Reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated...

Moderators,

 

I understand the DMCA issues that you're working through, but you really need to consult a lawyer. Taking down the forum for 48 hours was excessive, and keeping the wiki down even longer only proves the point.

The rumors of the death of the site sprang up because of this site's overreaction to what should have been a routine bit of message moderation.

You make a good point, and I am certainly no lawyer, but essentially, all that happened was that bit of routine moderation.. In fairness, it was probably a little overdue, and with members of staff away & time for messages to get passed on, I think 48 hours was pretty good going...

Rest assured lawyers from both parties were consulted. Apples requests were reviewed and regarded reasonable by the site management who are keen to maintain a good relationship with Apple.

Remember this forum is run by volunteers who couldn't drop everything to clear it up within the time period allowed by the DMCA therefore the temporary closure of the forum was considered neccessary until staff had time to make the clear up.

[Edit] Hagar you beat me to it this time!

Rest assured lawyers from both parties were consulted. Apples requests were reviewed and regarded reasonable by the site management who are keen to maintain a good relationship with Apple.

 

Remember this forum is run by volunteers who couldn't drop everything to clear it up within the time period allowed by the DMCA therefore the temporary closure of the forum was considered neccessary until staff had time to make the clear up.

 

[Edit] Hagar you beat me to it this time!

I'm missing something here:

I thought that there is provisions in the DCMA to allow the follolwing:

1) Reverse engineering for interoperability is allowed. This is clearly the case. Half of OSX is common open source with all the *nix underpinnings. Apple simply ported linux utilities to run on Darwin.

2) Theoretical open discussion about circumventing protective measures is allowed. This is all about the rights of academia.

I think the reason Apple is keeping this site alive is because they know they have no case except for a few copyright infringement related posts. How can a company shut a site down without any sort of warrant by a judge? Does the law allow a company to be judge and jury to serve their own purposes?

Why not just link to a google search of maxxuss. This way the web site is just two clicks away and you are not linking to anything other than a google search.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=maxxuss&btnG=Search

This makes it easy and legal

What ever happened to freedom of speech and freedom of the press? Linking to a site is in no way violating copy right.

How can a company shut a site down without any sort of warrant by a judge? Does the law allow a company to be judge and jury to serve their own purposes?

Apple didn't shut us down. This site gets so much traffic that doing a thorough search of the forums while it is open is extremely difficult as new threads are being created every few minutes. The forum was taken offline by the management, not by Apple. As Hagar said this was just some routine, and overdue moderation.

To be clear - There never was and still isn't any question of apple shutting us down. Period.

What ever happened to freedom of speech and freedom of the press? Linking to a site is in no way violating copy right

Unfortunately American law now states that it is.

Apple didn't shut us down. This site gets so much traffic that doing a thorough search of the forums while it is open is extremely difficult as new threads are being created every few minutes. The forum was taken offline by the management, not by Apple. As Hagar said this was just some routine, and overdue moderation.

 

To be clear - There never was and still isn't any question of apple shutting us down. Period.

Unfortunately American law now states that it is.

So Google is liable for any sites it links to when it returns search results? The US is becoming more an more like a communist country - ironically after spending thousands of Billions throughout history fighting against this sort of {censored}.

Corporations are given enforcement powers. The president doesn't see any problem in wiretapping anyone without any warrant or valid reason. People are being detained for years without even being charged with a crime. What's going on here? When you want to get rid of someone, all you have to do is call him a terrorist and he's out of your hair.

Will university professors stop researching security for fear of violating the DCMA? The whole computer industry would not exist today if Compaq had not reverse engineered IBM's BIOS functionality. If the DCMA existed then, they would have been shut down.

Sorry for the rant, I guess I've gone off-topic. I will shut-up now.

In view of the possible excessive censorship (imho - not posting maxxuss site's links, wiki's thorough "cleaning", "who" says "what" information is allowed or not, etc), i guess we should recall one of the recent quotes in defense of our freedom that we've all probably read - a complain by some at the chinese communist party:

The wiki will recieve the same moderation as the forum. Have no fears in that department. It should return shortly.

.... but you really need to consult a lawyer

As other moderators have said, lawyers from both sides were involved.

I'd like to take this opportunity to make a very important point about this site. We are not funded in any way by anyone and not one staff member gets a single penny for their efforts. We keep the site going, and pay for those lawyers when necessary, purely on donations and the small income generated by all of you clicking on the various advertising banners and links. We're not a commercial site and we don't intend to become one but if you want to support us and see us able to afford lawyers in the future, please visit some of the advertisers and maybe even buy something from them. I don't believe we've ever asked you to do this because it's not really our policy to talk about matters commercial, but remember just how expensive lawyers can be. It's one way you can all show your support and help us pay for our hosting and bandwidth. Thanks!

Moderators,

 

I understand the DMCA issues that you're working through, but you really need to consult a lawyer. Taking down the forum for 48 hours was excessive, and keeping the wiki down even longer only proves the point.

 

DMCA takedown notices are required to specifically identify the allegedly infringing content. Apple's letter should contain a roadmap to any content that they feel must be removed. If that content is not identified, then you have immunity from liability so long as you comply with the statute and remove the identified materials.

 

Simply, it is not your job to comb through the site to find anything that matches vague criteria that Apple's lawyers may issued. Furthermore, if it is not copyrighted code, patches to an effective technological measure, or links to either, it is entirely outside the bounds of the DMCA. Apple has rights in this situation, but so does this site.

 

You need to review Title 17 U.S.C. sec. 512 herecarefully, especially subsection ©, regardless of whether you consult a lawyer or not. The rumors of the death of the site sprang up because of this site's overreaction to what should have been a routine bit of message moderation.

Everyone else has pretty much clarified things, but I just want to make one thing clear. Contrary to what you said, Apple's lawyers did specifiically list what content was infringing the DMCA, and it was dealt with accordingly. While not all of us agree with the DMCA's restrictions, we still must abide by them to keep a situation like this from arising again.

In regards to patches, most of the files that are posted/linked to do contain Apple copyrighted code. This includes many kext's that are included within OSX. Though it does make it easier for some people to get what they need for their system, it still infringes upon the DMCA. Personally, I see no reason why people can't simply learn how to google for something, instead of being required to have everything spoon fed to them.

So...we're back. We have a couple changes here and there, but in essence, we're still the same site. The DMCA isn't infringing upon our freedom of speech; there's nothing wrong about talking about the patches and development that exists on the net, let alone anything else OSX for that matter, as long as it's not linked to. This side has been, and always will be, a place to talk about all things OSX for x86...and that is not going to change.

And ditto on what Metrogirl/sHARD/0uch!p0tat0 said.

Everyone else has pretty much clarified things, but I just want to make one thing clear. Contrary to what you said, Apple's lawyers did specifiically list what content was infringing the DMCA, and it was delt with accordingly. While not all of us agree with the DMCA's restrictions, we still must abide by them to keep a situation like this from arising again.

 

In regards to patches, most of the files that are posted/linked to do contain Apple copyrighted code. This includes many kext's that are included within OSX. Though it does make it easier for some people to get what they need for their system, it still infringes upon the DMCA. Personally, I see no reason why people can't simply learn how to google for something, instead of being required to have everything spoon fed to them.

 

So...we're back. We have a couple changes here and there, but in essence, we're still the same site. The DMCA isn't infringing upon our freedom of speech; there's nothing wrong about talking about the patches and development that exists on the net, let alone anything else OSX for that matter, as long as it's not linked to. This side has been, and always will be, a place to talk about all things OSX for x86...and that is not going to change.

 

And ditto on what Metrogirl/sHARD/0uch!p0tat0 said.

Are we allowed to post modified open source kext? As long tha the source code is passed along with it , I don't see any problem with that. But it's your site and your decision.

If something is genuinely open-source, you've modified it according to the open source agreement under which it was originally distributed, and dist. your source with it, I can't see any problem. As long as the code is not designed to circumvent any copy protection mechanism, go for it!

In regards to patches, most of the files that are posted/linked to do contain Apple copyrighted code. This includes many kext's that are included within OSX. Though it does make it easier for some people to get what they need for their system, it still infringes upon the DMCA. Personally, I see no reason why people can't simply learn how to google for something, instead of being required to have everything spoon fed to them.

 

So...we're back. We have a couple changes here and there, but in essence, we're still the same site. The DMCA isn't infringing upon our freedom of speech; there's nothing wrong about talking about the patches and development that exists on the net, let alone anything else OSX for that matter, as long as it's not linked to. This side has been, and always will be, a place to talk about all things OSX for x86...and that is not going to change.

 

And ditto on what Metrogirl/sHARD/0uch!p0tat0 said.

Appreciated the clarification. And again, thanks to the OS X 86 Project founders and moderators for all your work since last summer.

Sorry I didn't clarify that scousi...hope Metrogirl cleared that point up for you!

I still want to know what Steve said when he was contacted....Or did he just subscribe your email address to a bunch of porn mailing lists?

So Google is liable for any sites it links to when it returns search results?

No, i think it gets special exemption due to the fact that its an automated routing service with no human involvement in what it caches/links to.

[Edit] The Wiki is up and running again.

Yes, the Wiki is now back. Bear with us if there are glitches, we're still working on it behind the scenes. We wanted to get it back for you ASAP, and we did

Hooray for the Wiki!

And just a reminder, same rules apply there too. No direct links to things like Maxxuss patches. If you want to include them, listing filename of the patch should suffice. Or better yet, you can just add a wiki link to instructions on your own site, where you can host/link to whatever you'd like.

Though we would like you to add and expand our wiki. Just in a non-DMCA violating way.

So did somebody *not* post a method for installing OSX using the system restore discs? This was widely reported as the trigger for the forums closing.

In short...it was more likely someone (I guess that would be a collective someone? Hmm...) *didn't* post alot of links to patches and the like that violated the DMCA. The previous posts will kind of answer your question.

Whew! I was getting worried there. I thought for sure they'd shut it down. Welcome BACK!!!!

all i can say is HAHAHAHAHA

its just so sad that people who call themselves hackers dont have enough common sense to stop the glorification of something that is not only illegal, but that they want really (really) bad.

i mean seriously, why in the world would this site put "THANK YOU MAXXUS" right on the front page, are you insane? and then you all deleted my poem talking about how glorifying maxxus is gona ruin it for everyone and how lawyers were watching this site.

i just think its sad that you all think youre invincible and no one in this world has enough logic to do something such as staying quiet about things like this so maybe it can actually happen for once instead of getting destroyed by legalities. you know, apple wouldnt even care so long as it wasnt blown out of proportion and everyone and their mothers didnt know about it. use your brain people, sheesh.

that news post on this site glorifying the guy was absurd and uncalled for, i cant believe you all would do something like that.

all i can say is HAHAHAHAHA

 

its just so sad that people who call themselves hackers dont have enough common sense to stop the glorification of something that is not only illegal, but that they want really (really) bad.

 

 

that news post on this site glorifying the guy was absurd and uncalled for, i cant believe you all would do something like that.

I guess were just not accustomed to hiding...

Edit: I feel I must respond: HAHAHAHAHA Were still here!

btw, iirc, your poem was removed because of discriminatory remarks, not for any dmca or other issue...

all i can say is HAHAHAHAHA

 

its just so sad that people who call themselves hackers dont have enough common sense to stop the glorification of something that is not only illegal, but that they want really (really) bad.

 

i mean seriously, why in the world would this site put "THANK YOU MAXXUS" right on the front page, are you insane? and then you all deleted my poem talking about how glorifying maxxus is gona ruin it for everyone and how lawyers were watching this site.

 

i just think its sad that you all think youre invincible and no one in this world has enough logic to do something such as staying quiet about things like this so maybe it can actually happen for once instead of getting destroyed by legalities. you know, apple wouldnt even care so long as it wasnt blown out of proportion and everyone and their mothers didnt know about it. use your brain people, sheesh.

 

that news post on this site glorifying the guy was absurd and uncalled for, i cant believe you all would do something like that.

what the heck are you even on this forum for. go away.

HA HA

what the heck are you even on this forum for. go away.

That's pretty much what I was thinking. Although I must admit I first had to wonder why he wasn't kicked off and banned in the first place. Then again, the horrendous comments he made earlier this week were taken down before anyone really had a chance to notice.

dont come at me with all the negativity like im a troll. ive been keeping up with this since intel was announced and ive been dreaming of it since osx was announced. im just trying to get you guys to wake up. it just seems that everyone here has such a false sense of assurance that this is all gona go down perfect, thats its already written in stone that osx is coming to pc flawlessly and that we have no need to protect it. let me tell you you need to protect this at all costs; so just use what happened as a learning experience and start over with a new mind set.

apple: if youre watching, i would PURCHASE os x for pc hardware and so would all of us if you made it possible.