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If you live in the USA, the "decoy notes" may be considered an "effective technical measure" from the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act". If you live in Europe
by Giefo6ah 10d ago
If you live in the USA, the "decoy notes" may be considered an "effective technical measure" from the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act".
If you live in Europe, this restriction may be considered "gatekeeping" and exempted by the Digital Markets Act.
Don't bring attention to yourself by asking for permission. Publish your codec, and if the company cares about this they will send a cease and desist.
If you want the world to benefit from your code but you don't want to be responsible for it, try to adapt the codec to ffmpeg. The ffmpeg project is used to dealing with these matters, and will keep your codec working for eternity.
- progval 10d ago> If you live in Europe, this restriction may be considered "gatekeeping" and exempted by the Digital Markets Act. That's not how the DMA works at all, there is no concept of gatekeeping practices. Instead, the EU Commission designates companies that act as gatekeeper for some services (current list here: https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers-portal_en https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers-portal_...) which then puts constraints on what they do.
- kolinko 9d agoBut we have various exemptions that are for all the companies, no? E.g. you're free to hack and crack software to do your own backup copies.
- c0n5pir4cy 9d agoNot a lawyer but it wouldn't be under the DMA - these rights predate the DMA by a while.
- kolinko 5d agoYes of course
- KennyBlanken 10d agoAny company would be a fool not to send a C&D given how many people on this site seem to think that "I got a C&D" means "if I don't obey it, I'm gonna get sued." Anti-SLAPP laws exist for a reason, and if corps can bully anyone, how is it that corps routinely lose lawsuits on either side of the docket, hmmmm? Keep licking that corporate boot, folks. Corps send C&Ds because they cost them all of maybe $100-200 and they're so effective. There is a long road between "got a C&D" and "am getting sued." Among other things, a judge is going to want to see that both sides attempted to negotiate. If the company sending the C&D just demands that and then tries to file suit, the judge is going to tell them to go back to step 2 and stop bothering him/her. Folks, stop telling people that if they get a C&D they have to just fold. Good chance you never hear from them again because the cost of suing you is nowhere near the damages they will be able to prove in court.
- DANmode 10d ago> There is a long road between "got a C&D" and "am getting sued." Sometimes!
- b3lvedere 10d agoThe average mortal cannot afford negative backlash, financially or otherwise, to their living situation.
- vintermann 10d ago> the cost of suing you is nowhere near the damages they will be able to prove in court. The problem is, the one advising them whether to sue or not might not care about that at all, and might personally profit from a lawsuit. So they've got all incentive in the world to persuade their employer that they must pursue this or they will have given up priceless rights forever.
- phire 10d ago> the "decoy notes" may be considered an "effective technical measure" from the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act". I really hope not. My understanding is that to be "effective" it needs to at least be a form of encryption with a secret key. At least, I'm not aware of any case law that allowed anything less than that. IMO, "dummy notes" are nothing more than a form of obfuscation. If it's obvious how to filter them out, then I don't think it comes close to meeting the bare minimum of what might count as an "effective technical measure". Of course, who knows what way the courts will rule if it ever reached that far.
- nerdsniper 10d agoshitty CAPTCHA’s and simple checksums have been ruled to be “effective measures”, so this would probably be too. However, Section 1201(f) is designed to allow developers leeway in reverse engineering to make "independently created computer programs" talk to other "computer programs". But this usually distinguishes between talking to a binary (good) and reading a media file (bad). My guess is the encoder is probably legal under 1201(f) because it’s reverse engineering a DMCA covered application to create new media files for it to use. But the decoder would be illegal because it reverse engineers a DMCA covered application to extract copyrighted media.
- phire 10d agoNo, on appeal the simple checksum was ruled to NOT be an effective measure. [0] And while courts might have ruled that a CAPTCHA might count as a "technological measure" they haven't gotten as far as ruling them as "effective" yet. But in general yes. The protection scheme doesn't need to be well designed or free of design flaws to count as "effective". But from what I can tell, it does need to be a valid attempt at some cryptographic scheme requiring a secret known only to the copyright holder. [0] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/387/522/532493/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/387...
- mitxela 9d agoYou're underselling this report. The court found that a whole lot of computer code that's intended to be a roadblock to interoperability isn't copyrightable - great news for adversarial reverse engineers everywhere. Recommend reading. Also it was an appeal to a preliminary judgement. The lower court said: okay, you're most likely going to lose so you have to stop selling these until we find out whether you lose. The appeal court said: actually this case is almost completely bogus and you're probably going to win, so you can keep selling them.
- Doohickey-d 10d agoIf you don't want to be responsible for it, another way is to just publish it anonymously: make a GitHub that isn't attached to your real name etc, perhaps using a one-off disposable email address, and put it there. Then you don't have to think about what the lawyers think. Worst case it'll get taken down, but by that point it'll likely be popular enough that there'll be plenty of copies. [Pirate flag emoji here]
- saturn8601 10d agoWhat if the companies start auto subpoenaing the AI companies to try and tie the code to an account?
- pimeys 10d agoMaybe then using an open weights model is a good way to hide your tracks...
- eru 10d agoOr at least use an obscurer model from an obscure company, so they don't know who to subpoena.
- fc417fc802 10d agoEveryone is aware that multiple services offer zero data retention, right?
- asdfsa32 10d agoLet them do it. It will end up really well. I know the system has been protecting these companies, but that has been an economic concern as much as other motives. Now that AI is the crown jewel of economy and global dominance, let the entertainment industry have a go at it. Let them.
- MarkusQ 9d ago
- politician 10d agoConsider publishing the prompts used to create it.
- j1elo 10d agoDon't publish your code. Let the AI "accidentally escape the sandbox and publish it in a readily available Git repository". Tongue in cheek, in current days who would blame a poor LLM just trying to do the right thing? :) > Publish your codec, and if the company cares about this they will send a cease and desist. If there are doubts about C&D letters, don't publish code to a USA provider. Bring it to Gitee, under an anonymous author name.
- 1970-01-01 9d agoIt's not effective technology if it is secure via obscurity. If it fits on a shirt, you're also fine. The key here (pun intended) is to publish it and show how obvious it was to reverse engineer. https://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/09/08/decss.shirt.idg/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/09/08/decss.shirt.id...
- qurren 9d ago> Publish your codec Put the code on the blockchain somewhere and it will be un-deleteable.