It's important to remember that these projects are not violating copyright law, are not circumvention tools, and that filing a DMCA notice against them is in fact unlawful.

It's lawful if you have a good faith belief that it's a circumvention tool.

It might even be true. Not having a download button is a copy protection measure as defined in the DMCA. If this project bypasses not having a download button, it's an illegal circumvention measure under DMCA.

That interpretation has never held up in court. A missing download button isn't a technological protection measure - it's the absence of a feature. The content is still publicly accessible in the browser. There's no encryption or access control being circumvented, just automation of what any browser already does.

There is a screenshot in the thread that makes all make sense.

> I'll tell our DMCA agent you're in the clear

https://github.com/mikf/gallery-dl/discussions/9304#discussi...

similar to patent trolls, there is now a DMCA trolls for hire.

I'm Jacob, the CEO of FAKKU. The notice being discussed was sent by a 3rd party DMCA agent without our approval or permission. It seems they are using AI to find repositories related to legitimate issues and projects like this one got caught up in it. I've informed them NOT to continue doing this and to immediately cease.

The underlying issue is similar to if there was a website that illegally hosted Netflix content it had downloaded from torrents. Then that illegal website put up advertisements next to the content, or even a paywall cheaper than Netflix to make money. Obviously, that's against the law and Netflix would do something about it. That's generally what we are having to fight against.

Ironically projects like this actually hurt that illegal website, by circumventing THEIR paywall or advertisements, and serving the content inside an app for free (which was originally paid content). It's a complicated issue, but going after projects like this doesn't solve the root problem.

You can't make up things like FAKKU, LLC. This simulation is out of control.

Especially ironic considering Fakku's history and their push to monopolize the hentai publishing industry in the west (!).

IIRC "monopolize" isn't quite right -- it's closer to a monopsony situation, where they've cornered the licensing side by locking up Japanese publishers with exclusive deals. The consumer-facing effect is similar though, so your broader point stands.

The name's been in gallery-dl's extractor list forever, just sitting there between furaffinity and gelbooru. You stop noticing it after a while. But seeing FAKKU, LLC appear in an actual legal notice does something to you. The formality makes it worse somehow.

What's up with people insisting that you need a lawyer to respond to a DMCA notice? That's some hilariously poor advice, like holy shit. I wonder if these same (presumably) rich idiots also hire a lawyer to read the terms of service when signing up for a service?

You absolutely do not need and should not spend money on a lawyer for this. The only way you're possibly going to get in trouble is if you're acting in bad faith, you don't need a lawyer to tell you if you are.

They can just file another DMCA against Codeberg, what am I missing here?

Sounds like Codeberg would still take down the repo, but would be more supportive: https://blog.codeberg.org/on-the-youtube-dl-dmca-takedown.ht... (2020)

Maybe there are more recent examples?

That won't be easy because Codeberg follows German law.

We went through this with a different project. Yes, they can file again - but Codeberg actually contests notices and works with the dev, rather than just auto-complying the way GitHub does. That said, if someone's persistent enough, no hosted platform is immune.

For real. Use https://radicle.xyz/ if you want actual takedown resistance.

Should that fail there's always https://gitflic.ru where Bypass Paywalls Clean lives

It's exciting to me recently with the increase in copyright abuse and AI blurring the lines that more people are going to be involved with decentralized systems.

There have been multiple different ways to host git repositories over DHT networks such as BitTorrent. Similarly there have been ways to run DHT backed commands for Linux package managers like apt.

These tools often receive little praise because the value of decentralized systems seems low when centralized systems are working to most users without too many issues.

The enshittification is ramping up so quickly recently that more people are reaching out to me on how to setup Linux syatems, home media servers, etc. I genuinely enjoy these technologies, but for the last decade I had more or less just shut up about them to avoid being that guy.

I was actually just wondering if torrents were the way to go. I don't have any experience with github so not sure if torrents are at all suitable but I always had the thought that they were decentralized so once released hard to stop as long as someone has a copy.

Do I need to bring out the flowchart again?

If you want resistance from USA's bullshit, host in China or Russia. If you want resistance form China's bullshit, host in USA or Russia. If you want resistance from Russia's bullshit, host in USA or China.

For purposes of this chat, Europe == USA since they do as USA says when it comes to copyright.

Didn't know about this project, looks useful. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, FAKKU.

What a plain disgusting disgrace FAKKU has become.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fakku#History

youtube-dl, October 2020. Same playbook. Automated DMCA agent fires, project scrambles, moves hosts. RIAA backed off then, FAKKU's already disowned it now. Different facts, same cycle. They never learn and neither do the trigger-happy agents they hire.

Moving to a Germany based host of all places, after being legally harassed over copyright, doesn't strike me as a particularly good idea. Aren't the local courts infamous for being awful to deal with?