation to the EFF.

https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-yo...

Dylan168072• 6 years ago

After reviewing the claim, the law lets them choose whether they want to take it down in exchange for immunity.

maltalex• 6 years ago

The title is misleading. This isn't some generic torrent tracker. The repo in question is the source of a specific site - nyaa.si [0] which according to the complaint is preconfigured to share copyrighted material:

The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law.

This is probably what makes this complaint possible.

[0] https://nyaa.si/

livueta• 6 years ago

You've got a point, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836800 also points this out.

My eye was caught by

The Project blatantly infringes the MPA Member Studios’ copyrights and countless other copyrights. Indeed, copyright infringement is so prevalent within the Project that infringement plainly is its predominant use and purpose.

when submitting, and you could argue that does constitute a blanket attack against dual-use products, but the specific allegations you cite are also relevant. Since I could still edit the title I changed it to "for source code of torrent tracker nyaa.si"; hope that's clearer.

jchw3• 6 years ago

Please don't, however, baselessly propagate their claims. As far as I can tell it's bullshit. The source code may be for nyaa.si but it just contains normal torrent tracker code.

Take a look at the files listed:

https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/utils/api_info....

Online here: https://gitlab.com/SIGBUS/nyaa/-/blob/master/utils/api_info....

See anything remotely suggestive? Not I.

https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/utils/api_uploa...

Nothing interesting here either.

https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/static/sea...

Why did they pick the search entry XML for the porn section??? (I can only assume their lawyers have no idea what 'sukebei' means.) Anyway, nothing interesting in this file either.

https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/api_handle...

Again, looks ENTIRELY generic.

https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/.docker/nyaa-co...

It's a config file with some credentials in it. Again, nothing.

https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/torrents.p...

More generic looking Flask code.

https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/nyaa/templates/...

Again... it's a very basic looking HTML template.

https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/migrations/vers...

Just about the least interesting database migration ever.

https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/config.example....

I'm not even sure why they would pick this file, seriously. At this point they're just making shit up.

https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/blob/master/.docker/es_sync...

And another random config file.

If there's even a smidgen of actual copyright infringement in this repo, they failed to find it.

thinkingemote2• 6 years ago

how about trackers.txt ?

nemothekid• 6 years ago

They DCMA doesn't say that the repo was used to host copyrighted material:

The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law.

They are basically saying "this is the codebase for nyaa.si, and as proof here are a bunch of files that prove that assertion". What I don't understand is the legal grounds they have to compel GitHub to remove the repository. It would be like if I removed ffmpeg from github because freestreams.tv was using it to power their backend.

jsmith45• 6 years ago

I'd say that first one (api_info) is semi-plausible in terms of being "configured" for piracy, in that it hard codes the production API of the site, and I assume the data accessible therein is largely piracy.

It is also true that one would need to modify quite a few places to make this codebase sensibly usable for anything non-piracy. Even if an Anime studio decided to make their back catalog available over torrent (for some reason), this site really is not designed for their needs.

However, I strongly suspect this list of files is roughly the set that have 'nyaa' as a stand alone word (i.e. not part of a snake case word or other compound). I suspect they loaded the code into a search engine, and searched for "nyaa.si", and flagged all results. Many search engines will treat the '.' like a space, will filter out "si" as being too short, and thus search for "nyaa", and only find results for that when it exists as a separate word.

einpoklum7• 6 years ago

See anything remotely suggestive?

Maybe. I see:

    NYAA_HOST = 'https://nyaa.si'
    SUKEBEI_HOST = 'https://sukebei.nyaa.si'

so this is pre-configured to get torrents from a website which offers mainly/mostly/only infringing torrents.

Caveat: IANAL.

thinkingemote2• 6 years ago

Possibly due the inclusion of the tracker URLs in the code? https://web.archive.org/web/20200917190718/https://github.co...

zucker42• 6 years ago

This is probably what makes this complaint possible.

What makes this complaint possible is that the MPA blatantly expands the scope of copyright, counting on their large legal budget and the skewed possible consequences to discourage people from fighting back.

The MPA doesn't care whether this repo actually infringes on their copyright, nor whether the DMCA allows them to issue a takedown request. They only care that this will hurt people who oppose their interests and that there is little practical recourse.

formerly_proven2• 6 years ago

MPAA 2: The Streisand Overdrive

atum47• 6 years ago

I've made a cool app that consumes yts api a while ago. Naively I even shared it here. After learning that someone in England was arrested only for having links to pirated movies I took everything down.

It's a shame how hard they are coming after torrents and copyright content like that. As I kid growing up in Brazil I wouldn't have access to a lot of movies, games and tv shows if weren't for torrents and pirate content. Now a days I can buy these games and pay for a subscription to movies and tv shows, but I learned of them by downloading first.

I wonder how much it hurts a tv show like GOT to have some kid watching it without buying.

elliottlan• 6 years ago

Pathetic!

underseacables• 6 years ago

Is there a mirror?

looperhacks• 6 years ago

For those who don't know nyaa.si: it's probably the most popular public tracker for anime/manga/and related stuff. It sprung up not so long ago after the original nyaa.eu (? I'm not 100% sure on the domain) shut down. Today it's not the only surviving clone, but probably the biggest one.

I'm still not sure however, how the repo itself violates copyright. Yes I'm aware of the explanations but I have a hard time believing it. And I can't exactly look up the linked code files.

jniedrauer• 6 years ago

This site is mainly used to share Japanese media. The streaming services have really dropped the ball in this area. They either don't simulcast to other parts of the world (netflix), offer terrible subtitles that are worse than fan translations (netflix, crunchyroll), or just plain never release content for international audiences.

I pay for every relevant streaming service I can, and even when I can access legal, official distributions, I still generally prefer fan releases. It's embarrassing.

I'm so tired of the rent seeking in the entertainment industry. I want to pay artists and content creators, not an ever growing pile of mediocre middlemen and their lawyers. How can we pool our money to hire lobbyists and change the landscape of this industry?

fireattack2• 6 years ago

The coverage of Anime in some countries (such as the US) are a lot better than before though.

Can't speak of translation quality as I don't watch English-sub, but they have no problem with simulcast. As a matter of fact, lots of popular animes released on Nyaa.si nowadays are directly ripped from Crunchyroll/Funimation/etc. TVrips from Japan, which were the main source before, are actually getting rarer and rarer.

Macha4• 6 years ago

Yeah, I subscribe to Crunchyroll, Netflix, Prime Video, and Funimation. Or in other words, 100% of services with streaming anime available in my country. To be fair, seasonal anime gets a good coverage with those. Netflix's player is pretty good, but the rest vary from meh to awful (I have never successfully changed the timestamp in Funimation's player without playback crashing within the next minute).

But back catalogues availability is not so good. Crunchyroll and Netflix have the most popular stuff like Naruto, Code Geass or Evangelion but literally nobody has, say, The Devil is a Part Timer in my country.

Movies? The SAO movie got a physical showing in my country, the Made in Abyss movie actually did show up on a pay per view non-region locked streaming service and... that's literally it.

Soundtracks? It might be on Spotify. This week. But maybe not next week. I've no fucking idea, but the constant appearence and disappearence of soundtrack songs from my playlists has even caused me to stop moving spotify.

So for movies and back catalogues, my only "legal" option is to ship DVDs/Blurays and a region locked player from the US, or maybe sometimes I can get stuff from the UK in my own region. For soundtracks, even that is not usually an option. Does that legally entitle me to pirate it? No. Do I care? Not really, I feel I've tried my best

faitswulff• 6 years ago

Aside, but Made in Abyss was fantastic.

chaosharmonic• 6 years ago

the Made in Abyss movie actually did show up on a pay per view non-region locked streaming service and... that's literally it.

Made in Abyss? You mean the show that spent its entire broadcast run locked behind two paywalls?

Re:Creators is another one that went criminally underrated thanks to the travesty that was Anime Strike.

TazeTSchnitzel• 6 years ago

This site is mainly used to share Japanese media.

In fact, non-CJK media is explicitly prohibited by its terms.

So it's a bit strange to see the MPAA making the takedown and mentioning their biggest members (all Hollywood) in the press release. I suppose the US subsidiaries or partners of certain Japanese media companies might be members of the MPAA?

EDIT: Ah right, one of the companies named is Sony Pictures, which owns a US anime distributor (Funimation).

ihuman5• 6 years ago

Sony also owns Aniplex, which owns A-1 Pictures, CloverWorks, and Aniplex of America. Soon Sony Pictures will own Crunchyroll, too.

astrange6• 6 years ago

offer terrible subtitles that are worse than fan translations (netflix, crunchyroll)

This is true sometimes, but usually it's not true because nobody does fansubs anymore. Most subtitled torrents are copies of the official subtitles.

(Also you can't judge a translation unless you speak Japanese.)

proverbialbunny7• 6 years ago

(Also you can't judge a translation unless you speak Japanese.)

That may be part of the problem with the industry. The average viewer is none the wiser, so the translation industry gets to make a subpar product and get away with it. If it wasn't for fansubs, they'd have a monopoly. Thankfully, the industry has spent the last 10+ years competing with fan subs instead of outright trying to nuke them and it shows. Subs (and dubs) were far far worse not that long ago.

Ironically or perhaps paradoxically, as professional made dubs and subs have increased in quality fansubs have decreased in quality. It's almost like fansubs are giving the industry a push forward.

Hamuko8• 6 years ago

Specifically, at the URL, the Repository hosts and offers for download the Project, which, when downloaded, provides the downloader everything necessary to launch and host a “clone” infringing website identical to Nyaa.si (and, thus, engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows).

I'd like for Motion Picture Association to publish a step-by-step guide on how I can engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows using this piece of software.

Because I imagine at some point in the guide they'd tell me to generate torrent files of copyrighted files I have and upload them to the site, which is really outside of this project.

Or is Nginx also infringing because when downloaded, it allows me to start engaging in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows by enabling directory indexing and uploading MP4s?

ihuman5• 6 years ago

Because I imagine at some point in the guide they'd tell me to generate torrent files of copyrighted files I have and upload them to the site, which is really outside of this project.

One of the files they link to is a utility for uploading torrent files (/utils/api_uploader_v2.py). As far as I can tell, it doesn't generate the torrent files, just uploads them.

flyingfences• 6 years ago

Torrent files in general, yes. Torrent files are not, by default, any sort of legal infringement.

phkahler2• 6 years ago

I was thinking the same until this part:

> The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law.

It's one thing to host software that can be used for this. It's another to host software specifically configured for it. Still might be legal. I wanted to see what the linked configuration files actually contain, but they've been taken down.

It still smacks of going after the tools rather than the infringers.

contravariant3• 6 years ago

This is only true if you consider information that can be used to pirate works as "infringing material" that falls under the DMCA (in particular its safe harbour provision).

Which would effectively give any copyright holder carte blanche to censor any information that can be used to infringe their copyright.

Hamuko8• 6 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20201105144800/https://codeload....

Have at 'em.

    .docker/es_sync_config.json
    .docker/nyaa-config-partial.py
    config.example.py
    migrations/versions/2bceb2cb4d7c_add_comment_count_to_torrent.py
    nyaa/api_handler.py
    nyaa/static/search-sukebei.xml
    nyaa/templates/home.html
    nyaa/torrents.py
    utils/api_info.py
    utils/api_uploader_v2.py

akerro3• 6 years ago

I have and upload them to the site, which is really outside of this project.
Or is Nginx also infringing because when downloaded

No, you have to use Google Chrome for this.

GoblinSlayer• 6 years ago

This. Google is the largest pirate corporation in the world.

whateveracct• 6 years ago

by enabling directory indexing and uploading MP4s?

this shows how the MPAA is a short hop away from saying possessing a DRM-free mp4 is tantamount to intent to infringe on copyright

BlueGh0st• 6 years ago

The idea of constructive possession of copyright infringing material is a little hilarious and sad.

Aerroon• 6 years ago

Copyright advocates in the past have successfully argued that empty CDs are tantamount to copyright infringement. Some countries (Spain) have even had (still does?) a tax on HDDs and SSDs.

You pay extra when purchasing a harddrive, because it's possible to put pirated works on it.

We've already made that hop.

chme2• 6 years ago

Well copyright is, when it comes down to it, not very logical.

In the digital world every picture, video, audio or other copyrighted material is represented as a number, which can pretty much be any number, if the encoding can be freely chosen.

Transferring and storing those numbers (looking at you π) could be a copyright violation or not, pretty much just depending on the intent.

Because proving intent is very difficult, the rules seem to have changed here a bit, so now the defendant would have to prove that they didn't intent to do so... Which might be even more difficult, but who with money and influence cares about that.

xtracto2• 6 years ago

Exactly... that was demonstrated with DeCSS and AACS a long time ago, with shirts printed with colors "encoding" the magic number and whatnot.

I would love for someone to actually code this in the "rockstar" language. With sufficient "base" conversions, you could make any program be represented by the constitution.

kobalsky• 6 years ago

We could distribute pirated movies with pi.

Just publish the digit offset from where to start and how many digits to calculate.

The offset would probably be an infintely huge number, but I wonder if they could technically DMCA you for hosting it.

LatteLazy• 6 years ago

You're right. But unless you have $100m for legal fees, being right is irrelevant.

mirekrusin• 6 years ago

Apple store must be offender as well as you can buy computer and that provides everything necessary to do X.

LdSGSgvupDV• 6 years ago

We should ban all ISP also. They pass the files to users.

rhyne2• 6 years ago

Yes, but without them how will the consumers be able to access the nonpirated versions. In all seriousness though, if the ISPs banded together, they could hold the (first)world hostage. Trying to hold the ISP accountable for what it's users are doing is an extremely dangerous precedent. Right now (or at least last year) there were huge debates going on about just how much culpability social media platforms should take in regards to content posted on them, and it was chaos, everybody had different opinions and policies. Now imagine what that chaos would do if, instead of content rules being different from facebook to twitter, the rules differed from Verizon to Comcast

mensetmanusman• 6 years ago

It would be great if the code for GitHub was on GitHub so that people could host their own.

How far are we removed from: “please remove this book on C++, as individuals may learn how to pirate music from Britney Spears using the knowledge herein”

Confiks• 6 years ago

Note that there are various older forks [1] [2] available that allow to verify that the project isn't in fact "preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content". The most 'incriminating' file is "api_uploader_v2.py", which lists categories such as "6_2 - Software - Games". Which is not infringing at all.

While unrealistic, it's technically possible that some of the files have changed (significantly) since June 12 2019, the last commit of [1]. However, it's very unlikely that the database migration file, 2bceb2cb4d7c_add_comment_count_to_torrent.py, would have been changed.

[1] https://github.com/marwanpro/nyaa

[2] https://github.com/crf444/nyaa

niea_113• 6 years ago

You can still download the zip file of the repository through archive.org.

And there is no direct link (took a quick look) to copyrighted content in the source code. If they shutdown the main site, without a data backup, the code is useless. Users will have to re-upload and re-seed the torrents they have.

toomuchtodo5• 6 years ago

Tangentially, I'm interested in the concept of the torrent data moving into something somewhat indestructible by also highly available, such as the bitcoin blockchain. Your torrent site then "mounts" the blockchain, scanning the chain for the torrent data (magnet URIs) necessary to bootstrap a corpus.

CodesInChaos• 6 years ago

From the complaint it sounds like this repository doesn't just contain the code of a tracker, but also of a torrent search/indexing site (similar to the pirate bay website). The urls listed as infringing seem mostly be related to this website, not a tracker.

I think the argument is that nyaa.si is clearly designed for piracy, and the code is specific to that website evidenced by its url being embedded all over the codebase.

pixelpoet• 6 years ago

Feels like a repeat of the DeCSS debacle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS

On that note, wow do I feel old...

jug• 6 years ago

Wow. 100% Streisand Effect here.

trasz2• 6 years ago

That's why we need Github alternatives like https://gitee.com/.

hellohappyworld• 6 years ago

I don't think a Chinese git provider would be a good alternative in a long run.

trasz2• 6 years ago

What other provider can afford to properly fight (ie ignore) DMCA takedowns?

jokethrowaway2• 6 years ago

I think the only solution is self-hosting. Would a hosting provider (excluding AWS, given recent news) comply with these baseless requests?

I'm personally done with Github.

Gitlab is a bit too heavy to run but I can live with Trello and my own git server - all my OSS projects I care about have their own website anyway (ironically, moving from Github Pages to Netlify will be the most annoying part).

fabianhjr2• 6 years ago

Gitlab is a bit too heavy to run

For personal repos it would probably be better to go with Gitea or a similar lightweight forge.

https://gitea.io/

donmcronald• 6 years ago

For small or independent developers Gitea is really nice. The thing with GitHub and (especially) GitLab is they’re really focused on enterprise customers, so, if you’re a small developer, you get forced into using all the bloat that only makes sense once you need a ton of collaboration.

I hope Cloudflare pages ends up being as good as the sales pitch. It looks promising if it does.

fabianhjr2• 6 years ago

As for static page hosting, it is better to just use IPFS + Cloudflare Gateway via CNAME.

It has been working great for over a year now. (Eg, my unmaintained but truely serverless blog: https://fabian.social/posts/2020-11-07-ipfs-blogging.html)

zeruch2• 6 years ago

As someone who worked in that industry for a long time (for BayTSP, which eventually got bought and pulled into Irdeto), the MPA/A is one of the more fervent (and obnoxious clients) we had. Not as dumb as say, Disney or NBC, but still...dedicated since the Valenti days to taking down anything that could event tangentially be related to downloading a movie without "permission"

It's a stupid industry, populated by even more stupid clients.

unnouinceput• 6 years ago

GitHub is Microsoft, right? Well, let them fight I say. Microsoft can simply say "no" automatically to all this bullshit (well, a generic lawyer "no" response) that will automatically get sent back. Good luck for one automation crap to fight with another automation crap - or like someone else said in this thread, this is Garbage In Garbage Out.

andrewzah• 6 years ago

The real WTF here is why a torrent site is hosting its source on a site like github in the first place. We all know that societies like the MPA flagrantly abuse the law because there are little repercussions. The codebase really should have been selfhosted.

chovybizzass• 6 years ago

Is anyone surprised Microsoft censoring free code now?

avipars• 6 years ago

now that microsoft owns them, will their polices stay the same?

einpoklum7• 6 years ago

... and the repository is down:

https://github.com/nyaadevs/nyaa/

just in case anyone was imagining Microsoft would somehow fight for software freedom.

corobo• 6 years ago

Now I know about nyaa.si. Cheers MPA.

Could you guys DMCA something reminiscent of tvtorrents.com? Man that place was great for finding stuff to watch.

proverbialbunny7• 6 years ago

You really want to go to private trackers to get quality over quantity.

I'd share public sites, but I'm not sure if it breaks the rules.

that_guy_iain• 6 years ago

I thinK TVTorrents was private. I think it got replaced with the broadcast the .net website.

dmix• 6 years ago

Great Streisand marku

Shared4043• 6 years ago

Well, now I know about Nyaa.si.

Thanks, MPA!

PointyFluff• 6 years ago

THE DMCA needs to be killed. Viciously.

h_anna_h• 6 years ago

While I am against DMCAs I find it amusing to be honest, it is kinda like karma. The nyaa.si people commonly engaged in censorship of their issue tracker at github (even if all parties were polite and the issue was closed they ended up locking and deleting issues afterwards). In addition in their early days they engaged in a "fake news" campaign against the other nyaa clone (nyaa.si is a clone of the original nyaa). Finally they never provided their database to the public, so if it dies or if someone wants to make another clone they have to scrape the whole site. (there was a lot of drama when the original nyaa died because nobody had an updated database and they had to work with an outdated one. The other nyaa clone offered a copy of its database. When I asked one of the members of nyaa.si I was offered a pathetic excuse on how it would be too hard to write an sql query).

And to be honest the nyaa.si devs would not care about this whole thing at all. They admitted that they published the code to github because they were tired of the "foss nerds" whining.

inopinatus• 6 years ago

The Streisand Effect is a marvelous thing.

znpy• 6 years ago

cool, I didn't know about nyaa.si and now I know.

hkt• 6 years ago

I like the part where they say they're acting in good faith under penalty of perjury. So, that's perjury, then?

blacklight• 6 years ago

GitHub blindly taking down another repo after another dumb DMCA complaint is just giving me the last push to migrate my projects to a self-hosted Gitlab instance.

I've first thought of it after the youtube-dl takedown, and decided to schedule the migration after the company fired a jew employee who called the Capitol Hill protestors Nazis, but I admit that I've got a bit lazy in the meantime.

Thanks GitHub for reminding me that I shouldn't be this lazy and I should move my software ASAP to a safe home where I don't have to worry about my code disappearing from the web overnight because of a dumb lawyer who has no clue of what he's talking about when he talks about tech.

When open-source developers get pissed of how you treat their projects (most of them developed and maintained for free) they don't come down to the streets, they don't take you to courts, they don't harass your employees. They just move their projects somewhere else, update the URLs provided online, and go on with their lives as if nothing happened. And we all know that GitHub without projects and without developers is nothing but a shiny empty box. I wish you guys enjoy your shiny empty box soon - maybe ask one of those lawyers to contribute some code to it.

rmm• 6 years ago

As an aside, are there any good open tracker/torrentsite projects?

It would be cool to setup a hyperlocal(50-100 people etc.) torrent community for large datasets we transfer around in mining.

00__00• 6 years ago

Simple for GitHub to understand:

"and/or GitHub’s Terms of Service, which prohibit use of your facilities for copyright infringement, see https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service. "

apple_innocent• 6 years ago

Wonder if there are mirrors of Github based in China that do not receive these takedown requests

https://github.com.cnpmjs.org/nyaadevs

This mirror shows up in DDG search (which uses Microsoft/Bing for its results)

vfclists• 6 years ago

Why do folks keep forgetting that Github is Microsoft, and Redhat is IBM?

Do Github and Redhat sound cooler than Redhat and Microsoft?

GitHub has received a DMCA from MPA about torrent tracker nyaa.si

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