[HN Gopher] Hacker Mods Old Calculator to Access the Internet, C...
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Hacker Mods Old Calculator to Access the Internet, Casio Files DMCA
Complaint
Author : fraqed
Score : 327 points
Date : 2020-05-23 13:07 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (torrentfreak.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (torrentfreak.com)
| miga wrote:
| It is concerning that big companies have such undue influence on
| industry and engineering of an individual who legally bought a
| product, and was not in any way stealing it.
| anotheryou wrote:
| Have they even watched the vid?
|
| He doesn't touch the computing part of the computer, he just fits
| a micro controller with screen, battery and wifi in the case and
| removes the solar panel and a bit of plastic for that.
|
| Sadly that makes the whole project a bit less exciting, but still
| :)
| foobar_ wrote:
| Intellectual property is anti-competitive and monopolistic which
| is anti capitalistic. It started out as a reward system for
| authors and inventors. What we now have is an obscenity becauase
| we are rewarding corporations that neither produce nor invent
| anything. The legal loophole that a corporation is a person is
| false. Adam Smith did not have that in mind when he was extolling
| the virtues of capitalism. We need to force liability based
| capitalism without personhood and breakup all conglomerates.
| kube-system wrote:
| People who have rights individually should still have those
| rights when they assemble.
|
| The practical consequences of removing personhood would be
| disastrous for the rights of individuals who work at a
| corporation and the rights of individuals who want to contract
| with a corporation.
|
| If you think it's hard to sue a bad corporation now, just think
| about how hard it would be if you had to individually name each
| of the owners in a suit.
| foobar_ wrote:
| Find an email thread that links them ?
|
| For people thinking you need limited liability to be a big
| company ... you don't. Bloomberg is not an LLP as far as I
| know.
| skdd8 wrote:
| What in the actual fuck! I laughed so hard at this video just to
| watch in disgust how the DCMA and it's lackey GH would take down
| a repo that has nothing to do with Casio other than the name
| perhaps. Where is the freedom to tinker? If I modify my Toyota
| Corolla to take a Ferrari engine would Ferrari or Toyota come to
| my house and take my car away?
|
| Fight for your right to repair:
|
| https://www.eff.org/issues/right-to-repair
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npd_xDuNi9k
| elliekelly wrote:
| > Neutrino informs us that he has already filed a DMCA
| counternotice with Github to get his project back.
|
| I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the balance of
| knowledge/power/experience in the counter-notice process. The
| repo owner is at a huge disadvantage when going up against the
| experienced and expensive lawyers filing these claims. Even when
| the law is on the developer's side it's almost an unwinnable
| battle.
| MintelIE wrote:
| That's why you should never use a commercial service such as
| GitHub to actually do your work. It's OK as a mirror, and to
| show off your code. Like Instagram for your programming and
| tech geek interests. But, like with Instagram, one shouldn't
| rely on it for storage and work.
| ikeboy wrote:
| In this case, Casio is unlikely to file a frivolous lawsuit, so
| the content will go back up.
|
| The only disadvantage is if the rights owner is willing to file
| a frivolous lawsuit, and in that scenario their lawyers can get
| sanctioned by the court.
|
| Look at e.g. Richard Leibowitz for an aggressive copyright
| attorney who's been sanctioned by various courts.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I don't know much about the intricacies of the DMCA process
| but my understanding is that the counter-notice will put the
| content back up unless the original filer (in this case,
| Casio) provides proof they've filed suit. Is there anything
| stopping Casio from sending a strongly worded letter of their
| _intent_ to file suit if the content isn't removed? Is there
| anything stopping Casio from bringing suit, submitting the
| docket number to Github to have the content removed, and then
| withdrawing after 30 (or 60 or 90) days?
|
| Somewhat related, are there any transparency sites that track
| DMCA notices for which a counter-notice was filed and no suit
| was ever brought? To give the public an idea of which
| companies are most aggressively using takedown notices even
| where they might not feel they have much of a case.
| ikeboy wrote:
| 1. It's unethical to threaten to sue without an actual
| intention of suing - lawyers can be disciplined for that.
|
| 2. Once you sue, you can't dismiss unilaterally once the
| other side has responded. They can reasonably say "we put
| money into fighting this - you can't withdraw unless you do
| it with prejudice, which means you can't bring the same
| suit again." If there's a dismissal of any kind, that could
| be submitted to GitHub and they'd be permitted to reinstate
| the content, unless the court specifically said otherwise.
| The statute doesn't explicitly say this, but it talks about
| a lawsuit being filed to restrain infringement - it's
| obvious that if such a lawsuit is dismissed then that
| provision is no longer satisfied. I'm satisfied any judge
| looking at this would agree with my interpretation.
| loeg wrote:
| Responding only to this part:
|
| > The only disadvantage is if the rights owner is willing to
| file a frivolous lawsuit, and _in that scenario their lawyers
| can get sanctioned by the court_.
|
| It's difficult in many jurisdictions for a defendant to
| actually get even their lawyers' fees covered by a frivolous
| litigant, much less sanctions for the litigant and/or their
| lawyers. Especially if, as the initiating party, they pick a
| friendly jurisdiction without anti-SLAPP laws.
| ikeboy wrote:
| I'm not quite sure about that framing. Every jurisdiction
| reserves the right to sanction attorneys for frivolous
| cases.
|
| The framing I'd prefer is that there are meritless cases
| that don't quite rise to the level of frivolous; the legal
| terminology here is "a good faith extension of existing
| law." I think the legal system properly doesn't penalize
| such cases. If a case isn't sanctionable, we need to accept
| the consequences as a trade-off for allowing everyone
| access to the courts.
|
| That being said, I support stronger anti-slapp laws - and I
| say this as someone who's faced a meritless and possibly
| frivolous anti-SLAPP motion myself (discussed in other
| recent HN threads). Personally, the anti-slapp laws have
| only hurt me, and I still support their expansion.
| loeg wrote:
| They reserve the right to sanction, but it _rarely_
| happens, even for repeated infringers.
|
| And I disagree with your framing. There are plenty of
| truly frivolous cases brought to harass or compel poorer
| entities, and it mostly works (maybe less well against
| speech in jurisdictions with anti-SLAPP).
| ikeboy wrote:
| I feel uncomfortable with an alternative world where it's
| significantly easier to sanction attorneys. I suspect
| many legitimate cases would not end up being brought, and
| legal costs would go up. There's a trade-off to be made.
| nomadluap wrote:
| Does anyone have a clone of the original repository?
| tzs wrote:
| Just wait a few days and it will be back up. DMCA works like
| this:
|
| 1. Copyright owner sends a notice to hosting provider alleging
| infringement and asking for the content to be removed.
|
| 2. Hosting provider checks to make sure the notice has all the
| legally required items, and if so takes the content down and
| notifies the person who uploaded the content.
|
| 3. If the uploader feels the allegation is false, they send a
| notice back to the hosting provider stating this.
|
| 4. Hosting provider checks to make sure that notice also has
| all the legally required items. If it does, they hosting
| provider is required to put the content back up within a few
| days.
|
| 5. Hosting provider given the complainant the uploader's
| contact information. At that point the hosting provider is free
| of liability, even if the material is infringing. If the
| complainant wants it down, they have to sue the uploader
| directly.
|
| In this case, we are somewhere in step 4. It seems very
| unlikely that CASIO will actually sue, so once step 4 is
| complete that should be the end of this.
|
| You've probably seen many cases where DMCA did not work like
| this. What's generally happening there is that the hosting
| provider has implemented their own system for dealing with this
| things instead of following the DMCA procedure (hello,
| Google!). People tend to call any take down request a DMCA
| request regardless of whether or not the hosting provider
| actually uses the DMCA procedure.
| bhickey wrote:
| Here's a fork https://github.com/rida1148/Hack-Casio-Calculator
| _sbrk wrote:
| Don't you just love the Streissand effect? :-)
| Aeolun wrote:
| Somewhere, someone in Casio is so done with life that they
| figured that this was a reasonable way to spend their time and
| company money...
| supernova87a wrote:
| I don't know about you, but I observe that when a company's legal
| filings outweigh its product innovations, its management is
| sleepwalking on autopilot, being caretaken by lawyers, and is
| soon to be fed to the private equity wolves.
| [deleted]
| garfieldnate wrote:
| One product I absolutely loved from Casio was their Japanese
| electronic dictionaries. At some point they replaced their black
| and wide LCD screens with backlit full-color LCD screens and the
| hardware became much slower. I've been looking for resources on
| reverse engineering or jailbreaking the late 2000's models, but
| haven't been able to find much.
| MintelIE wrote:
| All the modern calculator companies are hostile to their user
| base. Their actual customers are the textbook companies,
| standardized test firms, and school districts, it seems.
|
| There is an exception, the SwissMicros people[1]. But that seems
| to be about it in this modern era. HP used to be excellent as
| their main market was engineers and scientists and other
| professionals. But the Prime is obviously made for the school
| calculator market.
|
| It seems that large companies have decided the school market is
| the only one which matters now, and compliance with standardized
| testing rules is more important than other considerations. That's
| probably why used HP calculators from the golden age cost as much
| or more than a new TI, Casio, or Prime.
|
| [1] https://www.swissmicros.com/
| souterrain wrote:
| The following changes should be made to DMCA:
|
| 1. Forbid delegation of enforcement to third parties. If you're
| the copyright holder, you or your actual attorney may be the only
| ones to file a complaint. The copyright holder is solely
| responsible for such DMCA complaints.
|
| 2. Complaints found to be invalid shall result in reimbursement
| by the copyright holder an amount equal to three times the costs
| incurred to defend the complaint, including time, legal fees,
| etc., to the aggrieved party.
|
| 3. Three strike rule: if a copyright holder commits a false
| complaint action three times for a particular work, that work's
| copyright is immediately invalidated and shall revert to the
| public domain.
| ikeboy wrote:
| 1. There's no reason to prohibit agent relationships, as long
| as liability attaches to the rights owner.
|
| 2. Strict liability is a good idea, but the exact amount should
| be up to discretion of the court. Some cases are more egregious
| than others.
|
| 3. This needs to be a ratio. If thousands of complaints are
| valid, it should require more than 3 mistaken ones. And the
| penalty is too harsh. Instead, they should be required to
| actually sue to enforce their copyright, instead of filing
| complaints.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Yeah, #3 sounds like an invitation for abuse... keep
| submitting work designed to trick rights holders into
| submitting claims until you get three. If you have infinite
| chances, you will eventually get them to strike 3 invalid
| claims.
| tehwebguy wrote:
| Can rights holders be tricked into committing perjury?
|
| Seems like they'd have to do this on their own with no
| prompt from anyone else.
| tspiteri wrote:
| They can be made to be convicted of perjury. If you have
| enough trials, you're going to be falsely convicted a few
| times.
| tehwebguy wrote:
| Sure but not at all what we are talking about here
| cortesoft wrote:
| Upload thousands of infringing videos of their content,
| and then start mixing in slight variations, and then
| content that appears to be infringing, but isn't.
|
| If you post enough copyrighted things, eventually they
| will accidentally request a non-violating thing be taken
| down.
| cortesoft wrote:
| > Can rights holders be tricked into committing perjury?
|
| If I could interrogate your as long as I wanted, I am
| sure I could get you to perjure yourself three times.
| Keep asking slightly varied questions until I get you to
| answer similar questions two different ways.
| ikeboy wrote:
| I wrote https://medium.com/@corporatebullies/why-the-shop-
| safe-act-i... in part to point out a related issue in
| regards to a proposed bill. Rigid three strikes laws are
| almost never appropriate.
| bargl wrote:
| 3. That's a great idea and something similar could be used on
| youtube videos and demonitization / takedowns.
| ikeboy wrote:
| I also think once these fixes are implemented, that the same
| should apply to trademark and patent infringement notices.
| Those also see widespread abuse, it's just not as prominent
| because the targets are small businesses.
| _jal wrote:
| How does that work?
|
| As far as I'm aware, there is nothing in the law that looks
| even vaguely like the DMCA notice-and-takedown regime for
| patents or trademarks.
|
| I do agree with you that there are a number of abusive
| legal games used to farm small businesses.
| ikeboy wrote:
| There's nothing in the law currently, correct. I believe
| a law similar to DMCA, but with some more protections as
| above, should be passed applying to accusations of patent
| and trademark infringement.
| the8472 wrote:
| _> 3. This needs to be a ratio. If thousands of complaints
| are valid, it should require more than 3 mistaken ones._
|
| Perverse incentive: Pad your notice ratio by hiring
| infringers-as-a-service combined with immediate takedown.
|
| The requirement to reimburse costs and time for false
| takedown is a much better approach because it also punishes
| drawing out the process. The longer it takes the more costly
| it gets.
| ikeboy wrote:
| You already need to pay costs for false notices under
| 512(f). It's just hard to enforce.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> There 's no reason to prohibit agent relationships_
|
| But the relationship between Casio and YouTube in this
| instance is _not_ an agent relationship. Casio isn 't hiring
| YouTube to handle a complaint for them. They're just using
| the DMCA to bully YouTube into taking down the video. YouTube
| is not Casio's agent.
|
| What should happen is that Casio should have to file a
| lawsuit directly against the person who posted the video on
| YouTube; if it prevails in such a lawsuit, the court could
| then order YouTube to take down the video as part of its
| judgment. But unless and until that happens, YouTube would
| simply not be involved at all.
| ikeboy wrote:
| You're just saying that the DMCA notice system should be
| abolished.
|
| But the system was established for a compelling purpose.
| Firstly, it provides a safe harbor to YouTube - nobody can
| sue YouTube for hosting infringing content if they comply
| with the DMCA. This is good. In your system, we'd have to
| say nobody can sue YouTube regardless unless they don't
| comply with a court order, and this makes it too easy for
| someone to set up an infringing website and simply say that
| someone else uploaded all the content, and force the rights
| owner to sue for every piece of content.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> You 're just saying that the DMCA notice system should
| be abolished._
|
| I think the entire DMCA should be abolished.
|
| _> it provides a safe harbor to YouTube_
|
| Why should YouTube have a safe harbor over and above
| making users who post content provide an affirmation,
| valid in a court of law, that they are the rightful
| owners of the content? Any prudent provider of hosting
| for content to random people on the Internet would do
| this.
|
| If the answer is that YouTube couldn't possibly do this
| for all of the millions of people who want to post
| content, how is that anything but YouTube's problem? Why
| should a draconian law be put in place simply to allow
| them to avoid having to do proper due diligence? Or to
| allow companies like Casio who want to bully people to be
| able to skip having to actually file a lawsuit?
|
| _> In your system, we 'd have to say nobody can sue
| YouTube regardless unless they don't comply with a court
| order_
|
| No, we'd have to say that, once YouTube shows the court
| the legally valid affirmation it got from the user, such
| a suit would be dismissed. Which means, in practice, that
| when YouTube's lawyers sent the lawyers for whoever was
| complaining (Casio in this case) a copy of that legally
| valid affirmation, Casio's lawyers would tell Casio that
| they had no chance of winning a lawsuit and they should
| drop it. And if Casio tried to sue regardless, any
| reasonable judge would dismiss the suit and tell Casio to
| stop wasting the court's time (if the judge didn't decide
| to slap a fine on them for a frivolous lawsuit).
|
| _> this makes it too easy for someone to set up an
| infringing website and simply say that someone else
| uploaded all the content_
|
| Which would then bring the obvious next question: how did
| you confirm that the someone else was the rightful owner
| of all the content? And the answer "we didn't" would mean
| the infringing website owner would lose the lawsuit.
| beervirus wrote:
| That affirmation would be meaningless. Without the DMCA's
| safe harbor, YouTube would be on the hook for copyright
| infringement even if the person posting the video
| affirmed super seriously that he owned the content.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Without the DMCA 's safe harbor, YouTube would be on
| the hook for copyright infringement even if the person
| posting the video affirmed super seriously that he owned
| the content._
|
| I have no idea where you are getting that from. If
| YouTube has prima facie evidence that the content is not
| infringing, which is what the affirmation provides, then
| any lawsuit against them would be dismissed unless the
| plaintiff could prove that the affirmation was
| fraudulent. And even then all YouTube would be liable for
| would be taking down the content by court order, unless
| the plaintiff could also show that YouTube knew or should
| have known that the affirmation was fraudulent.
|
| What the DMCA does is remove any requirement on the
| plaintiff to _prove_ that content they claim infringes
| their copyright, actually infringes their copyright. The
| plaintiff can simply assert it and have that assertion
| taken as fact without proof. That 's not "safe harbor";
| that's an egregious misuse of the law.
| beervirus wrote:
| > If YouTube has prima facie evidence that the content is
| not infringing, which is what the affirmation provides,
| then any lawsuit against them would be dismissed unless
| the plaintiff could prove that the affirmation was
| fraudulent.
|
| That's not how this works. If the plaintiff owns the
| copyrighted material, it would be trivial to show that
| the affirmation wasn't true.
|
| > And even then all YouTube would be liable for would be
| taking down the content by court order, unless the
| plaintiff could also show that YouTube knew or should
| have known that the affirmation was fraudulent.
|
| Where did that "knew or should have known" standard come
| from?
| pdonis wrote:
| _> If the plaintiff owns the copyrighted material, it
| would be trivial to show that the affirmation wasn 't
| true._
|
| The question is not whether the plaintiff owns "the
| copyrighted material". The question is whether whatever
| was posted _is_ the copyrighted material, or derived from
| it under circumstances that do not fall within one of the
| exceptions given in copyright law (such as fair use), or
| not.
|
| That is a question that should be decided, if it gets to
| that point, by a court of law. It is _not_ a question
| that should be decided by the bare assertion of the
| plaintiff, as it was in this case under the DMCA regime.
|
| _> Where did that "knew or should have known" standard
| come from?_
|
| From the general language of civil law for assessing
| liability.
| ikeboy wrote:
| >That is a question that should be decided, if it gets to
| that point, by a court of law. It is not a question that
| should be decided by the bare assertion of the plaintiff,
| as it was in this case under the DMCA regime.
|
| Another downside is that forcing all such cases to court
| hurts innocent infringers. If the only way a company can
| remove content is by suing, there will be a lot more
| suits, which is a lot more expensive on both sides,
| including on those that did not infringe at all and on
| those that infringed inadvertently. I'd prefer if the
| latter category simply got a DMCA notice and went away,
| rather than having to go to court. Both sides, in my
| scenario, would prefer the DMCA solution rather than the
| court solution, but you don't.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> If the only way a company can remove content is by
| suing_
|
| Not at all. I've already described elsewhere in this
| thread, at least twice now, what would happen in a sane
| legal regime, but I'll do so once more since this
| discussion is covering several subthreads.
|
| Step 1: Company X complains to Company Y that content
| they are hosting is infringing Company X's copyright.
|
| Step 2: Company Y sends Company X a copy of the legal
| document, sworn to under penalty of perjury, from the
| person who posted the content, that says they are the
| legitimate owner of the copyright to the content they
| posted. At this point, if Company X doesn't actually have
| a valid claim but is simply bluffing or pushing the
| envelope, nothing further happens.
|
| Step 3: Company X, who believes they have a valid claim,
| presents evidence to Company Y that the content actually
| does infringe their copyright. For example, in the case
| described in the article, Casio (Company X) would present
| to Github (Company Y) the actual source code for their
| calculator, along with the evidence of how and when it
| was developed, and the details of the comparison of their
| source code with the content posted in the Github
| repository, showing why the latter must have been copied
| from the former.
|
| Step 4A: Company Y looks at the evidence presented by
| Company X and decides it is legitimate. They send a
| notice to the person who posted the content saying that
| they have good reason to believe it infringes Company X's
| copyright, hence, pursuant to the contractual agreement
| already in place, the content is being taken down. Then,
| if the person who posted the content really is
| legitimate, they have to sue (but if they really were
| posting infringing content, nothing further happens since
| they know they won't win a lawsuit).
|
| Step 4B: Company Y looks at the evidence presented by
| Company X and decides Company X is bluffing; they don't
| really have a valid claim but for some reason they are
| trying to get Company Y to comply. They tell Company X
| they do not believe the content is infringing. Then, if
| Company X really has a valid claim, they have to sue (but
| if they really were bluffing, nothing further happens
| since they know they won't win a lawsuit).
|
| So the only possibilities for a lawsuit are in Steps 4A
| (if the person who posted the content really was
| legitimate and decides to sue) or 4B (if Company X really
| has a valid claim and takes it to court). But if either
| side really has a clearly valid claim (and at most one
| side can--either the content really is infringing or it
| isn't), the process is far, far more likely to stop at
| Step 2 or possibly 4B (if the person posting the content
| really is legitimate and the infringement claim is bogus)
| or Step 4A (if Company X really has a valid infringement
| claim and the person posting the content was bogus). The
| only cases that will make it to court will be the
| doubtful ones: for example, Company X really believes the
| content was infringing, but their method for comparing
| the source code is flawed and they don't realize it, and
| the person who posted the code really did independently
| invent it. Or the person who posted the content really
| believes the content was, say, fair use, but Company X
| thinks differently.
|
| _> I 'd prefer if the latter category simply got a DMCA
| notice and went away, rather than having to go to court._
|
| In my scenario, inadvertent infringers would stop at Step
| 4A. The difference between my scenario above and a DMCA
| notice is that, instead of just the bare assertion of
| infringement (Step 1 in my scenario), Company X now has
| to provide the actual _evidence_ showing why the posted
| content is infringing. And Company Y has to judge that
| evidence. For inadvertent infringers, that does mean more
| work for both Company X and Company Y; but inadvertent
| infringement is precisely the case where you _want_ some
| more work to be done to check the claim, because the
| person who posted the content is acting in good faith, so
| it 's worth taking some more time to make sure they
| actually made a mistake.
|
| By contrast, consider the scenario the DMCA is supposed
| to protect against, of a purposeful infringer, who just
| wants to post copies of videos of popular songs, for
| example, to boost their own YouTube following. First of
| all, this person now has to swear under penalty of
| perjury that the content they are posting does not
| violate anyone else's copyright, instead of just agreeing
| to a contract, so some percentage of people who would
| have been purposeful infringers in our current regime
| won't bother. Second, it won't take long for a company
| who owns copyrights to videos this person is posting
| copies of to get to Step 4A in my process above, at which
| point the videos get taken down. If it were just one
| video, the person might be able to convince YouTube that
| it was a mistake; but if they're really engaged in
| purposeful infringement, a single company could probably
| present, at once, a fairly large number of videos all of
| which were infringing, and all of which would get to Step
| 4A above. And at that point, YouTube simply shuts down
| that person's account. And once word gets around that
| that's how YouTube deals with purposeful infringers, the
| purposeful infringers realize that there is no value to
| be gained from doing it and stop. But again, Company X
| was forced to provide the _evidence_ that yes, this
| really is a purposeful infringer, before the content gets
| taken down. They can 't just assert it.
|
| My scenario also means _less_ work (no going to court)
| for the cases where Company X doesn 't have a valid claim
| but is simply trying to bully. In fact, under my
| scenario, there is little to no expected gain from
| bullying at all, so companies would stop doing it,
| whereas under the DMCA, bullying is encouraged. And from
| what I can see, much if not most of the actual DMCA
| claims that companies are filing are bullying, not actual
| stopping of purposeful infringers.
| ikeboy wrote:
| What do you mean by legally valid? Is there a difference
| between the proposed "affirmation" and what a
| counternotice currently says?
|
| >Which would then bring the obvious next question: how
| did you confirm that the someone else was the rightful
| owner of all the content? And the answer "we didn't"
| would mean the infringing website owner would lose the
| lawsuit.
|
| In other words, YouTube wouldn't exist, because it's
| impractical for YouTube to verify every single video. No
| other website powered by user generated content would
| exist.
|
| And now you know why the DMCA is needed. Unless of course
| you think we could do without any website hosting third
| party content.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> What do you mean by legally valid?_
|
| I mean the same standard that would be used for any other
| statement or deposition that was presented as evidence or
| testimony in a court. Normally that requires a statement
| made upon oath or affirmation and witnessed by a notary
| public or an officer of the court.
|
| _> Is there a difference between the proposed
| "affirmation" and what a counternotice currently says?_
|
| Yes, there's the obvious difference that the affirmation
| has to be provided _before_ the content is posted,
| instead of after a DMCA notice has already been made (and
| in many cases the alleged infringing content will already
| have been taken down, assuming guilt instead of
| innocence).
|
| Under a sane legal regime, YouTube would have an
| affirmation, under the standards described above, before
| it ever allowed any content to be posted. So its first
| response on receiving a complaint of copyright
| infringement would be to provide a copy of that
| affirmation to whoever was making the complaint. Then
| whoever was making the complaint would have to provide
| some kind of evidence that that affirmation was
| fraudulent in order to get YouTube to pay attention. They
| wouldn't just be able to assert without any evidence that
| the content was infringing and have it taken down.
|
| In practice, under a sane legal regime, the vast majority
| of people who might want to post infringing content would
| not even be willing to go to the trouble of submitting an
| affirmation in the first place. The people who would
| (aside from large corporations) would be people who
| genuinely are creating something they want others to see,
| and want it enough to be willing to go through the
| affirmation process.
| ikeboy wrote:
| >I mean the same standard that would be used for any
| other statement or deposition that was presented as
| evidence or testimony in a court. Normally that requires
| a statement made upon oath or affirmation and witnessed
| by a notary public or an officer of the court.
|
| You don't need a notary for affidavits, just a sworn
| declaration.
|
| Anyway, would you require anyone who posts content to
| agree to US jurisdiction, as the counternotice process
| currently allows? And how would the penalties for
| copyright infringement after such an affidavit were
| submitted look like in your system, as compared to the
| penalties for copyright infringement currently, or
| compared to the penalties for submitting a false
| counternotice currently?
|
| Do you realize there would be a significant chilling
| effect on fair use speech under your proposal?
| pdonis wrote:
| _> You don 't need a notary for affidavits, just a sworn
| declaration._
|
| I think this depends on the jurisdiction, but anyway,
| "sworn" still means someone like an officer of the court
| has to be present, and the affidavit has to show that
| that was the case. You can't just write "sworn" at the
| end of something you wrote with no one else present and
| call it an affidavit.
|
| _> would you require anyone who posts content to agree
| to US jurisdiction_
|
| It would be the jurisdiction that has legal power over
| the corporation that is hosting the content. So if that
| corporation is a US corporation, then yes, it would be US
| jurisdiction.
|
| If claims of copyright infringement are going to be
| allowed at all (and if they're not, this whole discussion
| is pointless), then they have to be made under _some_
| jurisdiction. I believe what I said above is how such
| claims would be handled if the DMCA did not exist.
|
| _> how would the penalties for copyright infringement
| after such an affidavit were submitted look like in your
| system, as compared to the penalties for copyright
| infringement currently_
|
| They would be the same, since copyright infringement as
| an offense remains the same.
|
| _> compared to the penalties for submitting a false
| counternotice currently_
|
| I don't think DMCA penalties are a useful comparison
| since they're not the product of a fair and reasonable
| legal process to begin with.
|
| _> Do you realize there would be a significant chilling
| effect on fair use speech under your proposal?_
|
| There would? How so?
| ikeboy wrote:
| >You can't just write "sworn" at the end of something you
| wrote with no one else present and call it an affidavit.
|
| I mean, I've personally submitted a declaration to a
| court, and all I did was digitally sign a document and
| email it to my lawyer. No notary required.
|
| Re jurisdiction: the current law doesn't require anyone
| posting on YouTube to accept US jurisdiction to anyone
| who wants to sue for infringement - they only require
| that if someone wants to file a counternotice. I think
| this is good. Posting a video shouldn't open you up to
| jurisdiction everywhere, but insisting your content
| remain accessible in the US in the face of an
| infringement allegation should.
|
| If your proposed affidavit doesn't increase the penalties
| for infringement, then the only purpose is to enforce
| jurisdiction?
|
| Re chilling effect: it depends on how relevant this
| affirmation is. I still don't think I understand exactly
| what you mean. But if it's enough to chill some
| infringement, then it's going to chill some legitimate
| speech as well, and if it's going to significantly chill
| infringement then it will significantly chill legitimate
| speech. That's the lesson of history. Every attempt at
| making it easier to censor has this effect. You can't
| avoid this trade-off.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> I 've personally submitted a declaration to a court_
|
| A declaration is not the same as an affidavit. You are
| correct that a declaration does not require you to swear
| to it in front of anyone else, whereas an affidavit has
| to be sworn to before a notary or an officer of the
| court. But a declaration does have to include a statement
| that everything in it is true under penalty of perjury.
|
| That said, US law does allow declarations in many
| circumstances to be used instead of affidavits in Federal
| courts (I don't think all state courts do that), so the
| difference might be moot for this discussion.
|
| _> Posting a video shouldn 't open you up to
| jurisdiction everywhere, but insisting your content
| remain accessible in the US in the face of an
| infringement allegation should._
|
| I don't see the difference in practice. If YouTube takes
| down your content, they're going to do so everywhere, not
| just in the US, even if they're technically responding to
| a DMCA takedown notice that is based on US law or a court
| order issued by a US court. So if you aren't willing to
| be under US jurisdiction regarding content you post, you
| shouldn't be trying to post it on YouTube in the first
| place.
|
| Also, you have already pointed out elsewhere in this
| thread that YouTube already makes people sign a
| contractual agreement before they post. That contractual
| agreement is going to be judged under US law. So people
| are already accepting US legal jurisdiction regarding
| contract law before they post on YouTube. Accepting the
| same jurisdiction with regard to any potential copyright
| infringement claims does not seem like much of a
| difference to me.
|
| _> if it 's enough to chill some infringement, then it's
| going to chill some legitimate speech as well_
|
| The same argument, if it were valid, would apply to the
| DMCA. The DMCA appear to me to be chilling a significant
| amount of legitimate speech.
|
| However, I don't think this argument is valid to begin
| with. I don't see any reason why anything that
| discourages infringement also has to discourage
| legitimate speech. The DMCA may well do both, but I see
| that as a problem with the DMCA, not something that can't
| be avoided.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> In other words, YouTube wouldn 't exist, because it's
| impractical for YouTube to verify every single video_
|
| I never said they had to "verify every single video".
| They just need the legal document I describe. The whole
| point of having the document is that _that_ is the
| "verification"; they don't have to try to independently
| scrutinize everything. They are putting the legal burden
| on the person posting the content, which is where it
| belongs.
|
| The "obvious next question" I gave was for websites that
| _don 't_ have the legal document I describe. Whicn some
| random person trying to let other random people post
| infringing content would not have. But YouTube certainly
| could have it. The only reason it doesn't now is that we
| live in an insane legal regime that thinks the DMCA is
| just fine, instead of being the draconian mess that it
| is.
|
| _> No other website powered by user generated content
| would exist._
|
| Websites powered by user generated content have an
| obvious way to exist under a sane legal regime: if there
| is a cost involved in obtaining the appropriate legal
| affirmation from users who post content, then _charge
| those users for the services being provided_ , and
| include in those charges the costs of dealing with the
| legal requirements.
|
| But again, we live in an insane world where it's thought
| to be better to prop up the ad-supported business model,
| with all of its many serious flaws, than to have the law
| actually be reasonable and force large corporations to
| figure out business models that actually serve their
| users instead of selling their data.
| ikeboy wrote:
| So you would effectively destroy all free user generated
| content sites, and a good portion of the cheap ones as
| well.
|
| Just good to make that clear upfront when evaluating your
| proposal, so people could decide if this is really less
| draconian than the current system.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> So you would effectively destroy all free user
| generated content sites_
|
| If it's impossible to do reasonable due diligence without
| charging users, yes. Posting content has a cost; it is
| entirely reasonable for users who want to post the
| content to bear at least a portion of that cost.
|
| _> a good portion of the cheap ones as well_
|
| Depends on what you mean by "cheap" and how much it would
| cost to actually do reasonable due diligence in a sane
| legal regime. I don't think it would cost much at all per
| user, particularly for a site like YouTube which has so
| many users.
|
| Which brings up another point: a large corporation like
| Google, owning a site like YouTube, is precisely the kind
| of corporation that _ought_ to figure out a cheap way to
| do reasonable due diligence and handle things like having
| people provide a legal document before they upload
| content, and work with the legal system to develop a way
| of dealing with this that is fair and reasonable to all
| parties. And yet they are too lazy to do that, and depend
| on draconian laws instead to give them a supposed "safe
| harbor" against claims that, in a sane world, they would
| be able to refute and dismiss with minimal effort.
|
| And, further, the _government_ is precisely the entity
| that, when large corporations fail to do what they ought
| to do, is supposed to _make_ them do it, as the
| representative of the interests of the people. What our
| government did, instead, was to simply capitulate to the
| demands of the large corporations, and to fail to require
| them to do _any_ due diligence at all, instead putting
| all the burden on the individuals who are posting
| legitimate content they created that gets mistaken by
| some corporation for copyrighted content--or the
| corporation simply decides not to care whether the
| content is infringing or not, because they see value in
| showing everyone else that they can bully whomever they
| want and not get stopped.
|
| And you are arguing that all this is perfectly fine and
| proper. Just to make that clear upfront so people know
| what you are really saying.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Wait, it looks like you don't want what Youtube is today
| at all. There's no way I'm going to go through a legal
| notarization process and pay a price to show what my
| model of dashcam looks like.
|
| I don't really care about being Content ID'd or DMCA'd. I
| don't want a tool where I have to pay money and go
| through some bloody legal process to upload a video.
| Getting a DMCA takedown rarely is far preferable to me.
|
| Instead of trying to ruin my YouTube, why don't you go
| create LegalTube or something where things are like what
| you say.
| ikeboy wrote:
| YouTube did come up with a solution to one of the issues
| with DMCA - that it requires a manual report. They
| allowed sophisticated rights owners to upload content and
| then automatically flag any uploads that match. This is
| done outside of the DMCA and has no negative effect on
| users accounts, and comes with an appeal option. This is
| somewhat of an improvement on the DMCA, and it's
| voluntary for rights owners so it doesn't violate the
| DMCA. It's successfully reduced the number of DMCA
| complaints YouTube receives.
|
| I still don't quite understand what aspect of the law you
| consider draconian. Is removing a video for 14 days such
| a terrible downside that you'd get rid of the whole
| framework? Or are there other parts you object to?
|
| As above, I don't believe the DMCA is perfect. So please
| don't accuse me of thinking it is. I think penalties for
| false claims should be increased, I think false claims
| should be strict liability and antitrust per se. But I
| think getting rid of the entire framework would be a
| mistake.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> I still don 't quite understand what aspect of the law
| you consider draconian._
|
| The fact that it accepts complaints as factual and valid
| without evidence and without any legal due process for
| conflicting claims. Conflicting claims are supposed to be
| decided by a court, and neither party is supposed to have
| their claim accepted as fact and acted on until a court
| has decided.
| ikeboy wrote:
| Accepting a DMCA complaint doesn't mean it's factual or
| valid. It simply means the content is removed for 14
| days, if a valid counternotice is submitted and no
| lawsuit is filed.
|
| So to be clear - the 14 day period is what you consider
| draconian?
| ikeboy wrote:
| One of two things must be true. Either this legal
| affirmation is simple enough to get that it doesn't
| actually reduce infringement much (and thus making
| infringement much more of a problem by removing any way
| of handling it other than lawsuits), or it's more
| complicated and creates a significant barrier to
| legitimate works being published.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> One of two things must be true._
|
| No, you are simply setting up a false dichotomy. You are
| also ignoring the fact that, in a sane legal regime, if a
| large number of people legitimately want to post content
| to some place like YouTube, and that place is charging
| users directly for their services, as they should, then
| places like that can simply ask the sane legal regime to
| consider ways of letting people, for example, provide a
| single legal affirmation when they sign up for an account
| that covers all content they post under that account.
| Then the site could just have a reminder on the "post
| this content" screen that basically says "remember that
| you gave us a legal affirmation which makes you liable
| for any copyright violation, so if we get a claim of
| copyright infringement and it turns out it's legitimate,
| we're coming after you".
|
| Legal systems have been dealing with reasonable issues
| like this since forever. A sane legal system is perfectly
| capable of evolving in response to new technologies,
| without compromising basic principles like "innocent
| until proven guilty", requirements to back up legal
| claims with evidence, handling claims through appropriate
| channels and not short-circuiting them, and fairness to
| all parties.
| ikeboy wrote:
| It's not a false dichotomy, it's an unavoidable trade-
| off. You haven't given enough details on your proposal
| for me to tell where this trade-off is made, but you
| can't avoid this trade-off.
|
| Now you seem to be implying this affirmation is simply a
| contractual indemnification, which of course YouTube
| already has:
|
| >To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to
| defend, indemnify and hold harmless YouTube, its
| Affiliates, officers, directors, employees and agents,
| from and against any and all claims, damages,
| obligations, losses, liabilities, costs or debt, and
| expenses (including but not limited to attorney's fees)
| arising from: (i) your use of and access to the Service;
| (ii) your violation of any term of this Agreement; (iii)
| your violation of any third party right, including
| without limitation any copyright, property, or privacy
| right; or (iv) any claim that your Content caused damage
| to a third party. This defense and indemnification
| obligation will survive this Agreement and your use of
| the Service.
|
| >For example, the Content you submit must not include
| third-party intellectual property (such as copyrighted
| material) unless you have permission from that party or
| are otherwise legally entitled to do so.
|
| It's not clear to me from the rest of your comments
| whether you believe this to be sufficient. If it is, then
| clearly this isn't enough to prevent infringement, and
| killing DMCA as an option would make it significantly
| more difficult to remove infringing content. Which might
| be what you want, I don't know. But the trade-off is
| real.
|
| >Legal systems have been dealing with reasonable issues
| like this since forever. A sane legal system is perfectly
| capable of evolving in response to new technologies,
| without compromising basic principles like "innocent
| until proven guilty", requirements to back up legal
| claims with evidence, handling claims through appropriate
| channels and not short-circuiting them, and fairness to
| all parties.
|
| Legal systems have been making a series of trade-offs for
| a long time. The trade-off here is that sometimes content
| is removed for up to 14 days and then put back. In
| exchange for that, there's a way for rights owners to
| resolve issues out of court.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Now you seem to be implying this affirmation is simply
| a contractual indemnification_
|
| A sworn statement under oath is not the same thing as a
| signed contract, so no, I am not implying this at all.
|
| _> clearly this isn 't enough to prevent infringement_
|
| This is not "clear" to me at all. In the case described
| in the article, it is not clear that _any_ infringement
| occurred. Casio claimed that the content was infringing,
| but the person who posted the content, and who has
| described in detail how and why he created it, claimed it
| wasn 't. I personally believe the person who posted the
| content, not Casio, given everything said in the article;
| but it's not up to me, or you, or Casio or the person who
| posted the content to make a final determination on that
| if there's a conflict. It's up to a court of law.
|
| In other words, your statement here is a great
| illustration of the problem I have with the DMCA: whether
| or not something is "infringement" is decided on the say-
| so of whoever complains, not by a fair legal process. You
| have simply assumed that every claim of "infringement"
| must be valid. You can't assume that.
|
| _> Legal systems have been making a series of trade-offs
| for a long time._
|
| Yes, and the way they have been doing so in cases where
| you have two parties making conflicting claims is called
| _a court of law_. The parties come into court and argue
| their cases, and the court makes a ruling. That is what
| is supposed to happen.
|
| What is actually happening under the DMCA is that one
| party gets its claim accepted as fact without question,
| and the other party, if they object, has to try to fight
| it. That's not how the legal process is supposed to work.
| Particularly when the party that is getting its claim
| accepted as fact is the party with far more resources for
| a legal battle if there is going to be one, and the party
| who is forced to try to fight if they object is the party
| with far _less_ resources to do the fighting. The law is
| supposed to protect the weak against the strong. It 's
| not supposed to "protect" the strong against the weak.
| ikeboy wrote:
| I never assumed that. The DMCA never assumes that, which
| is why there's an entire section about counternotices.
|
| The fact that YouTube receives many legitimate complaints
| of infringement is common knowledge. If you genuinely
| believe this isn't the case, look through their
| transparency report.
|
| >What is actually happening under the DMCA is that one
| party gets its claim accepted as fact without question,
| and the other party, if they object, has to try to fight
| it.
|
| All they need to do is file a counternotice, which is
| less difficult than the affirmation you're proposing, if
| you need a notary. And then if the rights owner doesn't
| like it, they need to go to court. Is the 14 day period
| for this to happen really that objectionable? If it was
| changed to 1 day, would you be ok with it?
| tomxor wrote:
| I think your suggestions focus too much on monetary
| repercussions. For businesses this turns into a continuous cost
| benefit analysis, and the larger the business the larger
| potential benefit of abusing DMCA claims - it's possible to
| attempt to balance this with charges relative to the size of
| the business, but this is still just dancing around a
| threshold.
|
| I think more rights should be on the line, this is more of a
| qualitative loss on both sides of the equation which is harder
| to weight in terms of cost benefit... if you abuse rights, you
| should loose rights, and that goes for business entities too,
| the larger the company the more to lose, but the more resources
| they have, so it forces them to be accurate.Your #3rd
| suggestion is such a right, but doesn't cut it for this example
| of abuse where the "copyright holder" doesn't hold any relevant
| copyright... to cover these cases where DMCA is completely
| inapplicable we need loss of rights at the individual and
| entity level rather than works, e.g:
|
| 1. Risk of loss of the right for the _business_ entity to make
| _any_ future DMCA complaints against the defendant.
|
| i.e The defendant would be legally allowed to infringe on the
| businesses copyrighted works in _future_ if they desired. This
| is a really good deterrent of missuse because it causes claims
| to cut both ways - you don't need money and lawyers to make
| things backfire, it's automatic.
|
| 2. Loss of right to the individual making the complaint.
|
| Individuals submitting these complaints should take some degree
| of responsibility, if they are knowingly perjuring themselves
| then they should lose their personal rights to submit DMCAs for
| any business - this pushes them back towards individualized
| thinking rather than hiding behind the demands of their
| superiors.
|
| To simply enforce either of these without some kind of
| centralised bar, once an entity has been banned a second strike
| could automatically become a criminal act.
| trhway wrote:
| >1. Forbid delegation of enforcement to third parties. If
| you're the copyright holder, you or your actual attorney may be
| the only ones to file a complaint. The copyright holder is
| solely responsible for such DMCA complaints.
|
| if i remember correctly several years ago a copyright troll
| case was shot down by the judge on the grounds that [IANAL] the
| copyright law doesn't have the "right to sue" which the troll
| had supposedly bought from the copyright holder, and the ruling
| was something like that the troll doesn't have standing and the
| actual copyright holder should be the plaintiff.
| Silhouette wrote:
| If you don't like copyright or the DMCA, just say so. Making
| the risk of an action intended to be less heavyweight than
| formal legal proceedings so high that even legitimate
| rightsholders daren't try to enforce their rights is just
| blatant bias.
|
| Yes, DMCA-style takedown notices are used excessively by some
| actors, and yes there should be consequences for that, perhaps
| along the lines of losing the privilege for a period of time if
| their ratio of successful cases falls below a certain level.
|
| However, given how bad certain major hosting sites already are
| at responding to legitimate DMCA takedowns or their
| international counterparts from small rightsholders (been
| there, done that), the changes you propose would stack the deck
| even further towards the people who wilfully infringe and then
| straight-up lie about it in their counter-notices.
|
| Ultimately, unless you have the means and funding to bring a
| serious legal action internationally, these takedown laws have
| limited value anyway, but at least they don't actively act
| against the true rightsholder in cases of flagrant abuse.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Just repeal the thing. The only _good_ part of the DMCA was the
| safe harbor provision; everything else should just be thrown
| out as irreparably bad.
| ikeboy wrote:
| Both DMCA notices and counternotices are technically just
| safe harbors. The whole structure comes from carefully
| defining a safe harbor that everyone would want without
| requiring anyone to actually abide by the rules.
| dlgeek wrote:
| 4. If a DMCA counter-claim is made, rather than provide the
| contact information to the claimant, the hosting provider shall
| retain the information and provide it directly to a court only
| if a lawsuit is actually brought.
| tomxor wrote:
| > I am writing on behalf of CASIO [...] The code the repository
| contains is proprietary and not to be publicly published. The
| hosted content is a direct, literal copy of our client's work. I
| hereby summon you to take expeditious action: to remove or to
| disable access to the infringing content immediately, but in any
| case no later than ten days as of today.
|
| The code is not even for the calculator, it's for a "esp8266-12E"
| which is an arduino-like board. This has more to do with the
| plastic case than electronics or code:
|
| If you watch the video of the modification to the calculator at
| the bottom of the article you can see the only thing the
| calculator board appears to share is a power source - this is
| essentially a duct tape mod that went to the effort of fitting a
| separate computer and display inside of the case. If you can find
| a fork (git links in the comments) you will also notice that it's
| all arduino code.
|
| Casio simply dislikes the mod because it adds a separate computer
| to their exam-approved calculator case, turning it into something
| only suited to formative assessment while being difficult to
| differentiate from the original. However the repo has pretty much
| nothing to do with their calculator other than the fact that it
| was once used on an arduino board that was glued inside of a
| casio calculator in a youtube video - IANAL but pretty sure DMCA
| has no ground - their statement certainly seems to be a lie based
| on the fact that the code is not for the Casio, then again they
| probably also have no legal grounds against people using their
| own plastic casio calculator cases for something that's not a
| casio circuit... so this is quite possibly a willful abuse of
| DMCA processes on Github to get it illegally removed.
|
| [EDIT]
|
| On closer inspection it should be possible to invalidate the
| complaint on the spot... the full complaint is included in the
| article, including a link to the supposed "original copyrighted
| work":
|
| https://support.casio.com/en/support/download.php?cid=004&pi...
|
| It contains some generic example formulas in a simple looking
| expression language which I expect runs on their calculators. Not
| exactly something you could set up a http connection with, and
| definitely not a "literal copy" of the arduino code in the other
| repo.
| bitwize wrote:
| Indeed, these claims have no merit and can be safely ignored.
|
| ...provided you have GREAT legal representation.
|
| Absent that, the best you can do is apologize for the
| wrongdoing you have committed and comply with ALL of the
| claimant's demands.
| tomxor wrote:
| Why? I realize that money and lawyers can make a big
| difference in arguable cases, but this DMCA is plainly
| invalid, it's not possible to interpret it differently
| without being untruthful.
|
| The demands are to be gone... which it already is, there is
| nothing to lose in challenging the complaint. Even if
| concerned about retaliation or further legal action from
| Casio, all this guy did is essentially glue extra stuff
| inside a calculator case and publish a video of him doing it
| on youtube, it's not even particularly interesting from a
| hacker perspective because nothing about the calculator
| itself was learned, it's a true duct tape mod.
|
| [EDIT]
|
| > Neutrino informs us that he has already filed a DMCA
| counternotice with Github to get his project back.
|
| And it's back:
|
| https://github.com/laksh9950/Hack-Casio-Calculator
| kiddico wrote:
| I'll clone that locally juuust in case :)
| will_raw wrote:
| "... to their exam-apporved calculator case" is a very good
| point, this calculator is basically used by every engineering
| student in their exam. And it clear that they feared that their
| sales might get hurt.
| sosborn wrote:
| The first thing I thought when I saw that is that they are
| scared this will affect their certification. That fear, I
| think, is understandable even if the response is too heavy
| handed.
| [deleted]
| JayOC84 wrote:
| I think this is to keep the calculators in schools. Teachers may
| start freaking out if they think students could cheat using this
| hack.
| robotmay wrote:
| This isn't the only bad PR tactic I've seen from Casio lately.
| There's a piano reviewer on YouTube who noticed a flaw in the
| action of a new digital piano they make, and their responses
| varied from claiming he was lying to _reportedly_ spamming his
| videos with negative comments. Here's the 3 relevant videos where
| he first raises the issue, responds to Casio, then just straight
| up dismantles the piano and proves it:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7xHgXFEJUE
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKAfScFK0QU
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqNK3w-2C6I
| kps wrote:
| "Casio has gone with a very very small form factor and they
| paid a lot of attention to the form of this instrument -- the
| shape of it, the size of it, the design of it -- but the
| function of it wasn't as important to them. They made a lot of
| sacrifices with the action simply because to them having the
| world's most compact digital piano was apparently their Holy
| Grail."
|
| Reminds me of a certain laptop vendor.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I guess that's probably Apple in this context but Fujitsu is
| worse.
|
| Fujitsu specifically mention in manuals that lid must be
| always left open or else laptop could be damaged from heat.
| I've heard MacBook throttles under every imaginable
| conditions, sure, but never heard that they destroy itself
| from heat in lid-closed mode(a feature), so,
| varjag wrote:
| It's fairly common across laptop vendors: few really do any
| proper thermal design on the products. We had Dell laptops
| melt on our frontend devs when docked.
|
| At least Fujitsu gives you a warning about the design
| defect.
| antsar wrote:
| > melt on our frontend devs when docked
|
| User error. Keep the dock on the desk and it'll melt on
| the desk, protecting your frontend devs.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Some laptops are designed to be open when running, like
| the asus rog zephyrus.
| varjag wrote:
| Unless there is some implement preventing you running it
| closed, I would disagree about "designed" part.
| irscott wrote:
| My ROG runs HOT as hell.
| all2 wrote:
| You may need to redo the thermal paste on the CPU and the
| graphics card. My g73jh needed a re-paste about every 3
| months. The frame of the laptop wasn't strong enough to
| prevent the paste from de-laminating when I moved the
| laptop around.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| That's a shame, because Casio is truly one of my favorite
| companies in the world.
|
| I don't have any real knowledge about their music products, but
| the value, style, and quality at the low end of their watch
| lineup (whether you define "low end" as < $100, < $50, or even
| < $20) is insane.
| cosmojg wrote:
| Whelp, Casio has officially made its way onto my list of brands
| to never buy.
| Y_Y wrote:
| whelp
|
| noun
|
| the young of the dog, or of the wolf, bear, lion, tiger,
| seal, etc.
| Guest42 wrote:
| The intended meaning was clear.
| fhars wrote:
| Dictionary error.
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whelp
| squarefoot wrote:
| You beat me to it. Using our wallet is the only type of reply
| businesses understand.
| Klinky wrote:
| That's like expecting a butterfly's wing flaps to stop a
| hurricane half-way across the world. A lot of businesses
| are actually incompetent at understanding the reasons
| consumers haven't bought their product. Naming and shaming
| on social media is more effective, but likely they'll just
| rebuff the claims and dump more money into marketing, as
| marketing is often very effective at covering up a shoddy
| product.
|
| Voting with your wallet is the weakest position. Make a lot
| of noise as to why you're voting with your wallet, so they
| get the message. However, in a lot of cases, they won't
| care, and your action is just a droplet in an ocean,
| inconsequential.
| madacoo wrote:
| So you're saying vote with your wallet but also publicise
| the fact you are so doing on social media?
|
| Isn't that exactly what the user you replied to did? How
| else could you have replied to them?
| jventura wrote:
| I,ve seen the video at the bottom and the guy uses at most the
| calculator plastic case to house a oled display and a ESP. How
| can Casio (or someone on their behalf) find any plausible
| argument to file any complaint at all?
|
| I guess if people had to pay at least one dollar to file a
| complaint like this, you'd have less.
|
| Also, why did github removed the repo before checking things out
| first?
| verall wrote:
| > I guess if people had to pay at least one dollar to file a
| complaint like this, you'd have less.
|
| It certainly isn't free. But if a legal department is a forgone
| cost, they will love an excuse to demonstrate their value.
| loeg wrote:
| It's just an email to send a DMCA copyright claim. There's no
| pro-forma sacrifice of a pile of money to discourage
| frivolous claims.
| loeg wrote:
| > Also, why did github removed the repo before checking things
| out first?
|
| This is how they absolve themselves of liability for user
| content under the DMCA.
| jventura wrote:
| Guilty until proven innocent...
| Silhouette wrote:
| That's what counter-notices are for. It's more like guilty
| until you say "No, I'm not".
| dukoid wrote:
| What are the penalties for wrong DMCA complaints?
| cmiles74 wrote:
| Not much, the person accused would need to sue.
|
| https://www.newmediarights.org/business_models/artist/what_a...
| miga wrote:
| Are there any public interest organizations that would pay
| for the countersuit in order to preserve users' freedoms?
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| None, you'd need to countersue and prove bad faith. Good luck,
| doing that as an individual against a company with bottomless
| pockets. That's the intended effect, there's a reason that the
| law is written the way it is.
| ikeboy wrote:
| It's very difficult to establish the bad faith required to win
| a 512(f) misrepresentation case, but it's doable and you can
| win damages.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| In the UK you could sue for libel, because this suit
| potentially defames the public character of the accused and
| could cause both personal and professional losses.
|
| It would put the burden of proof on Casio, requiring
| convincing proof that the claims in the lawsuit are true and
| neither vexatious nor frivolous.
|
| That would be interesting to watch, because I get the
| impression Casio's legal team have no idea what they're
| doing. They're really trying to protect Casio's status in
| exams, but _to do that_ they 're talking about source code
| and using the DMCA as a legal gambit.
|
| I doubt they're really interested in whether source code was
| used or even what source code is. Someone on the team thought
| "OK - sounds good - we can make that stick" and here we are.
|
| If it's really not true - which sounds likely, from the
| comments - it's sloppy and lazy work and leaves any number of
| open goals for countersuits.
| ikeboy wrote:
| In the US you only can't sue for libel because DMCA
| preempts all federal and state causes of action - instead
| you sue for misrepresentation under 512(f).
|
| But for false claims of infringement that don't involve
| copyright, a libel claim can work. I've previously
| mentioned my own 8 figure lawsuit against tp-link for false
| claims of counterfeiting; I have antitrust, tortious
| interference, declaratory judgement, and defamation (i.e.
| libel) causes of action. I know of at least one similar
| case with a multi-million dollar jury award from 1999 (see
| Alexander binzel v nu-tecsys.)
| paulie_a wrote:
| Basically nothing at all. You get something in the mail that
| goes directly into the trash. And go back to whatever you were
| doing
| bubblethink wrote:
| The easy solution to all these source-code DMCA problems seems to
| be self-host your git repo in a sensible country. Why don't
| projects do that to begin with ? Every week some github drama
| makes it to the front page. github is not the same as git. If
| enough people host it elsewhere, maybe somebody in the US will
| wake up. There isn't any other solution to it.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| I think in this case, the calculator circuitry remains the same.
| The only thing modified was the case.
| dylan604 wrote:
| "This week REACT wrote to Github, "<snip> "CASIO may somehow feel
| it's in the right here but it does seem just a little bit petty."
|
| More likely REACT reacted on their own as that's what their
| entire existence is about. This was probably yet again some
| lawyer working for the group that has no knowledge of coding,
| see's the trade name of a company they are representing, and took
| action.
|
| Of course, I'm just playing armchair QB and have no knowledge
| whatsoever either way. He said, EvilCorp said, He loses.
| daniel-thompson wrote:
| It's shitty behavior, for sure, but it's rational given what I
| assume to be their incentive: to stay in the good graces of the
| people who set calculator policy for standardized tests. The
| College Board has an explicit whitelist and general guidelines
| here: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/taking-the-
| tes...
|
| > You are not allowed to use any of the following items as a
| calculator: ... Models that can access the Internet, have
| wireless, Bluetooth, cellular, audio/video recording and playing,
| camera, or any other smart phone type feature
| jetrink wrote:
| > It's shitty behavior, for sure, but it's rational
|
| Can we just reflect on that though? The College Board states on
| their website that, "We value critical thinkers who assess the
| accuracy and relevancy of data and use it to support ideas and
| solve problems; who communicate clearly and concisely; and who
| make it a point to master the technologies relevant to their
| work." Their job is helping to identify which students possess
| the knowledge and reasoning skills to succeed in higher
| education. And yet, it is rational to assume that the College
| Board itself will not use critical thinking nor a mastery of
| calculator technology in this case. Instead, they will respond
| bureaucratically, banning a model of calculator, because a
| hobbyist hollowed one out and stuffed some electronics inside.
| When did the absurd become the rational?
| daniel-thompson wrote:
| To be clear, I was saying Casio's behavior is rational, not
| the College Board's.
| [deleted]
| djmips wrote:
| His big mistake was using the words "Hack Casio" in the name of
| his project. heheh.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Quite sad, company providing calc tools to learn .. most probably
| aiming at future tech heads.. bashes on guy who does tech.
| pbasista wrote:
| From what I was able to see on YouTube and read in the
| repository's clone, the author of the original repository did not
| use the calculator's electronics or software at all. They only
| slightly modified its hardware by removing the solar panel and
| then installed some completely independent electronics in there.
|
| Yet, REACT (also known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Network), which
| represents Casio, claims that:
|
| > The code the repository contains is proprietary and not to be
| publicly published. The hosted content is a direct, literal copy
| of our client's work.
|
| I would be interested to know which of their products uses WiFi
| and connects to a Firebase database.
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(page generated 2020-05-23 23:00 UTC)