[HN Gopher] Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site arc...
___________________________________________________________________
Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data
sheets
Author : DyslexicAtheist
Score : 334 points
Date : 2021-01-08 08:34 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| b1ackb0x wrote:
| I don't understand why chipmakers seem to always restrict access
| to documentation on chips. Their competitors will get it anyway.
| This only creates more problems for small developers.
| segfaultbuserr wrote:
| > _This only creates more problems for small developers._
|
| This is exactly why: to stop small developers from buying them.
| There are three types of components in the electronics world to
| my observation.
|
| 1. Components for the general public (e.g. opamps,
| microcontrollers, power supply controllers) - the datasheets
| are publicly available. This is probably 70% of the
| marketplace.
|
| 2. Components for the OEM - Some components are only meant to
| be sold to OEMs in huge quantity. For example, a company may
| sell $1 LCD controllers, if such a company is only interested
| in selling to huge manufacturers for big money, they often
| classify their datasheets as "confidential" - it's a joke, the
| only purpose is stop small developers from wasting their time.
| Whether it's a Type-2 part heavily depends on the company. For
| example, a big U.S. semiconductor company may sell it to the
| general public, but a cheap Taiwanese vendor often classifies
| all the information as confidential.
|
| 3. Security through obscurity. If the chip contains unique or
| advanced technology, for example, the latest generation of NAND
| flash or SoC, the datasheet is classified to make it more
| difficult for other people to do market research. Similarly,
| the payment card and consumer DRM vendors essentially own the
| security chip industry, selling channels of the chip and
| availability of the datasheets are tightly controlled.
|
| Type-2 and Type-3 are responsible for the most frustrating
| experience. If you are an independent kernel hacker who wants
| to port Linux to a new gadget, not being able to get the
| datasheet of the $1 LCD controller because it's "confidential"
| is a real headache.
|
| But as I mentioned previously, Type-2 chips are not really
| secret - the confidentiality is only meant to stop small
| developers from bothering them. Thus, the chips themselves can
| usually be found for sale on the Shenzhen electronics
| marketplace, and it's often possible to find numerous leaked
| datasheets on the web. You can also reverse engineer consumer
| gadgets as a reference design. For example, Realtek Ethernet
| controllers, 100% of the public datasheets are leaked by
| insiders. If it's not, sometimes getting the datasheet may be
| possible you do some social engineering, "we are prototyping a
| new product based on the LCD controller chip, now our problem
| is register xxh..."
|
| On the other hand, if it's Type-3, don't even think about it.
|
| The vast majority of products by TI are Type-I: Usually all
| technical documentation is provided on the website, with
| schematics, PCB layouts, and reference designs (unless it's a
| specialized chip for a particular application). I recently used
| a TI chip in my design just because of the availability of
| documentation.
|
| > _Here is TI DMCAing a bunch of random datasheets. Completely
| jellybean stuff like 555s, 74xx logic, and op-amps. Nope nope
| nope nope. This is crazy._
|
| These chips don't even belong to the Type-2 category. It's
| unreasonable to send DMCA takedown notices in terms of
| security-through-obscurity. The only explanation I can see is
| TI's overzealous corporate policies.
| cushychicken wrote:
| This is an exceptionally crisp explanation.
|
| TI is great to work with on Type 1 chips. They're nowhere
| near the worst in the Type 3 category. (Looking at you,
| Qualcomm and Marvell.)
|
| I totally agree that the DMCA notices issued don't make much
| sense, given this context. I just get irritated by OSHW folks
| acting like their business means something to TI. They are
| ants crying in the footprints of elephants.
| b1ackb0x wrote:
| Last time I had to find in-depth documentation on a fairly
| common and new SONY image sensor, there was nothing available
| officially, found it in some chinese file sharing site though.
| Seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot by not
| opening it.
| varispeed wrote:
| I think this may be some bigger market fixing situation -
| only big and already established corporations would get
| documentation preventing any competition to emerge.
| b1ackb0x wrote:
| They could easily control it by selling chips to big
| players only if they want.
| varispeed wrote:
| I am not sure if that would be legal. Many countries have
| provisions against market fixing.
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| Too conspicuous
| finiteloops wrote:
| In addition to the other answers, it is also a cheap way to do
| inbound sales. I've seen OSS downloads utilize this for the
| same reason.
| blowfish721 wrote:
| Could it be a legacy culture thing? If you've ever dealt with
| traditional broadcast vendors it's the same thing there,
| impossible to get even basic documentation and manuals without
| having an authorized account in most cases. Really is
| frustrating when you try to shop around for a new setup and all
| you can get is marketing material.
| canofbars wrote:
| Most likely. The open source movement in software was still
| relatively recently and quite radical. The hardware companies
| are still stuck way in the past.
| PoachedSausage wrote:
| >The hardware companies are still stuck way in the past.
|
| If only. In the past it was common to provide schematics of
| your hardware in order that people could repair it. This
| was common for consumer products, industrial,
| instrumentation, test gear, almost everything. For example,
| the manual for the Amiga 500 had the schematics in it.
| diggan wrote:
| Also "hardware companies are still stuck way in the past"
| is only true for some hardware companies. Recently got
| into music production and lots of hardware comes with
| schematics of the inner workings with descriptions on how
| it all works and is connected, together with
| implementation guides for MIDI and more. Night and day if
| you compare to how computer hardware gets sold today.
| zwog wrote:
| I don't know if this is only with music hardware or with
| 'professional' hardware in general, but yeah you get a
| lot of schematics and such.
|
| While I was at University I made some money by repairing
| DJ-hardware. Controllers, CD-Players and Turntables.
| There things are often expensive, but they are quite easy
| to repair because there are detailed service manuals
| available. Not on the official sites, though.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"The hardware companies are still stuck way in the past."
|
| Example: in the past my friend bought Moog Prodigy
| synthesizer and along with everything it also came with all
| the electronic circuitry diagrams. Good luck finding
| anything like this with the modern hardware.
| diggan wrote:
| It's the same today I think. Recently bought a Moog Sirin
| (released in 2019, compared to Prodigy that was released
| in 1979[?]) that also comes with a circuit diagram.
| Couple of other synths I own does the same.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "The hardware companies are still stuck way in the past."
|
| You wish they were stuck in the past. People like Steve
| Wozniak often designed new stuff only based on the manuals
| that back then had complete schematics in them. They didn't
| have enough money first to buy anything but that
| information later on resulted in sales.
| kps wrote:
| And in turn the Apple II manual included schematics and
| ROM listings.
| adrian_b wrote:
| On the contrary, this is not legacy, it is a new fashion.
|
| The electronics and computers industries have been built
| initially based on free detailed documentation from all the
| manufacturers of components.
|
| When I was a student in electronics, I learned more from
| datasheets and application notes than from most university
| manuals.
|
| All companies continued to provide good technical
| documentation until close to the year 2000.
|
| With the growth of the Internet I believed that it will
| become easier than ever to get technical documentation, as it
| could be now downloaded instead of having to get printed
| copies.
|
| Unfortunately, at the end of the nineties a lot of negative
| tendencies have appeared. Many large electronics companies
| with decades of successful histories were split (e.g.
| Motorola, Siemens, Philips and others) and their successors
| seem to have lost most of their previous experience.
|
| A large number of other electronics companies have started a
| descending evolution and, sooner or later, between 2000 and
| 2020, they were bought by competitors, so now only a handful
| of US non-fabless manufacturers of semiconductor devices have
| survived.
|
| At the same time the incomprehensible fashion of requiring
| Non-Disclosure Agreements for getting the complete datasheets
| or even any datasheets has become more and more widespread.
|
| This policy of the NDA has been conceived by morons who have
| not the slightest idea about how an electronics product is
| designed.
|
| Whenever I design a new product, I need first to be able to
| read all the datasheets of all the products that might have
| even an extremely remote chance to be useful, to decide and
| select what I could use.
|
| I will not bother to sign an NDA to learn about products that
| might be not useful at all for me.
|
| The only positive effect that the NDA may have for a producer
| is that it might prevent the already existing customers to
| redesign their products, because they might not bother to
| obtain similar NDA from other vendors. On the other hand
| requesting NDA's will deter many potential new customers,
| especially due to the insistence on providing an estimated
| sales volume, before signing the NDA.
|
| That is stupid, because before seeing the information under
| NDA I have no idea if I would ever want to buy 1 sample, much
| less 1 million pieces per year.
|
| Managers seem much happier about NDA's than designers,
| because they frequently feel like they are some sort of
| special bond with the vendor and the information under NDA
| provides some sort of competitive advantage, but that is
| extremely far from the truth.
|
| In most cases the only valuable information contained in the
| datasheets under NDA was about horrible bugs that required
| complex workarounds. If I had known about the bugs before the
| NDA, I might have never chosen those components, so maybe
| that was a desirable feature of the NDA for the vendor.
|
| The end result is that when I was young and I designed
| anything, I could choose any component from a large number
| and I could easily select the best for my specific needs.
| Moreover, in many cases I could find a method to use in a
| novel way something that was not intended for my particular
| application, but due to the good documentation I could
| understand whether it would be good for different uses.
|
| Now there is frequently just one remaining producer for any
| component, or if there are more of them, you might need to
| choose one by lottery, because without the information under
| NDA you cannot know who has the product more suited for you,
| and you can sign the NDA only if you are already committed to
| buy that product and not another.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > The only positive effect that the NDA may have for a
| producer is that it might prevent the already existing
| customers to redesign their products, because they might
| not bother to obtain similar NDA from other vendors.
|
| That's a positive from their competitors requiring an NDA,
| not for they requiring one.
|
| Anyway, large software sellers benefit a lot from stupid
| procedures from their clients that create a huge cost to
| start buying from a new supplier (like passing all
| suppliers through legal or having a management vote for
| them). If all hardware manufacturers require NDAs, they can
| force their buyers into creating similar procedures,
| closing the market for new entrants.
| ballenf wrote:
| Stabbing a bit in the dark, but maybe TI wants to prevent a
| competitor from being to say "we didn't steal anything from
| you, we got all this info from sites that you were perfectly
| happy to let continue to operate freely".
|
| The legal departments within companies have very, very
| different measures of success than that of just about anyone
| else. If you have weak company leadership, legal will start to
| drive policy more than it should.
| minimuffins wrote:
| > If you have weak company leadership, legal will start to
| drive policy more than it should.
|
| That's a really interesting dynamic I have never experienced
| or heard of. Explains a lot! Do you know other examples?
|
| (ed. clarify which part I wanted examples for)
| varispeed wrote:
| It is to create barriers to entry where possible. If you are
| rent-seeking greedy co, then why would you give away useful
| knowledge, not to mention for free? Also good documentation
| could make you create a replacement product or have better
| understanding what to look for in a substitute.
| b1ackb0x wrote:
| Not really, they are only making it less likely that we use
| their chip in our product because we never tested it and
| can't make a prototype with it.
| cushychicken wrote:
| Because in semiconductor business land, not showing what your
| most cutting edge products are, and who's buying them, helps
| you develop business opportunities and product lines several
| years ahead of your competitors.
|
| It's a very different game than Intel's business model, which
| depended on a pure performance play and being 18-36 months
| ahead of all competitors tech wise. TI's strategy requires way
| more customer contact and development, because analog
| applications are so much more specific.
| Noxmiles wrote:
| That is the problem, when many sites are hosted in the same
| country (USA). DMCA = US law.
| lmilcin wrote:
| While I wonder to what end TI does this and whether this is even
| legal, I don't see much problem for me as a hobbyist EE.
|
| I just refuse to buy parts without datasheet except for parts
| that don't need explaining.
| Unklejoe wrote:
| It's funny because most (if not all?) of their datasheets are
| freely available for download right from their website.
|
| Why would they bother doing this?
| mjevans wrote:
| Using copyright tools to try to contain published documentation
| of facts about anything is roughly where, if possible, I boycott
| anything involved with that company to the maximum reasonable
| extent.
|
| It is clear that TI no longer has an interest in developing new
| products, or figuring out better ways of making existing
| products, and would instead like to rent-seek and make the world
| a smaller place.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| I remember the "golden age" of chip makers in the 80s giving a
| bookshelf of datasheets to every engineer who asked. (At the
| time, if you mailed a circuit design to an inside rep, he would
| also mail you all the chips for free to build it, regardless of
| price.)
|
| Since then, some mfgs. have been restricting datasheets to
| avoid potential patent litigation.
|
| This might be the case here. Possibly another example of death
| by a thousand cuts as our society gets more regimented.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Computers in the 80s also came with schematics that showed
| users how to repair, modify and extend their system. I've
| seen videos of people hooking up their electronics projects
| to a C64.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| That was clear when Nokia fell and took down TI's OMAP
| processors with them and they just gave up to Quallcomm's
| Snapdragon without even putting up a fight.
|
| TI is now just rentseeking on their ananlog dominance and
| whatever sinking boat Intel is, TI is way worse.
| foldr wrote:
| TI have some sweet analogue products with very high
| performance and (just as importantly) excellent
| documentation. For example I've been very happy with
| https://www.ti.com/product/TPS61098 If you're not trying to
| shave every cent off BOM costs, it's worth paying a premium
| for high quality datasheets.
| bayindirh wrote:
| > TI is now just rentseeking on their ananlog dominance and
| whatever sinking boat Intel is, TI is way worse.
|
| Burr Brown opamps and DSPs are enough to keep the legacy of
| TI alive. OMAPs are just DSPs with processor cores. They were
| not designed to be fast first.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Except Nokia is pretty much around, their business was more
| than just mobile phones, and happen to own Bell Labs
| nowadays.
| johnnycerberus wrote:
| Nokia's Bell Labs is only focused on 5G and 6G
| technologies. I mean judging by the papers they release
| they are now a far cry from the wide research spectrum that
| they had before.
| pjmlp wrote:
| The point being they still exist and focus on what is
| profitable.
| syshum wrote:
| TI is about 10 years ahead of Intel, but rest assured we will
| be commenting on threads about Intel doing things like this
| in 10 years or less
| BostonEnginerd wrote:
| They made a conscious decision to focus their efforts on
| where they're able to be a leader. They saw early on that
| they couldn't compete in advanced logic with the Asian
| foundries without making astronomical investments -- so they
| decided to compete in a non-feature size dominated market.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If they created that analog dominance, it's hard for me to
| see that as rent-seeking. Cash cowing perhaps.
| alexhutcheson wrote:
| TI might not be focused on phones and multimedia devices
| anymore, but their DSP chips are extremely well regarded, and
| some of their other chips are popular for industrial
| automation.
|
| I don't think "rentseeking on their analog dominance" is a
| fair characterization.
| cushychicken wrote:
| It's hard not to view this sort of stuff as saber rattling
| (or, more accurately, whining) from the OSHW community.
|
| TI is more than happy to work with you on their most
| cutting edge designs if you're shipping in appreciable
| volume. Talking a quarter million chips or more per year.
| That's just the way the wind blows in their business. Gotta
| recoup as much R&D expenditure as possible up front. I've
| worked with them on these sorts of designs. They employ
| tons of really sharp engineers and still make lots of high
| quality, very useful chips. You just have to buy enough of
| them for it to be worth it for TI to work with you.
|
| No OSHW application I know of has ever moved enough units
| to cross this bar. Not even close.
| snoopen wrote:
| What makes you think it's the OSHW community? If TI will
| work with you only if you're high vol then I could see a
| lot of smaller businesses seeing this tactic working
| against them too.
| cushychicken wrote:
| In TI's eyes - that is, through the lens of order volume
| and support needed by the customer from TI - the
| difference between a single small business building HW
| and a single OSHW is negligible.
|
| They get way more ROI by heavily supporting bigCos who
| will give them millions of dollars of business YOY rather
| than helping a zillion mom and pop shops who can barely
| wire a resistor the right way.
|
| Think of it as a tacit strategy of "firing your worst
| customers". Having worked in bigCo vs small Co, there are
| a _lot_ of small Co and OSHW EEs who barely have a clue
| what they 're doing. It's not worth TI's time or money to
| help these people out. Upleveling lousy engineers thru
| support only to net them a 10 piece part order, is a
| really lousy ROI. (Unless of course we're talking an ASIC
| or some other astronomically high ROI custom piece. But,
| I'm assuming that we're not, because I don't work for a
| military prime contractor.)
| ryukafalz wrote:
| I can understand hardware vendors not actively working
| with you on designs unless you're buying in volume.
| That's fine, they're a business, they have to make money
| and not lose money.
|
| What I don't understand about the hardware industry is
| the extent to which they _actively restrict access to
| information on how their product works_ unless you 're
| buying in volume. Why is it necessary to have layers of
| NDAs on a product datasheet? Many of the people who might
| write software to integrate with some hardware are not
| the people manufacturing high-volume products based on
| it! (See: Linux driver developers.)
| cushychicken wrote:
| _Why is it necessary to have layers of NDAs on a product
| datasheet? Many of the people who might write software to
| integrate with some hardware are not the people
| manufacturing high-volume products based on it!_
|
| Because obscuring the use case and the customer of a
| cutting edge chip is a semiconductor company's most
| reasonable moat these days. If you telegraph what big
| customers are buying by freely sharing your most cutting
| edge product portfolio, someone else will copy it.
| (Probably someone in China with a hefty dose of subsidy
| from the gov't.) Classic case of "Your margin is my
| opportunity."
|
| ADI or On Semi can, and _will_ , catch TI after 18-36
| months of development effort. The longer TI can keep them
| off their tail by making it hard to see what customers
| are buying, the more profit they can make without a
| reasonable competitor on the market.
|
| Software is a commodity that TI distributes as a
| compliment to the thing that actually makes them money,
| which is selling chips. For analog circuits, this is
| completely irrelevant, and doesn't affect their operating
| procedure. For processors and peripherals that require
| drivers, it's a cost of doing business for them - _not_
| an enabling feature.
| welterde wrote:
| Don't you loose out on potential customers though? Since
| they will also be unaware it exists.
| dbuder wrote:
| The big customers are the only ones who matter. They are
| all like this. The DMCA would have been the pearl
| clutching lawyers. I used to think it was short sighted
| but I'm not so sure anymore, I think they could all be
| better to their customers and their firmware examples etc
| could be multiple orders of magnitude better and it
| wouldn't hurt the bottom line.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| >Software is a commodity that TI distributes as a
| compliment to the thing that actually makes them money,
| which is selling chips. ... For processors and
| peripherals that require drivers, it's a cost of doing
| business for them - not an enabling feature.
|
| It's a cost of doing business that would be ameliorated
| by telling people how to use the product, because then
| they're not the only ones able to do the work. I'll use
| Linux drivers again as an example: I can only imagine the
| money it must cost for these SoC manufacturers to keep
| their kernel forks with binary blob drivers up to date
| with mainline Linux, and the security vulnerabilities
| that go unpatched in their products when they don't.
| That's money that Intel and AMD just don't have to spend;
| they contribute to the kernel, yes, but they're far from
| the only ones doing the work.
| cushychicken wrote:
| _It 's a cost of doing business that would be ameliorated
| by telling people how to use the product, because then
| they're not the only ones able to do the work_
|
| ...if you're talking about processors, sure. But only
| talking about processors gives a really narrow view of
| TI's business, and doesn't add any context into why they
| sell the way they do. They make a _ton_ of money on
| analog applications that require no OSSW support at all.
| They know how to sell chips that way - they 've been
| doing it for fifty plus years. They are an analog company
| that didn't get into the processor business until
| comparatively recently. I'm sure a bunch of this cloak
| and dagger around datasheets is legacy holdover from an
| analog sales world. They know what they are doing in that
| department, without doubt.
|
| As to why they're DMCA'ing someone for a 50 year old
| datasheet - I'd guess it's as simple an explanation as
| someone in Legal carrying out their boss's mandate.
| Nothing more, nothing less.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _I can understand hardware vendors not actively working
| with you on designs unless you 're buying in volume._
|
| I also understand. But in some ways I disagree: set a
| higher price instead. Let me, the customer, decide if the
| price is too high.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| That's always weird to me. Other companies do the same by
| hiding specs and documentation from people who aren't
| paying big money. I always thought it was supposed to be
| better to spread your information as widely as possible
| so people can familiarize themselves with your product
| resulting in potential future sales.
| cushychicken wrote:
| _I always thought it was supposed to be better to spread
| your information as widely as possible so people can
| familiarize themselves with your product resulting in
| potential future sales._
|
| That makes a lot of sense - if you're building a software
| platform.
|
| If you're building a chip, it makes sense to be the first
| mover on the cutting edge. By obscuring specs, your
| competitors won't know what specs are the most valuable
| to your customers. That sort of thing is critically
| important to semiconductor business.
| jrockway wrote:
| The datasheets are under NDA because they give each
| volume customer a different datasheet. You go to a sales
| call and say you want X, and then their engineering
| department prepares a datasheet saying that their product
| supports X. (Obviously the hardware supports X, but it
| may be kind of broken, so it's easier to tell customers
| that don't ask for it by name that it's not there.)
| cushychicken wrote:
| An excellent point.
|
| Alternatively, some customer pays an absurd amount of
| money to add Function X to the chip, and pays a premium
| to be the only customer who can use Function X.
| rjsw wrote:
| I was told that they sent one to Bitsavers for the TI Explorer
| Lisp Machine documentation.
| Tepix wrote:
| This is obviously wrong. The best way to remedy this is probably
| to contact TI as a (potential) investor, not complain here.
|
| Link: https://investor.ti.com/resources/contact-us
| bborud wrote:
| In my experience (from a few large companies) I'm afraid this
| would accomplish exactly nothing. It is wishful thinking.
|
| The only way to reach most companies is to turn up on their PR
| radar. If something is seen as potentially damaging to their
| brand your concern will enter the company at a place in the
| organization which will have a far more direct channel to
| someone who can make decisions.
|
| If you go through their investor feedback channel, unless you
| own a fair chunk of shares in the company or represent major
| shareholders, they will ignore you. Of course, if you are a
| major investor you wouldn't contact them through that channel
| anyway. You would already have a relationship to someone in, or
| close to, top management who is responsible for handling major
| stakeholders.
| Tepix wrote:
| You want to get the message through to those who are
| responsible. Whether it's via the Investor contact or the
| Press contact doesn't really matter, as long as whoever came
| up with this decision has to justify it in front of the other
| executives.
| williamtwild wrote:
| Short of the 1% it is unlikley they are going to care about
| your $500 in an IRA or some robinhood junky
| crististm wrote:
| The contact-us is a box to speak into that would make you feel
| better that you did something when you hit 'send'. If you think
| you will achieve anything significant with it, think again.
| Imagine that _you_ are TI and you receive a couple of messages
| there. You will think (probably even anticipate) this is
| clearly the public's reaction to a decision that you thought
| through, which is not a typo or day-to-day error. So you will
| thank them for their concern and will carry on with your
| business!
|
| A better remedy would be to publicly shame them about what they
| just did. TI will still carry on with their business but others
| will just know better than to engage with TI in the future!
| laydn wrote:
| TI has also cancelled distribution agreements with several of
| their top distributors recently. (Avnet, etc).
|
| They have a few global distributors remaining, and if you talk to
| any of them for a new design, you'll notice they try to avoid
| promoting TI parts because of TI's new pricing and commission
| policies.
| PoachedSausage wrote:
| I had noticed that the UK distributors that I use on a regular
| basis, RS and Farnell, have stopped hosting TI's datasheets on
| their sites. It makes it quite annoying to make a quick check
| to see if the part does what I want.
|
| Whats up at TI? They used to be great for datasheets and
| Appnotes.
| bborud wrote:
| Does this indicate that TI are in financial trouble?
| lights0123 wrote:
| Nothing like making it harder to buy their products if
| they're in trouble!
| ZeWaren wrote:
| All datasheets should be uploaded to libgen or similar platforms
| so that they're always accessible to anyone needing them.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| I hope someone takes care of this.
| benedikt wrote:
| never uploaded anything to libgen, but i am setting up a http
| mirror of this and will also provide a .zip file, to make it
| easy for others to download the whole collection.
|
| posting the link here when its done, then someone else can
| submit this to libgen and other places.
| benedikt wrote:
| my mirror is here: https://mirrors.deadops.de/ti/
|
| zip file (8gb) here: https://mirrors.deadops.de/ti.zip
| Mizza wrote:
| I once got a DMCA takedown request (well, Wikipedia did because
| of my edit) from Texas Instruments for the following numbers:
|
| p =
| B709D3A0CD2FEC08EAFCCF540D8A100BB38E5E091D646ADB7B14D021096FFCD
|
| q =
| B7207BD184E0B5A0B89832AA68849B29EDFB03FBA2E8917B176504F08A96246CB
|
| d =
| 4D0534BA8BB2BFA0740BFB6562E843C7EC7A58AE351CE11D43438CA239DD9927
| 6CD125FEBAEE5D2696579FA3A3958FF4FC54C685EAA91723BC8888F292947BA1
|
| which can be used to sign firmware for the TI-83+. This lead to
| the creation of the Wikipedia "black lock" on articles, meaning
| they can't be edited because of internal Wikipedia corporate
| policy, which didn't previously exist.
|
| Wikipedia eventually won the dispute, and they host the numbers
| here:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_signing_key_...
| suifbwish wrote:
| Just wait till GAN neural networks are more wide spread and
| refined. Is someone liable for copyright violation if their GAN
| neural network was trained on copyrighted images? The a refined
| version of the resulting GAN model can be used in reverse to
| generate false convincing variations of the original
| copyrighted media. Is anyone liable?
| yummypaint wrote:
| Should not be different than a human artist producing
| something after looking at other media. The purpose of
| copyright is supposed to be to allow people to profit from
| their works by prohibiting their distribution by others. It
| seems to me the question of whether one work is a copy of
| another would be made on the basis of the works themselves,
| and should be independent of who the artists were. There is
| also a right to parody, and no inherent reason parody can't
| be produced in an automated fashion.
| jtbayly wrote:
| In the eyes of the law it might not be different, but in
| the practical upshot it is. Running the program may well
| produce a copyright-violating image, and you'd never know.
| An artist would have a much harder time doing that without
| knowing he was doing it. So then somebody sues you for
| using their copyrighted work and shows you their original,
| and you're left scratching your head, pointing at the
| computer.
| Spivak wrote:
| If you put copyrighted works into the NN training data
| then only copyrighted works will come out. The NN itself
| would be a derivative work and a copyright violation as
| well without the appropriate licenses.
|
| If you don't put copyrighted works into the NN but then
| feed a copyrighted work to it as an input the result is
| still copyrighted.
|
| I really don't find this that complicated. NN's having a
| license that is a composite of the software license and
| the licenses of the training data feels super natural.
|
| See: What color are your bits?
| https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
| jtbayly wrote:
| > The NN itself would be a derivative work and a
| copyright violation as well without the appropriate
| licenses.
|
| This seems reasonable at first, but not the more I think
| about it. Copyright is not like an AGPL software license
| that claims/poisons everything it touches.
|
| The NN is not an artistic work and probably should not be
| considered a derivative work any more than your brain or
| memory of a copyrighted work should be considered a
| derivative work. Likewise, the outputted work of a NN is
| not automatically a derivative work any more than the
| work of an artist that has been inspired by other
| artists' copyrighted content is. That's just not how
| copyright works.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Copyright is not like an AGPL software license that
| claims/poisons everything it touches.
|
| Obviously, it is, since the only mechanism copyleft
| licenses have to claim/poison things the licensed
| material "touches" is the copyright doctrine of
| derivative works, and the licensable exclusive rights the
| original work's copyright owner has to create derivative
| works.
| jtbayly wrote:
| I don't think that's quite right. They can prohibit your
| use of the program unless you agree to and follow the
| rules they establish. They are able to do that
| prohibition using copyright, but isn't it proof that
| copyright doesn't necessarily do that the fact that there
| are other very different licenses?
| zdragnar wrote:
| Copyright, by default, is not at all permissive. Every
| license (including viral ones) are _more_ permissive than
| the legal default standing, not less.
|
| This is why one company I worked for refused to let us
| use Webpack 1.x- a dependency of a dependency was an
| ancient npm module from the time that adding licenses to
| modules wasn't very common. It wasnt until the 2.x line
| came out that they finally updated to a version that
| updated to a version that didn't have that problem.
| hedora wrote:
| If it goes the same way as the rest of the internet, we'll be
| in a situation where they're illegal, but large "too big to
| fail" companies will be exempt from the law.
|
| (For examples of what I mean, see any copyright dispute
| involving YouTube, Dropbox, etc. or the repercussions of
| illegal content on pornhub vs. Facebook.)
| monocasa wrote:
| I hope it doesn't turn out like patents, where everyone is
| infringing and there's a huge pressure to own "defensive"
| bodies of works.
|
| In this context I can see that being another pressure which
| assures that large models are only able to be built by FAANG
| style companies.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| Wow, that's crazy! It is a wild concept that certain numbers
| could be deemed "illegal"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number
| dwohnitmok wrote:
| Any piece of data can be represented as a single number. In
| the limit your entire computer is a single number (all those
| 0s and 1s can either be interpreted as separate numbers or as
| one gigantic number).
|
| If any data is ever illegal then by association certain
| numbers are also illegal.
|
| EDIT: The Wikipedia article points this out.
| h_anna_h wrote:
| child porn images are numbers
| jdc wrote:
| You're not wrong, but this is a slippery slope to go down.
|
| _8.3.4. "How will privacy and anonymity be attacked?"_
|
| _[...]_
|
| _like so many other "computer hacker" items, as a tool for
| the "Four Horsemen": drug-dealers, money-launderers,
| terrorists, and pedophiles._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocaly
| p...
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Not really. We've decided as a society that information
| can be illegal. Whether that information is encrypted,
| obfuscated, or whatever, it is still illegal. Everything
| is a number if you abstract it enough and any number can
| be transformed into any other number easily. As long as
| it can be shown that the numbers you're publishing are
| intentionally being published for the purpose of
| providing illegal information, you're breaking the law.
|
| The legal system is not like a computer system and tech
| people who think they can fool it with simple tricks like
| it was a computer system are in for an unpleasant
| surprise.
| Anon1096 wrote:
| It isn't the number that is illegal, it's the number plus
| information on how to use it.
| corrund wrote:
| Why not just add 1 to the number (and mention it in the text)?
| When this fails, add 2, and so on.
| cxr wrote:
| Laws are not bytecode sequences, and courts are not dumb VMs,
| no matter how much programmers want them to be.
| muttled wrote:
| I would assume most judges would view this akin to ignoring
| the DMCA request. It would be like altering a single bit in
| an MP3 and saying that it's no longer the exact original,
| even though you put out instructions telling the downloader
| to change the bit back.
| [deleted]
| syshum wrote:
| Copyright was designed to further human civilization as now
| become one of if not the greatest threat to the advancement of
| human civilization.
|
| Copyright must be reworked,and reduced. back to AT MOST the
| original 14 years plus 1 extension of 14 year to the original
| human creator (not a company)
|
| Failure to do this will continue to see humanity limited in our
| growth
| Taniwha wrote:
| Marketing stupidity at its highest - if they were doing their job
| properly they would be doing everything possible to put their
| data sheets in front of as many designers as possible - I'll just
| find someone else's part that does the job and choose that
| b1ackb0x wrote:
| And it's not just TI, the whole industry is like that. Not only
| datasheets, most of developer documentation is not available
| for very common chips.
| varispeed wrote:
| For example Apple is known for having part suppliers to not
| sell parts to third parties. I wouldn't be surprised if these
| type of deals but more secret existed, so that big corporations
| can ensure there won't be any new competition coming up, as
| they wouldn't have the same access to parts or documentation.
| supermatt wrote:
| Its not even that TI are asking to de-index data sheets - they
| are asking to deindex TI products from 3rd party stores.
|
| For example, DMCA notice:
| https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/18049758?access_token=...
|
| First link from "ALLEGEDLY INFRINGING URLS":
| https://www.distrelec.de/en/multivibrator-monostable-pdip-te...
|
| They are pretty much all the same - product links. Did google
| simply obey this and delist the URLs? How is this even legal.
|
| TI recently dropped some distributers - maybe they are doing this
| as a way of removing 3rd party retailers under guise of copyright
| violations - DMCA abuse, pure and simple. Should be HEAVY
| penalties for this kind of crap.
| hedora wrote:
| There are heavy penalties:
|
| http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise15.html
|
| The courts could (and should) render TI's underlying copyrights
| unenforceable.
|
| Sadly, the cited precedent is from 1990, and I don't know of
| any more recent cases.
|
| edit: I also just posted this as a top-level article. People in
| the tech community should have a broader understanding of this
| line of legal defense.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25686276
| yummypaint wrote:
| There need to be automatic steep fines for filing fraudulent DMCA
| requests. The process is totally asymmetrical, rampantly abused,
| and there is no realistic recourse for victims. In practice
| people rarely sue afterward, due to further asymmetries. If not
| an automatic $1k+ fine for false claims, we badly need some
| ambulance chaser style law firms who solely seek out copyright
| victims and charge fees only as a fraction of damages awarded.
| yarcob wrote:
| I'm trying to come up with an explanation why TI would do that.
|
| The only explanation I can come up with is that TI wants a closer
| relationship with their customers. They don't want to be a
| commodity chip producer.
|
| When distributors host the datasheets, then customers would
| probably never visit TIs website, and just compare chips from
| multiple vendors on the distributors website. Customers are just
| going to pick the cheapest part that matches the specs.
|
| Maybe TI wants to be seen as a premium vendor. They don't want
| customers to look for a LED driver on an electronics distributors
| website, they want you to look for a TI LED driver on ti.com.
| They can explain the benefits of their chips much better on their
| own website.
|
| As someone who occasionally tinkers with electronics, I think
| this decision by TI sucks. I like that Mouser and Reichelt host
| all their datasheets. But I guess TI doesn't care if I'm going to
| buy two LM3886s or not.
| minimuffins wrote:
| > I'm trying to come up with an explanation why TI would do
| that.
|
| When I hear these kind of stories I always wonder this too.
| Like, who was allowed to turn this into a company policy and
| why on earth did they think it worth their time? Usually
| something that would seem to harm the public image and goodwill
| of the firm.
|
| This speculation in this comment seems pretty convincing imo:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25683856
|
| (mainly the part about legal getting into the driver seat in a
| semi-fossilized sort of company like TI).
| blargmaster42_8 wrote:
| Thanks Biden
| roland35 wrote:
| One project I was thinking of doing was creating a database of
| microcontrollers from all the vendors in one place. This was
| actually something that crossed my mind - would I even be allowed
| to host datasheets? It would be impossible to get all the vendors
| to agree to anything and it seems like TI at least does NOT want
| anyone hosting their information.
|
| I suppose a simple URL would be OK though!
| thefiregecko wrote:
| I think octopart.com does most of what you're suggesting. I
| would be interested to see how you could improve on it.
| xondono wrote:
| I'm going to post the unpopular opinion here and say that this is
| OK in my book.
|
| This archive is distributing out of date documentation without
| making it clear that it's out of date. This could cause a major
| problem for someone that uses it.
|
| The documentation for the same chip is perfectly available on TIs
| website, although to get older datasheets you'll need to dig
| further (by design).
|
| There's a ton of sites mirroring datasheets, and they weren't
| DMCA. It looks like someone at TIs legal got creative about how
| control this sites to update their info.
| tsomctl wrote:
| It's a perfect example of the general shittiness of life. Just
| little things that, in of themselves, aren't bad, but they add
| up to make everything more difficult.
|
| Once an IC is designed, the datasheet doesn't substantially
| change. It isn't a computer program that gets continuous
| updates every couple of months. They might add some errata for
| some corner cases or clarification. What happens when the IC is
| discontinued? I still need the datasheet, so I can understand
| the circuit when finding a replacement IC.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| It's possible, and would also mean that TI didn't attempt to
| talk to bitsavers to get a new page added to the front of the
| old datasheet, which says "this is severely outdated and we
| have a nicer newer datasheet at ti.com - sincerely, Person
| McHuman, TI writer" and instead went right for takedown.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Terminally inconvenient!
| colonwqbang wrote:
| This is Distrelec they are DMCAing. That's a company that's
| trying to sell their chips for them. Yeah...
| kuon wrote:
| From now on I will always try to avoid TI components in my new
| designs. I hope other companies will use this to embrace open
| source more.
| neya wrote:
| Cool, I was just going to use a TPA series amplifier for my
| commercial design this year. I'm just going to switch to ST
| Microelectronics which is what Bose et al use anyway. Good
| riddance. If you are stupid enough to DMCA 555 timer datasheets,
| you just shot yourself in the foot.
| rpaddock wrote:
| Being located in France ST is having a lot of personal issues
| right now. Lots of ST parts are getting hard to get so make
| sure you can get it. The ones you can get are going up in
| price.
| neya wrote:
| Thank you, that's very useful to know.
| numlock86 wrote:
| Good choice on ST. I can only recommend their products. While
| some tools are still wonky and quite archaic (which is sadly
| pretty much the standard in the industry) their tools are the
| lesser bad ones.
| contingencies wrote:
| Unfortunately their IDE doesn't work at all on OSX, their
| support crawls, and it's obvious they are internally French
| as in _bureaucracy_.
| consp wrote:
| Considering OSX is a niche market, why not dual boot?
| contingencies wrote:
| VM + Linux better solution but still a PITA.
| rpaddock wrote:
| I received a takedown demand from them because I had one of their
| documents on space grade parts on my site.
|
| The main reason I put it on my site was because they made the
| document hard to get, otherwise I would have just put up a link
| to it.
|
| It was clearly a Bot. A human would have seen it as a promotion
| for a line of obscure TI products.
| solarkraft wrote:
| > A human would have seen it as a promotion for a line of
| obscure TI products.
|
| You'd think that for all the cases in which data sheets get
| taken down. Unfortunately TI doesn't seem to.
| benedikt wrote:
| hey, i set up a mirror here: https://mirrors.deadops.de/ti/
|
| and a zip file (8gb) here to download in bulk (or for others to
| make their own mirrors): https://mirrors.deadops.de/ti.zip
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