This article comes from the WeChat official account: AI frontline (ID: ai-front ) , author: Chen, the original title: “GitHub dilemma! Software infringement, but open source code is legal, who bears the responsibility? “, The header image is from: GitHub
In recent years, with the popularization of streaming media, more movies and TV series have been moved online. Users can watch them anytime and anywhere with the help of mobile phones and tablets. They only need to spend some money to open a member account, and they can have a large The content of the movie library. However, for some users, who will pay for free? As a result, the open source project Popcorn Time has facilitated this segment of the population. It can point to links to pirated sites, pirated APIs and pirated torrent trackers, which are used to download pirated movies and TV shows.
For this reason, Popcorn Time has become a thorn in the eyes of film companies. But what annoys them even more is that the developers of Popcorn Time hosted their software code on GitHub, which means that more people can download and modify the code, and the variants and derivative versions of Popcorn Time will never be disappear.
So, on May 5, Beijing time, the American Film Association, which represents major US film companies and streaming companies, submitted to GitHubThe DMCA removed the notice, saying that the open source project Popcorn Time widely violated the copyrights of movies and TV shows, and many streaming companies, including Netflix, suffered from it. GitHub then closed the open source library of Popcorn Time as required.
However, Popcorn Time also responded to this. They filed a complaint that the code itself does not contain any infringing elements, so they hope GitHub can restore the code base.
Popcorn Time Appeal Material
In the face of conflicting requests, Github has now restored the repository, but this practice has once again caused dissatisfaction with the American Film Association, but what they will do next is not yet known.
Looking back at the whole incident, an interesting question is highlighted:
Undoubtedly, the Popcorn Time app brings piracy and infringement, but the code hosted by GitHub itself does not constitute infringement. Therefore, “software infringement, code innocence” seems to be an unsolvable problem on GitHub.
The code is used by others, is GitHub responsible?
Something similar to the above incident is not rare.
Presumably many readers know that the FBI (FBI) has been fighting Apple for many years. In 2016, a shooting occurred in San Bernardino, USA, killing 14 people and injuring 22 people. The FBI responsible for the investigation hopes that Apple will open a data backdoor for them.In order to facilitate the investigation of the case.
However, Apple refused and claimed that the other party requested more than simply opening an iPhone, but also required permission to open millions of iPhones, so it rejected the request .
Finally, the case ended with FBI buying third-party apps to crack.
When the tug of war between Apple and the FBI ends is still unknown, but a tool developed by a hacker seems to terminate the game early.
The hacking team Pwn20wnd released the latest version of the “jailbreak” tool on May 24, claiming that it can unlock every iPhone, even including the latest iOS 13.5 version system. This tool is currently published on GitHub .
The details of the vulnerabilities used by hackers to jailbreak are unclear, but just as the jailbreakers are trying to find a way out, Apple is also quickly fixing the vulnerabilities and closing the jailbreak.
The same question arises: if this tool is used by a person or organization that has become a “master key” to crack each iPhone, the privacy of the user is threatened, is GitHub responsible for such a thing? ?
This is reminiscent of Deepfake, an “AI face-changing” project that started two years ago. Although GitHub as a code hosting platform has permanently blocked it, its impact and derivative products are still circulating on the Internet. Health, it is almost impossible to cut off forever.
Conclusion
“Software infringement, code is not guilty”, “Technology is not guilty, the wrong is the person who abuses the technology” … Discussions on similar incidents are still in the air, but to this day, we have not seen any reasonable solutions released . The impact has been formed, and the infringement is a fact. However, the code itself does not contain any infringing or illegal elements. The defenders and intellectual property protection parties seem to make sense. What about the GitHub sandwiched in the middle, it is really difficult … …
Reference link:
https://torrentfreak.com/github-reinstates-popcorn-time-code-despite-mpa-threat-200520/
https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/23/hackers-iphone-new-jailbreak/
https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/d7f4a6a3aade92999d4d86962972c4b27af820e3/2020/05/2020-05-04-MPA-counternotice.md
This article comes from the WeChat public account: AI frontline (ID: ai-front) author: Chen