ReVanced DMCA Takedown on GitHub

https://github.com/revanced/revanced-patches

by Bilal_io • 4 years ago

108 79 4 years ago

pitched• 4 years ago

The DMCA notice: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2022/12/2022-12-0...

And the complaint itself:

On GitHub at https://github.com/revanced/revanced-patches there is a patch that unlocks the subscription without payment for "Pflotsh ECMWF" and various other products.

If that’s true, this can’t really be very controversial?

15155• 4 years ago

Correct me if I am wrong: the DMCA takedown process was not designed for circumvention devices - this is what courts are for.

This company is not the copyright holder to these patches - they did not write them nor are they derivative works, so they need to use other legal means to approach this situation.

This is not first time this has happened with GitHub.

musicale• 4 years ago

I think we may have a winner. Hopefully GitHub will learn eventually.

rieTohgh6• 4 years ago

nor are they derivative works

That isn't so obvious to me. For all intents and purposes this is no different from crack. I am not sure if DMCA is right tool but I totally understand why Microsoft wouldn't want to host it.

lapser• 4 years ago

If I'm reading this[0] correct, according to GitHub it includes that too.

[0] https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/content-removal-polic...

3np• 4 years ago

FWIW commit 44bc7074ea8aaa6f774ad23dd0667477cbe1caf1 (GH search) removes the mentioned parts if anyone wants a "clean" version.

Apart from the taken down revanced-patches repo, other repos in the revanced gh org are still up.

trynewideas2• 4 years ago

More context: It's a successor to Vanced, a patched Android YouTube client that, among other things, disabled ads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_Vanced?wprov=sfla1 ReVanced apparently had patches for more apps, which seems to have contributed to the takedown.

Why are these mod projects bothering to distribute on GitHub but then try to obfuscate what they do into Discords and online subculture hangouts?

lzaaz2• 4 years ago

Popularity I assume - people will be less hesitant to download an apk file from github, even if being on github doesn't really make it trustable in practical terms.

cuteboy192• 4 years ago

Presumably there are a lot of these dark projects which aren't anywhere public. We just don't hear about them

jacooper2• 4 years ago

They can use European hosts like Codeberg, yet they still use GitHub.

capableweb2• 4 years ago

They really shouldn't though, it would be kind of mean to Codeberg to host potentially illegal software there.

It's really not that complicated to get a domain and host your own instance of Gitea, and it would make it a lot more resilient to takedowns, if you have the right domain registrar and instance host.

that_guy_iain5• 4 years ago

A european host would take it down too. Europe has copyright laws too. And they have their own versions of DMCA.

ranguna• 4 years ago

Patiently waiting for all repos to be moved to gitlab (or a self hosted instance of gitlab)

elashri• 4 years ago

They can (and will) serve a DMCA request to the hosting provider (or the ISP).

rglullis• 4 years ago

Radicle, then? Or more simply self-hosted gitea on an ENS domain?

sschueller• 4 years ago

DMCA only works in the United States.

jonathantf2• 4 years ago

Pick a European hosting provider that knows what they're doing and they're more than likely to ignore DMCA claims as they aren't legally binding in the EU

DoingIsLearning3• 4 years ago

Please describe the nature of your copyright ownership or authorization to act on the owner's behalf.
We (Garzotto GmbH together with Kachelmann GmbH) are the owner of the product "Pflotsh ECMWF", a weather app for which a subscription can be purchased on Google Play. I am [private], [private] of Garzotto GmbH and submit this request on behalf of Garzotto GmbH
Please provide a detailed description of the original copyrighted work that has allegedly been infringed. If possible, include a URL to where it is posted online.
On GitHub at https://github.com/revanced/revanced-patches there is a patch that unlocks the subscription without payment for "Pflotsh ECMWF" and various other products.
What files should be taken down? Please provide URLs for each file, or if the entire repository, the repository’s URL.
https://github.com/revanced/revanced-patches
The entire repository must be taken down. Even if our copyright considers part of it ( https://github.com/revanced/revanced-patches/tree/main/src/m... ) the complete repository at https://github.com/revanced/revanced-patches is clearly illegal, which you see immediately if you just spend a few seconds to check it out.

So let's get this right, a Swiss company abusing the fact that Github is US hosted is using a Copyright claim mechanism for US based copyright holders (DMCA) to claim that the entire app is 'illegal™' because someone found a way to get their weather forecasts without a paying subscription.

"Anti-circumvention Technology" DMCA claims are absolute horseshit. If you follow this ad ridiculum then curl and ffmpeg should also be 'illegal™' technology.

izacus• 4 years ago

Well, we Europeans are constantly abused under this DMCA cancer so I don't see anything wrong with using it for gain?

(It's not like USians are showing any will to get rid of DMCA).

malermeister• 4 years ago

How is it "for gain"?

that_guy_iain5• 4 years ago

There are two different DMCA claims. The other one comes from a solo dev it seems - https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/a16b28b081e2302d4212caa7....

So let's get this right, a Swiss company abusing the fact that Github is US hosted is using a Copyright claim mechanism for US based copyright holders (DMCA) to claim that the entire app is 'illegal™' because someone found a way to get their weather forecasts without a paying subscription.

An european copyright claim would result in the same thing. Just because GitHub want DCMA takedowns doesn't remove the fact that this would be taken down no matter what.

It's not that someone found a way, it's that they're sharing that. Pirating software from small companies and single developers is a massive low.

DoingIsLearning3• 4 years ago

I have no access to what the patch content is (As it has been taken down).

But if indeed it is a key/crack to access the companies' weather forecasts it is still a massive hyperbole and overreach to claim that the whole app is _illegal_ as it is claimed.

Just remove the patch and bring the repo back up.

zozbot2342• 4 years ago

And nothing of value was lost. If you want ad-free services, you can absolutely afford to chip in some money to the service provider, which keeps things above-board and legit. Don't be a darn cheapskate.

DoingIsLearning3• 4 years ago

A bit too judgemental.

Please point us towards an ad-free paying service that doesn't simultaneously track your profile/views/clicks? The problem at the moment is that there is no multimedia host that actually just hosts, they all track unique customer habits chasing that recommendation engine big data gravy train.

Also reminder that most copyright infringement is from non-industrialized nations where people indeed cannot afford to 'chip in some money to the service provider'.

kuschku9• 4 years ago

The data this company has put behind a paywall is the european weather model, which was developed with tax payer money, is run with tax payer money, and the data of which is almost entirely available for free to anyone that wants to access the data.

Companies like the one that posted this take down notice actually sued (!) the national weather services in a few EU countries to prevent national weather services from publishing weather data to consumers for free, arguing that the weather service should run free APIs, but these companies should be able to build ad and subscription supported apps using these free APIs.

https://www.dwd.de/DE/presse/pressemitteilungen/DE/2020/2020...

All these companies did was build a fence around it and charge a fee. How does that even reach the necessary threshold of originality for copyright?

that_guy_iain5• 4 years ago

Because they built the app... They aren't copyrighting the data. They're copyrighting their app.

matheusmoreira6• 4 years ago

How about no. Find another business model or go bankrupt. This rent seeking has to end.

zozbot2342• 4 years ago

Another business model, as in "just give sh*t away for free, without even advertisements to pay for it"? That's not going to be very successful.

sensanaty• 4 years ago

Or I can continue to not pay for them to track every single microscopic interaction I ever have with any of their systems :)

underlines• 4 years ago

I first had internet access in 1998 as a 12 year old without any money. It became a habit to find anything for free: mp3's on metager's "index of" searches, cracks on astalavista.box.sk, movies on IRC bots, 0 day software and games from scene FTPs, later on the whole P2P stuff like gnutella, DC++, torrent etc. and in the mid 00's the move to shared hosters. The fact that I was 12 and didn't get pocket money made me find all my stuff for free and it sticked to this day, except it's either waaaaaaay more convenient to pay a few bucks, or impossible to get otherwise.

So over the years I stopped with my 500GB MP3/AAC/FLAC music collection and moved to Spotify (Which I still hate, because there's always indie stuff that isn't available PLUS stuff they remove, without informing me!). I also stopped pirating movies for some time because of Netflix, but after the democratization of streaming services and the return to walled off exclusives on multiple platforms, I simply went back to torrent streaming. Software is another thing I ALWAYS pirate, the only exception if I use it professionally or make money in any other form by using it.

I am not proud of this, but saving a few bucks seems to be more important to me when I can. This is probably, because it has been ingrained into my brain for years as a child.

I worked in the Digital Marketing business for 10 years (AdTech and MarTech) especially working in Analytics and Data Collection and I never saw ads. Used modified youtube clients for years, uBLock Origin on Desktop AND mobile. Seeing the unfiltered web on friend's devices makes me wonder how they can even brows the web...

rolenthedeep2• 4 years ago

Blocking ads on YouTube doesn't affect anyone's bottom line except Google. Creators on YouTube only receive a small percentage of YouTube ad revinue, and most don't count it as stable income because YouTube loves to demonitize videos for no reason and you have almost no recourse once it does.

That's why every video now has embedded ads, which is something entirely different because it's controlled by and paid to the creator directly.

I don't mind giving creators money, and I'm fortunate enough that I can afford to subscribe to several of them every month. Because they deserve my money, not Google.

harengon• 4 years ago

DMCA is an illness. Intellectual property is a disaster.

kuschku9• 4 years ago

This is typical behaviour for companies like these.

The app here is just another weather app taking data from the european weather models and national weather services. This data was created by taxpayer money and is most of the time available for free via APIs from national weather services (although "API" often means "a daily file dump on an FTP").

Then these companies take this free data, build an app around it and monetize it.

https://www.dwd.de/DE/presse/pressemitteilungen/DE/2020/2020...

In this recent court case in nearby Germany, ad-supported weather apps sued the German national weather service to take down the official free weather app. The national weather service was forced to make their app paid due to this ruling.

The APIs and data dumps for corporate customers have to remain available, though.

Nowadays I refuse to use any private weather apps. Private weather apps take public data, fill it with ads, and then sell it back to us. I say: Fuck them.

olabyne• 4 years ago

uuh, wat ? Revanced is an alternative youtube player ? You are in the wrong thread ?

kuschku9• 4 years ago

Revanced YouTube itself, yes. But the revanced project also removes ads and adds features to many other apps, including some weather apps. And one of those got Revanced taken down.

Bilal_io• 4 years ago

ReVanced is more like a patch manager. The patches come from a separate repo which contains patches for more than YouTube. You'd find Twitter, TikTok, Twitch and much more. The issue is that someone accepted a PR for a patch a "premium" weather app. The DMCA takedown request came from the weather app's owners.

pwdisswordfish9• 4 years ago

I'm not necessarily rooting for the ReVanced project here, but… this takedown notice is supposedly claiming circumvention of access controls to copyrighted content? Since when is weather data copyrightable? Unlike what happens in Europe, the US doesn't recognise separate "database rights" either.

the complete repository at https://github.com/revanced/revanced-patches is clearly illegal, which you see immediately if you just spend a few seconds to check it out.

I mean, this was clearly not written by a lawyer.

rasz• 4 years ago

You cant copyright raw data. You could claim your particular data is a compilation tho https://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/database.html

kuschku9• 4 years ago

Either US law applies, then the DCMA is valid, but compilations can not be copyrighted.

Or Swiss law applies, then compilations can be copyrighted, but DMCA does not apply.

usefulcomment3• 4 years ago

Mirror here: https://web.archive.org/web/20221209134101im_/https://tmp.on...

Download this Git bundle file and clone from it directly:

    wget https://web.archive.org/web/20221209134101im_/https://tmp.onion.moe/revanced-patches-v2.141.1.bundle
    git clone revanced-patches-v2.141.1.bundle revanced-patches

It has the full commit history up until a few hours prior to the repository being taken down.

worldmerge• 4 years ago

If you are doing something that might be DMCA issue, why not host the repo in China on a service like https://gitee.com/ ?

nigamanth• 4 years ago

No wonder ReVanced got taken down on GitHub, the chances are that someone from YouTube issued a DMCA takedown, or it could just be any youtuber knowing that their content on YouTube was going without ads on android.

GitHub has to take action, and here we are with ReVanced being taken down. I don't take this as a surprise, GitHub will take action if people write to them or send them a DMCA takedown.

noirscape• 4 years ago

This takedown has nothing to do with YouTube.

The repo was distributing patches for non-YouTube apps as well; specifically AnyTracker[0] and Pflotsch ECMWF[1]. Both of these patches appear to have been disablers for the Google Play License checks to permit usage of their respective "premium" version and both developers filed takedowns.

Suprisingly not Google (the original Vanced) or the MPAA (youtube-dl) this time.

[0] https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2022/12/2022-12-0...

[1] https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2022/12/2022-12-0...

laurentlbm• 4 years ago

The repository is back. The offending patches (for the apps AnyTracker and Pflotsh ECMWF) have been removed.

trynewideas2• 4 years ago

Seems like the takedown was reversed, and the offending patches appear to be gone.

ReVanced DMCA Takedown on GitHub

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