Plex Asks GitHub to Take Down 'Reshare' Repository over Piracy Fears

https://torrentfreak.com/plex-asks-github-to-take-down-reshare-repository-over-piracy-fears-240404/

by signa11 • 2 years ago

62 41 2 years ago

torrentfreak.com

DataDaemon• 2 years ago

The answer is simple: Jellyfin

shiroiushi4• 2 years ago

I haven't tried Plex, and use Jellyfin, but I have to say, the UI on Jellyfin is absolutely atrocious.

I wish there was simply a way to make it show me the files I have available, for instance. There seems to be no way to do that. Instead, it insists on auto-detecting everything and then showing some preview image for that, along with some info scraped from the internet somewhere. It sounds nice, but instead when I want to watch "Space: 1999", it tells me I only have episodes of "Space Jam" or some other show I've never heard of. Or, it tells me I have no shows at all, but the shows are instead in the "Movies" section, or somewhere else entirely in the UI. It's bizarre.

I can see why a lot of people would get frustrated with it.

elp• 2 years ago

I'm busy moving from Plex to Jellyfin.

The Plex UI is better but only a little bit better. On the other hand they are really REALLY irritating with re-enabling their online adverts. Every time you upgrade its comes back again. Or your actual content ends up deep in a menu but the online nonsense is always there. Also you end up having to create a plex account to access your stuff and I don't know how much information they are tracking.

I just got tired of having to re-set it up all the time. Jellyfin seems much better so far, but its still early days for me.

rcarmo• 2 years ago

Jellyfish is just nowhere near Plex’s UX. All the clients crash seemingly at random, and the server side is no better.

crtasm• 2 years ago

show me the files I have available

This is what I want most of the time too, so I love Kodi (media scanning/detection disabled. direct play from a share on my LAN).

We installed Jellyfin recently and noticed an option in Dashboard - Libraries -Display - "Display a folder view to show plain media folders". Haven't tested that fully yet.

Plex friends inform me it can't do a folders/files view at all :(

cqqxo4zV46cp• 2 years ago

These days when someone Jellyfin it just tells me that we care about very very very different things. Some people have a tolerance for bad UIs. I don’t. I also never really seem to have the Plex issues that everyone else does. I disable the “free” content and it pretty much entirely stays away. I can’t member the last time I saw it.

kyriakos• 2 years ago

UI/UX is the achilles heel of many open source projects not backed by a business unfortunately. Gimp comes to mind, which has almost all features of its competitors but the UI will never let it grow.

gaganyaan• 2 years ago

How are your files organized? Do you have them as one big mixed library? I use Jellyfin and haven't had any issues like that. I organize things into several libraries like Television, Movies, etc.

jMyles3• 2 years ago

In an effort to "avoid the growth of piracy", Plex asked GitHub to remove a repository that allows people to reshare libraries that were not originally theirs.

I am so sick of the policing of copying of data masquerading as "intellectual property" or "rights". These terms are so insidious: to be against "property" makes it sound like some bizarre fringe view, and to scoff at the "intellectual" kind makes it sound like you don't care about other people's thoughts (when obviously the opposite is true).

It's so completely obvious that these systems of control can't survive an environment of low-friction copy and transit of data. We're on the cusp, as a species, of finally shucking off this nonsense and enshrining the traditions of free copying and remixing and collaboration.

...so what's the point of continuing the pretense? Who is winning here? The banks whose logos paint the skyline of West Nashville? (I'm in East Nashville as I write this).

All it's going to take is one sovereign jurisdiction refusing to play along, and then everyone will just use internet services in that jurisdiction.

It seems like a house of cards that is going to fall very quickly.

Are we ready for that?

fragmede• 2 years ago

We've been there for a while. The pirate bay is 23 years old today. LibGen, Anna's archive, MEGA; many other services. They're all out there on the vast Internet. it's not a new problem.

Between BitTorrent and Cloudflare R2, one could distribute a file to everyone connected to the Internet for a pittance. For digital files, there is no scarcity of the files themselves. Creating the files is a different matter, but the distribution of digital data on a planetary scale is so doable it's silly we're getting in our own way with this artificial system. Creators need to be compensated, absolutely, but DRM making bits not copyable is like trying to make water not wet.

jMyles3• 2 years ago

Creators need to be compensated, absolutely,

I'm working full-time on this issue, just in the context of my own music project. Stay tuned!

blooalien• 2 years ago

... "trying to make water not wet."

I'm working full-time on this issue, with zero success thus far. When I do finally succeed, I'ma get filthy rich sellin' "Dehydrated Water" (Just Add Water).

sakjur2• 2 years ago

I’m trying to understand the notice and the article and it seems like Plex is alleging a general infringement on the Plex Server rather than suggesting the vague explanation given in the article? (Though the language is quite oddly phrased, so Torrentfreak’s interpretation also makes sense)

In that case, I wonder if they’re trying to claim API copyright or if there’s something more substantial behind it. There’s also the trademark matter and IANAL, but I don’t think that’d go through DMCA requests?

madaxe_again4• 2 years ago

It goes like this:

XBMC forks, becomes Plex

Plex devs decide to charge membership. Requires a payment processor.

Payment processors get very twitchy around anything that could involve piracy

So Plex take an aggressive anti-piracy stance, despite it being the primary use case for their software. In this case an unauthorised use takedown.

sakjur2• 2 years ago

I’m with you thus far, but I’m trying to parse the notice to see why GitHub is even complying (see https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2024/03/2024-03-1... ) and I think Torrentfreak got it wrong. I think they’re trying to claim infringement on Plex Server, but the English in the takedown notice is barely legible (and it feels like a mixup between trademarks and copyright), to the point that I find GitHub’s compliance odd.

pi-rat• 2 years ago

By following the same vague “can be used to grow piracy” logic, there’s a pretty big percentage of github repos that can be slapped with a DMCA and taken down..

consp• 2 years ago

"can be used to grow piracy"

By that metric github should be taken down.

lrpe• 2 years ago

The whole internet, really.

randunel2• 2 years ago

While the repository doesn’t host or link to copyright-infringing material, Plex argues that it can be used to ‘grow’ piracy.

Can someone in the US please ask for DMCA takedowns against all of Microsoft's repositories? I've seen plenty of people using Microsoft products to "grow" piracy. Including github itself.

rvnx• 2 years ago

OpenAI is based on piracy, Google as well.

mikae1• 2 years ago

Stop OneDrive piracy now!

mmh0000• 2 years ago

You may or may not be joking.

But... As a (self-proclaimed) world-renowned pirate of all the media. A not insignificant part of my downloads come from OneDrive or Google Drive links. With MEGA in a close 3rd. Everything is else is torrents.

madaxe_again4• 2 years ago

You may jest, but Microsoft is the single biggest facilitator of piracy on the planet.

Only when the “copy” function is removed from windows will copyright holders be able to rest safe.

leosanchez• 2 years ago

Microsoft is the single biggest facilitator of piracy on the planet.

And Windows is most pirated OS.

senectus1• 2 years ago

I did not know that existed until now... I wonder where a fork is :-P

randunel2• 2 years ago

Same here, I got the python code by extracting it from its docker image https://hub.docker.com/r/peterbuga/plex-reshare and will start using it.

branon2• 2 years ago

https://github.com/vladiiancu/plex-reshare

Can't stop the signal

lxn• 2 years ago

TL;DR: They asked Github to take down a repository that acted as a Plex share proxy.

---

If I understand it correctly, this software allows you to bypass some Plex sharing permissions by allowing you to re-share other people's libraries.

While this can be seen as DMCA abuse by Plex, I personally think it's partially justified (it probably goes against the TOS), and no "regular" user would need it.

It's not a surprise, since they are constantly at "war" against people who use their software to do illegal business. Since their software is relatively polished and well-supported across multiple platforms, some use it to build Netflix clones with illegal content. The repository referenced by the article is probably a helpful tool for such actors.

ByQuyzzy• 2 years ago

People still use GitHub? LOL

ghnws• 2 years ago

It is by far the most used git host

Whiteshadow12• 2 years ago

Perfect Streisand effect.

branon2• 2 years ago

Plex has been user-hostile for a long time, this isn't surprising. Vote with your feet: Jellyfin is just as good, been running it since it came out, no regrets.

Plex Asks GitHub to Take Down 'Reshare' Repository over Piracy Fears

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