OpenDNS 停止在法國的 DNS Resolver 服務

前陣子法國法院要求在 DNS 層阻擋的事情 (參考「Google Public DNS 接受法國法院的阻擋要求」) 有新的進度了,OpenDNS 直接停止在法國的 DNS Resolver 服務:「OpenDNS Suspends Service in France Due to Canal+ Piracy Blocking Order」。

不是把法國當地的服務停掉改由其他地區的 anycast 提供服務,而是在服務本身上面直接阻擋法國的使用者:

Reports of problems with the OpenDNS service seemed to begin on Friday, and it didn’t take long to discover the cause. The technical issues were isolated to France and apparently parts of Portugal too, with an explanation having appeared on the OpenDNS website, perhaps as early as Thursday evening.

網站上的公告則是:

Effective June 28, 2024: Due to a court order in France issued under Article L.333-10 of the French Sport code and a court order in Portugal issued under Article 210-G(3) of the Portuguese Copyright Code, the OpenDNS service is not currently available to users in France and certain French territories and in Portugal. We apologize for the inconvenience.

這下衝突升級了...

EULA 不能禁止使用者 decompile 修 bug

Hacker News Daily 上翻到的,歐洲法院認為 EULA 不能禁止使用者 decompile 修 bug:「EU court rules no EULA can forbid decompilation, if you want to fix a bug (europa.eu)」,官方的英文版文件在這邊可以翻到,不過原始判決是法文:

* Language of the case: French.

這是 Top System SA 與比利時政府打的訴訟,法院認為修 bug 而需要 decompile 這件事情是合法的,即使考慮到 Article 6 的規範:

In the light of the foregoing considerations, the answer to the first question referred is that Article 5(1) of Directive 91/250 must be interpreted as meaning that the lawful purchaser of a computer program is entitled to decompile all or part of that program in order to correct errors affecting its operation, including where the correction consists in disabling a function that is affecting the proper operation of the application of which that program forms a part.

In the light of the foregoing considerations, the answer to the second question referred is that Article 5(1) of Directive 91/250 must be interpreted as meaning that the lawful purchaser of a computer program who wishes to decompile that program in order to correct errors affecting the operation thereof is not required to satisfy the requirements laid down in Article 6 of that directive. However, that purchaser is entitled to carry out such a decompilation only to the extent necessary to effect that correction and in compliance, where appropriate, with the conditions laid down in the contract with the holder of the copyright in that program.

案子看起來應該還有得打?看起來好像不是最終判決...

REQUEST for a preliminary ruling under Article 267 TFEU from the Cour d’appel de Bruxelles (Court of Appeal, Brussels, Belgium), made by decision of 20 December 2019, received at the Court on 14 January 2020[.]

但不管怎樣,算是有些東西出來了... 然後 Hacker News 上面的討論就看到一些很歡樂的例子:

This becomes incredibly interesting in terms of e.g. Denuvo. This anti-piracy middleware has been shown to make games unplayable, and this EU law seems to support removing it.

哭啊怎麼提到該死的 Denuvo XDDD

GitHub 與 OpenAI 合作推出的 GitHub Copilot

Hacker News 首頁上的第一名看到 GitHubOpenAI 合作推出了 GitHub Copilot,對應的討論可以在「GitHub Copilot: your AI pair programmer (copilot.github.com)」這邊看到。

GitHub Copilot 會猜測你接下來會想要寫的「完整片段」,像是這樣:

不過 Hacker News 上面的討論有參與 alpha 測試的人的評價,大概 1/10 機率會猜對,即使如此,他還是給了很多有用的資訊 (像是函式與變數的名稱):

fzaninotto

I've been using the alpha for the past 2 weeks, and I'm blown away. Copilot guesses the exact code I want to write about one in ten times, and the rest of the time it suggests something rather good, or completely off. But when it guesses right, it feels like it's reading my mind.

It's really like pair programming, even though I'm coding alone. I have a better understanding of my own code, and I tend to give better names and descriptions to my methods. I write better code, documentation, and tests.

Copilot has made me a better programmer. No kidding. This is a huge achievement. Kudos to the GitHub Copilot team!

然後也有人笑稱總算找到理由寫 comment 了:

pfraze

They finally did it. They finally found a way to make me write comments

反過來的另外一個大問題就是 copyright,這點在目前的問答集沒看到... 在 Hacker News 裡面的討論有提到這點,但目前沒有完整的定論。

目前只支援 VSCode,以後也許會有機會透過 LSP 支援其他的編輯器?

另外我想到 Kite 這個 machine learning 的 auto complete 工具,沒有那麼強大但也還不錯?

Google 與 Oracle 對 Java API 爭議的案子

前幾天應該很多媒體都有報導了,這邊算是整理一下看到的資料。

美國最高法院公佈的全文在「18-956_d18f.pdf」這邊可以看到,算是最重要的資料。

另外很多地方也有更新,像是維基百科上面的條目「Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc.」。

這次的案件在軟體產業也很關注,難得可以在 Hacker News 上看到 upvote 超過四千的新聞:「Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf] (supremecourt.gov)」,不過裡面的討論我覺得就是鄉民拿著爆米花的感覺...

第一個重要的消息當然是 6-2 認定 fair use,並且讓聯邦法院重審 (但最高法院已經把最重要的部份拍板定案了),不過要注意的是,對於更基本的問題「API 是否有著作權」並沒有定案:

In April 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6–2 decision that Google's use of the Java APIs fell within the four factors of fair use, bypassing the question on the copyrightability of the APIs. The decision reversed the Federal Circuit ruling and remanded the case for further review.

判決全文 PDF 的前面三頁多算是簡介說明這次的重點,Page 44 到 Page 62 則是反對的兩位大法官 (Clarence ThomasSamuel Alito) 所提出的異議,可以看到兩位大法官批評了 copyrightability 與 fair-use analysis 的問題。

這次的結果對軟體與網路產業影響超級大,舉個例子來說,一堆公司都有推出與 Amazon S3 相容 API 的產品 (這邊是 Network-based API)。另外 Firefox 直接拿 Chromium 的 Manifest 格式來相容降低開發者開發 extension 的成本。

之後應該可以看到大家用的更爽了...

youtube-dl 被 RIAA 用 DMCA 打下來的事件

youtube-dl 的這件事情的後續影響意外的大 (引發了 Streisand effect),除了這算是 RIAA 的最新力作以外,還發生了好幾個首次出現的過程 (而且有些事情還在進行),值得花一些時間挑出幾個比較有趣的地方記錄。

在英文版維基百科的「youtube-dl」與中文版維基百科的「youtube-dl」上面也陸陸續續把發生的經過都記錄起來了,有興趣的人也可以去看看。

RIAA 的動作不算太意外,比較特別的是這次的 takedown notice 不是常見的 DMCA 512 侵權宣告,而是宣稱 youtube-dl 故意繞過 YouTube 的「保護機制」的工具:「The RIAA’s fraudulent attack on youtube-dl is not a DMCA §512 infringement/safe-harbour, and the reality is weird」,除了本身的文件以外,大家發現在 test case 裡面試著下載 YouTube 上的版權影片也可能是個明顯的問題。

另外是 GitHub 現在的 CEO,Nat Friedman,親自跑到 youtube-dl 的 IRC 上面「討論」後續可能的作法,這點也是讓大家愣住的地方:「RIAA’s YouTube-DL Takedown Ticks Off Developers and GitHub’s CEO」。

不過最近 GitHub 又警告了使用者不要重新上傳 youtube-dl 的程式碼,這有可能會被 ban XDDD:「GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned」,對應的修改在「add statement about reposting and tos violating content」這邊。

這齣戲還在演...

加拿大禁止透過 ISP 發送版權侵害通知

因為被濫用的關係,加拿大決定禁止版權擁有人透過 ISP 發送版權侵害通知:「Canada Prohibits Piracy Settlement Demands in ISP Copyright Notices」。

不過這個限制是有條件的,只有當通知裡面有包括任何形式的協議時才會被禁止:

Moving forward, rightsholders will not be allowed to send copyright infringement notices for ISPs to pass onto their customers, if they contain a direct or indirect offer to settle.

TorrentFreak 的文章裡也提到了,就是要阻止這樣的行為變成「產業」:

The development effectively ends Rightscorp-style business models in Canada.

這是條文:

Bill C-86, the Budget Implementation Act, has now received royal assent, so there will be some big changes in the Great White North. Section 41.‍25 of the Copyright Act is now amended with the addition of the following;

(3) A notice of claimed infringement shall not contain:

(a) an offer to settle the claimed infringement;
(b) a request or demand, made in relation to the claimed infringement, for payment or for personal information;
(c) a reference, including by way of hyperlink, to such an offer, request or demand; and
(d) any other information that may be prescribed by regulation.

歐盟對於盜版是否帶來傷害的研究

歐盟在 2014 年做了關於盜版與銷量的研究,結果一直被壓到最近才發表出來 (於是就大概可以猜到結論了...):「EU Piracy Report Suppression Raises Questions Over Transparency」。

“In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements,” the study notes.

甚至:

The study found that piracy had a slightly positive effect on the videogames industry, suggesting that those who play pirate games eventually become buyers of official content.

另外也描述了現有電影與 TV-series 定價策略偏高:

“Overall, the analysis indicates that for films and TV-series current prices are higher than 80 per cent of the illegal downloaders and streamers are willing to pay,” the study notes.

難怪被壓著...

最近最歡樂 (?) 的 DMCA Takedown...

最近最歡樂的 DMCA Takedown 消息,FoxFamily Guy (蓋酷家庭) 的劇情裡引用了一段從 YouTube 上的遊戲影片 (Double Dribble - NES - Automatic Shot),然後節目播出後 Fox 發 DMCA Takedown 下架掉這個影片:「Fox 'Stole' a Game Clip, Used it in Family Guy & DMCA'd the Original」。

Family Guy 那段片段在「Family Guy Double Dribble」這邊可以看到。

只要在沒有嚴格的懲罰機制 (懲罰「偽造版權擁有人」的行為),這種大公司侵犯小市民權利的現象只會愈來愈嚴重...

音樂著作的授權架構

TorrentFreak 上看到「YouTube Copyright Complaint Kills Harvard Professor's Copyright Lecture (Update)」這篇文章提到了 YouTube 下架了「William Fisher, CopyrightX: Lecture 3.3, The Subject Matter of Copyright: Music」這部影片。

有兩件事情吸引我,第一件是,這是哈佛法學院的教授 William Fisher 的課程在說明音樂產業的著作權以及授權架構的線上影片,被 SME (i.e. Sony) 透過 YouTube 的 ContentID 以侵犯版權給下架了... XDDD (瞬間把板凳給拉出來坐著等)

第二件事情是在這個影片恢復後跑去看而發現的,發現描述音樂產業的授權模式講的相當清楚 (以美國的觀點),尤其當你身在這個產業裡 (yeah yeah),要因為這些授權架構不斷的改變,去修改現有的資料庫設計以配合授權架構,就會更有感覺了。

這個影片另外一個值得讀的地方在於他有手工翻譯的英文字幕可以看,有興趣看這個產業裡的各種複雜的授權架構的人,絕對值得觀看這 24 分鐘的影片: