I'm not so sure about it being DMCA abuse. You're likely to be convicted of murder if your wife ends up dead and you recently published something that said, "I'm not paying anyone to murder my wife, but if my wife ends up dead, I'll bet someone will randomly find $10k in a duffel bag." Judges and juries are people, not robots, and they can read between the lines. Talking around a crime by saying stuff like, "I'm not a pirate, I only published detailed instructions and make it really easy for other people to be a pirate" is not going to hold up in court. It's pretty clear that even if PopCornTime wasn't committing crimes themselves, they bore some responsibility by enabling other people to commit crimes.
The discussion about whether digital piracy should be illegal is a separate discussion, for now it is illegal and PopCornTime's number finally came up. They the aren't the first piracy enabling tool (UseNet, Napster, BitTorrent, etc.) and they won't be the last. But it is true that the systems that survive are decentralized. PopCornTime was/is pretty decentralized overall, they just took a hit at one of their centralized points. I'm sure there will be several new repositories that appear in other places around the web very soon.
It's not illegal to build knives. It's not illegal to sell knives either. Using a knife to stab someone on the other hand is. No sane jusge could claim that the knife-builder was in fact involved in the killing, nor should popcorntime face any reprecussions for developing a program.
DMCA claims aren't even related to morality and the issues are always black and white. Either the plaintiff has copyright over the items they claim or they don't and it belongs to someone else or no one. In this case they cannot in any way claim that they have ownership of the code or product unless the popcorntime project has a signed dislaimer all devs agree to handing over the rights to the code to someone else (not likely).
> It's not illegal to build knives. It's not illegal to sell knives either. Using a knife to stab someone on the other hand is. No sane jusge could claim that the knife-builder was in fact involved in the killing, nor should popcorntime face any reprecussions for developing a program.
Popcorn Time is ostensibly built to access and watch copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. No-one is pretending they’re using it only to watch Big Buck Bunny. It isn’t like a general-purpose BitTorrent client either because those generally don’t market themselves as tools for copyright infringement and torrents are widely used legitimately for free-software distribution. You’d have a point if it was uncalled “Popcorn-and-Slackware Time” - but it isn’t.
Disregarding the inevitable 2A analogy (“knife” -> “gun”), the concept of dual-use is recognised by legal precedent: the maker of a knife intends for it to be used in culinary or outdoors survival scenarios. If I sold my own line of knives with a TV and billboard campaign emphasising about how my knives are specifically designed to shank people with - and someone inevitably does get shanked by one of my knives I fully expect to be at the receiving-end of at least a civil liability suit - but most likely some criminal charges for recklessness.
I recognise that Popcorn Time itself isn’t violating copyright and so cannot be the subject of a DMCA takedown notice, Popcorn Time might be viewed as falling under the DMCA’s Anti-circumvention clauses or something similar. And if the courts somehow find it to be completely in the clear, I guarantee that within a few years the MPAA will get a new copyright law on the books that specifically considers the intent of the creator or distributor of a tool involved in copyright infringement.
Have you researched the DMCA? It criminalizes not only direct and indirect copyright infringement, but also the dissemination of tools that circumvent copyright protection. This isn't a case of "knives are legal" this is a case of "PopCornTime is illegal" because it circumvents copyright protection. No amount of doublespeak is going to make the repositories legal, which is what I was getting at in the first paragraph of my first comment.
The language regarding takedown notices in the safe harbor provision is worded toward copyrighted material and not piracy tools, but GitHub really can't play dumb after this notice. They have been notified that they are hosting an illegal tool, and if they want to continue being considered an immune service provider under the safe harbor provision they will have to keep the repository disabled. If GitHub willingly reinstates a repository that they know is illegal they could lose their status as a protected service provider and then the MPA can sue them.
It's not abuse of a DMCA takedown notice to use it against tools that are intended to infringe on copyrights (specific copyrighted works are presumably detailed in Exhibit A of their notice that I couldn't find). The MPA isn't being dishonest and claiming that they own the code, they are claiming that the code is predominately intended for illegal purposes under the DMCA. It's creative, but not dishonest. This isn't someone spamming DMCA notices at some innocent coder, this is pretty much the system working as intended.
You're deeply confused. It's copy protection, not copyright protection, and Popcorn Time is incapable of circumventing it. It is not one of those illegal DRM-breaking tools. Tools for copying unprotected files are an entirely different thing.
> It criminalizes not only direct and indirect copyright infringement, but also the dissemination of tools that circumvent copyright protection.
The text of the law that you encourage us to read says:
> No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
... followed by many exceptions. But that's section 1201, which is not referenced by section 512 that defines the takedown procedure.
> but GitHub really can't play dumb after this notice. They have been notified that they are hosting an illegal tool, and if they want to continue being considered an immune service provider under the safe harbor provision they will have to keep the repository disabled. If GitHub willingly reinstates a repository that they know is illegal they could lose their status as a protected service provider and then the MPA can sue them.
There's actually a provision in section 512 that protects GitHub should they choose to ignore what turns out to be an invalid takedown notice—they are legally considered to not be aware of infringement or infringing activity.
> It's not abuse of a DMCA takedown notice to use it against tools that are intended to infringe on copyrights
The takedown notice procedure is only specified for works that are an actual infringement. A tool for infringement is not the same as the product of an infringing action. There's no room for "creativity" here. The MPA does not own any exclusive rights regarding copying, distributing, modifying, etc. the pieces of software they object to, because that software is not a copy or derivative work of any of the movies they own copyright to.
Yeah but this didn’t go through a court to decide whether they contributed to piracy happening, this was a DMCA takedown which is supposed to target a specific case of piracy itself. The DMCA is about “you pirated THIS” not “you are involved in pirating stuff”.
So yes, this is an abuse of the DMCA, but also yes, PopCornTime contributes to piracy.
Publishing details on how to commit crime is definitely not illegal, so your analogy doesn't hold up here.
Also, you can't simultaneously claim that they "bore some responsibility" and then try to put off "discussion about whether digital piracy should be illegal". Claiming they have moral responsibility is opening a discussion about what's right and wrong, which is at the heart of any serious notion about what should be illegal.
I absolutely can make a statement that as things stand now, something is illegal, while also mentioning that there may be value in discussing whether it should be legal or not. Here's another one: According to federal law (of the USA), recreational marijuana use is illegal. So anyone that smokes weed for fun (in the USA) is breaking the law, and that's a fact. But there is a separate discussion that we should have about whether we should legalize recreational marijuana use. I didn't take a position on the issue, but I do support at least having the discussion.
I also did not claim that PopCornTime has a moral responsibility, I said that using clever phrasing doesn't make something illegal into something legal.
It sounded like a moral argument to me, but I'll take your word for it that you're making a factual claim about the law. What law exactly says that they "they bore some responsibility" for other people's copyright violation?
Analogies rarely work in law. Just because you can construe some imaginary scenario about murder doesn't mean law actually works this way. DMCA notice is to notify hoster about copyright infringement. Not about any illegal activity whatsoever, but specifically about infringing somebody's copyright on specific works. The content of that repo didn't infringe anybody's copyright, therefore whoever submitted that notice is a liar and possibly a perjurer.
If you read the notice, you'll see that absolutely nowhere did they claim that they owned the copyright to the code. They claimed that the code was being used to infringe on copyrighted works. There are no lies in the notice and no perjury. Nearly everything the notice is factual. The only claim that needs a little support is the claim that PopCornTime's predominant purpose and use is for copyright infringement, but that would take about five minutes to convince a reasonable person.
Submitting a DMCA takedown notice without claiming copyright is an abuse of the good will of the recipient (Github) and an abuse of the DMCA takedown system. Even if it is not perjury, it should be condemned and rampant abuse should expose parties like MPA to litigation.
As it happens there is no such thing as a DMCA notice for contributory copyright infringement its a straightforward fraudulent claim to own the resource named. If they can find anyone to sue locally they might win but they can't just make it up as they go along.
The discussion about whether digital piracy should be illegal is a separate discussion, for now it is illegal and PopCornTime's number finally came up. They the aren't the first piracy enabling tool (UseNet, Napster, BitTorrent, etc.) and they won't be the last. But it is true that the systems that survive are decentralized. PopCornTime was/is pretty decentralized overall, they just took a hit at one of their centralized points. I'm sure there will be several new repositories that appear in other places around the web very soon.