DMCA Site Policy Discussion.

[bofors]

I have renamed this thread to match the content of the posts below. Clearly, the site's DMCA policy is an important issue and the air needs to be cleared. Furthermore, I have personally played a role in formulating and implementing this site's DMCA policy, so if you are unhappy, I am a partly to blame. I plan on responding to the posts below soon and I will repost the original topic later. I hope the site admins will not prematurely lock this discussion and that no one gets banned for voicing their opinion here. However, please keep this DMCA policy discussion within this thread.

 

Originally this thread was titled: "What is the problem with reproducing blex0r's results?"

I know that a few talented and informed people have been working on reproducing blex0r's results, so I would have expected that at least someone to claim that they have by now.  While I am following the IRC channels, the "research" wiki and the "free speech" forum being hosted by sbeehre, I do not understand exactly what the problem is.

 

Can somebody with advanced knowledge concisely state what the hold up seems to be?  Is it the lack of certain "missing" files?

[Guest gnubug]

Careful,

You are talking about an IDEA. IDEAS and INFORMATION are now not allowed on this site anymore.

Please post to the other sites where active people are posting and answering.

This site only reports on ****deleted**** when the work on the ****deleted****.

If any of the above confuses you, please visit the other sites so that you can understand.

[computertrendy]

Wouldn't want new ideas floating around. That could lead to more and quicker progress and broader knowledge. Yeah man, that would suck.

 

Please excuse my assholic atitude but GOOD GOD. This guy's WORDS and even the friggin links to helpful places were deleted. This is like ps2nfo.com! Is it possible to host this site on an-out-of-jurisdiction server and let it be free to be whatever?

[Guest gnubug]

http://www.concretesurf.co.nz/osx86/index.php

To others: Use the quote on this post, that way if it is deleted or removed, it will still show up in someone else's thread.

 

 

computertrendy: Careful there. You might get threatened with a site ban by the admins. They seem to have a problem with people whom do not share their beliefs of massive information editing and deletion of said information. I know this, as I have been threatened and harassed due to my asking "what is this site's purpose if all the content is not allowed and deleted??"

Silly me...

[bofors]

OK, you guys have made your point.

 

Please give me an oppurtunity to respond when I wake up tomorrow.

 

And please also considering using the "free speech" forum that is graciously being hosted outside of US/DMCA jurisdiction by sbeehre:

 

http://www.concretesurf.co.nz/osx86/index.php

 

and the "research" Wiki (which I believe is hosted in Canada):

 

http://www.research.gwgaming.net/wiki/inde...title=Main_Page

[zhLilDoggi]

gnubug - quit telling everybody "ZOMG THE MODS/ADMINS ARE GOING TEH GIT YOUZ"

 

Careful,

You are talking about an IDEA. IDEAS and INFORMATION are now not allowed on this site anymore.

Please post to the other sites where active people are posting and answering.

This site only reports on ****deleted**** when the work on the ****deleted****.

If any of the above confuses you, please visit the other sites so that you can understand.

 

Way out of line. Way. Ideas can still be posted, idiot.

[other]

Admins are here to protect the site from any law suits from apple.

They're here to help not hinder. :wink:

[Guest gnubug]

"ZOMG THE MODS/ADMINS ARE GOING TEH GIT YOUZ"

 

Preschool must have been hard for you.. *grin*

When have I ever said the admins are going to get you?!

I have never publicy said in any post, or topic anything towards the Admins, other then that I find it bull they way they are editing and deleting posts to the point of almost every thread/post so that there isnt even a point to having the thread exist.

Do I like the admins? Some seem to have it together, and some are complete {censored}s on a powertrip as with any website. Some I consider undecided..Time will tell.

I deal with the {censored}s away from the publics eye, as it deserves to be, PM's; emails, in the fashion in which they contact me. I don't post in topics or threads on those things even when they try to bait me in their insipid attempts.

 

Come on already stop trying to make it sound like I keep doing things I have not. To paint a picture, you need to see the whole canvas..

Looks I ruffled some feathers by not bending over and going "YES SIR!" when an admin comes looking to f*ck someone, which is never gonna happen.

[Mr. Bond]

Okay Gnubug, let's spell it out plain and simply for you. This site want's to stay legal, out of reach from getting our asses sued by Apple, or whoever else. It's probably not very hard for you to grasp the fact that all tampering with the DVD release floating around the internet, or the mactel base, is ILLEGAL. It is in violation of the DCMA, which is what this site does not support. There are many places where you can find more information that may better suit your needs, albeit, probably Illegal sites. So this is the last time I will say it: If anyone does not agree with the site's policy, the policy that you accepted when you signed up for the forums, and the site, then you are welcome to leave now. You can go off and do your own work on some other site, while you will most likely be at a much greater risk of being sued.

 

I agree with the point bofors is trying to make, and people need to become a little more aware of what exactly the DCMA is, and what it's implicatins are upon us. After all, I believe there are many other sites, as to bofors point, that are outside of US/DCMA reach, e.g the research site (hosted in Canada w00t!), or the free speech site. Now stop bashing the Admins, and the Site policy, or anyone else for that matter, as flaming of any sort will not be tolerated on this site.

[zhLilDoggi]

http://www.concretesurf.co.nz/osx86/index.php

 

computertrendy: Careful there. You might get threatened with a site ban by the admins. They seem to have a problem with people whom do not share their beliefs of massive information editing and deletion of said information.  I know this, as I have been threatened and harassed due to my asking "what is this site's purpose if all the content is not allowed and deleted??"

Silly me...

 

Sure about that gnubug? It looks like reading was hard for you.

[bofors]

Thank you, Mr. Bond.

 

First, I would like to note that the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF, http://www.eff.org) was contacted by site adminstration several days ago, and a request for assistance in setting the DMCA policy for this site was made. However as far as I know, no response has been received yet.

 

Apparently, the DMCA can be used to force websites to be shut down for 10 days by just writing their hosts a letter:

 

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/9/1/144632/2881

http://www.salon.com/tech/log/2001/08/31/d...mals/index.html

 

Should this happen, a defense letter has already been prepared here:

 

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Terrorism/form-letter.html

 

People coming here from the Macintosh community, know that Apple Legal is vicious. Futhermore, I "knew" the three people on the Mac bittorrent site (http://macforum.torrentskickass.com) who got sued for releasing PPC Tiger betas and was actually worried that I might get sued too because Apple named 25 "John Does" as defendants.

 

http://news.com.com/Apple+sues+over+loose+..._3-5500034.html

http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/39198.html

 

That lawsuit has had serious impact on the Mac bittorrent site, but that is nothing compare to what the three individuals have surrered:

 

I am Bakuryuuha, a moderator of this site also formerly known as dmsmac on this forum. I'm sure you all know that I am one of the three TKA members at the center of a lawsuit with Apple Computer (if you want more information on it, I suggest using the forum's search feature, there's many posts about it; there was even a torrent of the legal papers going around at one point). I cannot and will not discuss the case specifics in further detail per legal counsel's advice.  

 

However, it's unfortunate to say that circumstances are preventing a quick settlement of this matter as was obtained by the other two TKA members previously, and my lawyer for this civil lawsuit is costing me out the nose -- I swear it costs me $75 every time the guy sneezes (okay, not that bad, but close!).  

 

So I hate to ask, but to the TKA community I ask:  

 

a) If you know of any good civil lawyers in Northern California who may want to take a fairly high profile case like this on a pro-bono basis (or at least a "cheaper-than-$100/hr basis"), please contact me via private message.  

 

If you could, consider making a donation for my legal defense. Every little bit helps and I'd be eternally grateful to anyone who does help me. For info on how to donate, again, send me a private message.

 

 

While we wait for "profesional" help from the EFF, I think we should start examining the DMCA vs. the First Amendment:

 

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DMCA/Gallery/index.html

http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/

 

 

Second, I was also like to note that under the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, possession of a beta OS can now lead to a three year prison term and $250k fine.

 

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050...50420-4829.html

http://news.com.com/New+law+cracks+down+on..._3-5687495.html

 

 

Third, as suggested above and as implemented by "free speech" forum hosted by sbeehre, I have also suggest that this site be moved to a jurisdiction such as Sweden or Russia that will be more tolerant of the activities that people wish to engage in here.

 

 

Fourth and with respect to the big picture analogy raised above, I think the site adminstration needs to think about needs to develop a long term plan for promoting this site. I would like to point out that although OS X users represent only about 2% of the population, they number over 10 million and are rapidily growing. I suspect that the number of people running OS X on "unsupport" hardware will be in the millions within about three years. This "unsupport" OS X86 community will need (and pay for via advertising revenues), a central hub for cracks, patchs, drivers and technical support forums. I think what is needed is something like cross between MacOSX (http://www.macosxhints.com/) and SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/). If you have other sites that provide this combination of news, development and discussion service, please post them, I would be surprise if there is a not a better model in the Linux community.

 

 

Finally, I think the role of IRC channels needs to be considered. It is very clear, that this is one of the major features of this site. If you are not monitoring these channels, you missing out on what is really going on. However, I think that IRC is a detriment to the forums and that valuble information on the IRC just dissappears. I would like to see tighter integration between the IRC and the forums, although I do not know what the technical problems are at the moment.

[Mr. Bond]

Bofors, I have to give you a huge pat on the back for clarifying that to all. Very excellent and indepth discussion on the DCMA, and how it applies to the site and the community. I think this topic should be stickied, as it would be good for all new members (and current, at that) to read up on this, and get themselves a little more aquainted with what's going on here. Also, I agree with your idea of moving the site to another country. I currently live in Canada, where things are a little more lax than the U.S, and I'll see if there's possibly anything I can do.

 

Also, about intergrating the forum and wiki more tightly with the IRC. I know that Shuddertrix uses pisg to store logs of all discussions on #osx86, and possibly for the technical channel as well. It might be worth our while to somehow search through these logs somehow for important information or guides that can be added to the wiki/forum. Or even better, just encourage people to post all progress, big or small onto the research wiki, so we can minimize the amount of searching one has to do for certain bits of information.

 

Also, some sort of file server might be a good idea to set up, where we can securly upload/download new patches, scripts etc. Kind of like the Xbins setup that exists on xbox-scene.com. It involves getting a uniqe pass from an IRC bot, and then logging onto a secure FTP server.

 

Just some thoughts....

[Swad]

bofors is exactly right. Our site provides a very valuable service - we have become the central hub for all OSx86 related news. However, in order be able to continue, we have to ensure that we remain totally legal in all our dealings. As such, we have to make sure we're not a party to the DMCA.

 

We're working on our legal stance, and until we hammer something out, there will be some bumps in the road. However, until that point, I would ask that you remain patient and work with us on this! Thanks!