[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How to stop download.cnet.com from hosting m...
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: How to stop download.cnet.com from hosting my app?
download.cnet.com is hosting an ancient version of my app and I
never submitted it to them or contacted them in any way. They
simply stole my installer and content from my website without
asking or getting permission. I won't get into my reasons for not
wanting any of these download sites to offer my software. They are
of course entitled to provide a link to my website and some do that
and only that which is OK. there is a link in in old HN post
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2910554) that no longer
works: http://cnet-upload.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2064
anyone know if there is good contact form or email address for any
of these download sites to ask that they not offer my app? If I am
not successful getting them to comply, would a DMCA be appropriate
and would I be asking for legal troubles if I submit a DCMA?
Author : textman
Score : 116 points
Date : 2021-07-03 15:30 UTC (7 hours ago)
| donmcronald wrote:
| I don't know about your options, but download it and see if it's
| actually your installer or if someone has modified it.
| gumby wrote:
| No matter how slimy CNET is (and that is _very_ slimy) I don't
| really consider it "stealing" that they downloaded something you
| specifically provided as a download.
|
| But they do a lot of misrepresentation (apart from other slimy
| things) and you are _well_ within your rights to object.
|
| As another posted commented: this is what filling a dmca claim is
| for, and you can do it without paying a lawyer or anyone else.
| The only problem is _whom_ to send it to. You'll find that CNET's
| download is actually download.com. You'll have to start there.
| mannykannot wrote:
| > I don't really consider it "stealing" that they downloaded
| something you specifically provided as a download.
|
| AFICS, The issue is not that they downloaded it, but that they
| are hosting it.
| textman wrote:
| they wrap my installer inside their installer which includes
| some sort of toolbar I am checking out before I finish
| installing it because I read some reports it is malware.
| gumby wrote:
| Ugh, that's even more disgusting than I thought, and _that_
| kind of thing is like "stealing" -- your reputation in this
| case. Good luck with dmca, possibly a trademark fraud case
| too, which could have actual financial consequences for
| them.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| If so, that is horrible behaviour on their part.
| miki_tyler wrote:
| Your app could show a popup, warning that a new version is
| available together with a link or an alternative mechanism to
| download the latest version from your website.
|
| Obviously your app cannot do this now.
|
| Hope this could be useful to others in the future.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| If the version of your software they are hosting is subject to a
| non-permissive license, you should simply be able to tell them so
| and theoretically, they're obligated to take it down. The DMCA
| may or may not be precisely the right tool (license violation and
| copyright violation are similar but not 100% the same thing), but
| it should also work OK. (IANAL, but this is my experience.)
|
| If your software is MIT licensed or similar, you can still ask,
| but you're probably SOL if they don't agree to remove it. With
| those kinds of licenses, they're under no obligation to remove it
| just because you ask them.
|
| Simply contacting them at any of the email addresses listed here:
| https://www.cnet.com/about/contact-us/ or calling them should get
| you routed to the right person eventually. You could also try
| generic emails like legal@cnet.com, abuse@cnet.com,
| dmca@cnet.com, etc. In the worst case, here's a list of CNet
| employees: https://www.cnet.com/about/meet-us/ - figure out their
| email format (e.g. firstname.lastname@cnet.com) and shoot them
| some emails.
|
| However, you should be prepared for them to simply do nothing
| unless/until there's an attorney involved.
|
| Do you stand to lose income or receive some other kind of
| material injury if they don't take it down?
|
| Edit: The help center at the bottom of the Download site took me
| here:
| https://cbsi.secure.force.com/CBSi/articles/en_US/Knowledge/... -
| this might be what you want?
| teddyh wrote:
| > _(license violation and copyright violation are similar but
| not 100% the same thing)_
|
| How? Absent a license, there is nothing permitting the
| redistributing of software. There is no such thing as a
| "license violation"; if you do not fulfill the terms of the
| license, you have no license to distribute, and are violating
| copyright.
| dataflow wrote:
| One example: "If the licensing agreement states that a
| licensee will have to pay additional fees for use beyond the
| scope of the agreement, a breach of the licensing agreement
| on these grounds generally will be considered a breach of
| contract, rather than copyright infringement."
|
| https://www.romanolaw.com/2020/01/13/is-breach-of-a-
| licensin...
| teddyh wrote:
| IMHO, that kind of thing is a _contract_ , not a copyright
| license. And a contract is only valid if certain conditions
| are fulfilled, like if you signed it, if both parties are
| actually aware that a contract has been established, etc.
| (Exact conditions vary with jurisdiction.)
|
| The main point is, you can't be party (and bound) to a
| _contract_ if you only downloaded something without the
| direct knowledge of the provider.
|
| EDIT: To clarify: You are still always bound by copyright
| law, and always need a license to distribute. If you don't
| fulfill the terms of a license you were given, then you
| don't have permission to distribute, and are violating
| copyright if you do.
| dataflow wrote:
| You're gonna need to back that up with legal text (by
| which I mean a lawyer's interpretation matching yours).
| belorn wrote:
| (Jumping into the discussion with an example)
|
| Let's say a person buys a train ticket from A to B, let
| say from Brussels Airport to Brussels Central Station.
| The ticket states that in order to be valid, you need to
| pay a second fee, a special fee because this is the
| airport transportation route. The person refuses and goes
| onto the train anyway. What crime did the person commit?
| A ticket violation or Fare dodging?
|
| You get a similar situation when it comes to parking. If
| a person has a valid parking ticket but are parking when
| they are cleaning the street (i.e. during a no-parking
| period), the violation is not a parking ticket violation.
| It is a parking violation, just like any other parking
| without permission. The fact that the person has an
| ticket doesn't change anything.
|
| Breach of contract against the ticket holder is very
| unlikely. Breach of contract against the ticket seller is
| possible. In the end, the most likely outcome of a person
| without a valid ticket is that they get treated exactly
| the same as a person without a ticket at all.
| dataflow wrote:
| I can't really tell if you're agreeing or disagreeing,
| and I'm not even sure a ticket violation is a "crime"?
| But regardless, I don't understand the need to stretch
| analogies from other domains when there is so much case
| law out there specifically about EULAs. I'm pretty sure
| it's well-established [1] that EULAs can be enforceable
| _contracts_ and breach of them can be treated as a breach
| of contract. This doesn 't depend on there being
| copyright violations, e.g. there can be different
| licenses depending on commercial usage vs. non-commercial
| usage despite the copying being done in exactly the same
| manner. There should be no need to draw analogies from
| fare dodging to see what the law says here. I find
| countless links on this when Googling (and I'm basically
| leaving a different link in each comment), but see for
| example [1].
|
| [1] https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/licensing-
| syndication/84...
| teddyh wrote:
| IANAL, but I'd start here:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_of_the_minds
| dataflow wrote:
| Yeah, that's not gonna fly, sorry. I've _wished_ the
| contract world worked that way, but my understanding has
| been it doesn 't, and you're gonna need _a lawyer 's
| interpretation matching yours_ to back up your claim, not
| your own interpretation of a link to Wikipedia.
| teddyh wrote:
| You're being very dismissive and condescending when your
| link does not back up your claim either, from what I
| could tell.
|
| Also, from what I understand, this kind of thing varies
| from place to place. You might be correct about your own
| situation, but not about mine.
| dataflow wrote:
| Wow. I said you need a _lawyer 's_ interpretation. You
| just left me a 5-second link to Wikipedia and yet _I 'm_
| the one who's condescending?
|
| I'm not going to put any more effort into my comments
| than you are, except I'll leave one more link in case
| it's helpful and leave this at that:
| https://toslawyer.com/are-end-user-license-agreements-
| enforc...
|
| P.S.: This is obviously all about the US; if you're
| arguing about another country then we're speaking past
| each other rather pointlessly.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| With regards to US law, and again, IANAL, so if an attorney
| chimes in I'd defer to them:
|
| "License" is a very general concept. You can give somebody
| "license" to do almost anything. See e. g.
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/license
|
| "Copyright" is a specific thing that you can possess - see
| the definition here:
| https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/definitions.html
|
| You can therefore grant somebody license to use something
| over which you hold copyright. You can also grant them
| license to do all sorts of other things, and you can breach
| the license in all sorts of ways. See for instance:
|
| https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e4b1226a-b6b4.
| ..
|
| My main point, though, is that simply informing CNET that
| they are in violation of a program's license should be enough
| to make them stop, in theory. You may not _need_ a DMCA
| takedown to do it, though one wouldn 't hurt.
|
| > Absent a license, there is nothing permitting the
| redistributing of software.
|
| That's not true, because of fair use:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use.
|
| > if you do not fulfill the terms of the license, you have no
| license to distribute, and are violating copyright.
|
| You may still have a license to distribute. You just aren't,
| in this case, distributing in accordance with that license.
| Licenses don't necessarily terminate upon violation (though
| they often do).
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| >
| https://cbsi.secure.force.com/CBSi/articles/en_US/Knowledge/...
| - this might be what you want?
|
| That contact is for CBS Interactive. CNET was sold to Red
| Ventures in October of last year, so OP needs to contact Red
| Ventures' legal department, or CNET's. (they could try to
| contact CBSI, but there's no guarantee they'll forward on the
| message)
|
| Red Ventures contact info: https://www.redventures.com/contact
| CNET's contact info: https://www.cnet.com/about/contact-us/ An
| additional contact form for CNET:
| https://cbsi.secure.force.com/CBSi/submitcase?template=templ...
|
| OP should get on the phone to CNET and ask them who to direct
| DMCA takedown notices to, and mention that the legal contact
| info is still pointing to CBS Interactive. OP should send a
| physical copy of the DMCA takedown notice in the mail
| (certified mail) as well as e-mail, and follow up after a few
| weeks. They will probably take longer than normal as it seems
| they're still cleaning up from the acquisition.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| I saw the Red Ventures info, but given that the Download
| site's help pages still link to CBS, is it possible not every
| part of CNET was sold or there's some other arrangement going
| on there?
|
| Either way, I think your fundamental advice (call and ask
| where to send legal process) is probably right.
| allyourhorses wrote:
| For the future, and as a Windows/OSX-specific hack, there are
| HFS/NTFS extended attributes attached to any downloaded file
| indicating the domain/URL it came from. You could introspect this
| and refuse to run the installer with a suitably angry message.
|
| edit: ah sucks, seems on Windows this only gives you the network
| zone the file came from, not the URL. I think on OS X it is
| definitely the URL though
| https://superuser.com/questions/1513910/windows-extended-att...
| Something1234 wrote:
| > The "hint" you are referring to is the Zone.Identifier -
| which only tells you what internet zone it was downloaded from
| (trusted, internet or untrusted). It's only available for
| browser downloads to an NTFS disk
|
| ~ from the superuser link above.
|
| So what actual use is this small field? Wouldn't it be more
| useful for windows to provide the url and some function to
| determine if it was trusted?
| allyourhorses wrote:
| I can see how they ended up with an attribute that did not
| duplicate a potentially private URL. Consider downloading
| from an Intranet and copying to a USB pen that is then handed
| over to a customer
|
| It also freezes in place the network policy active at the
| time of download.
|
| Would personally still prefer the URL!
| Silhouette wrote:
| People are suggesting sending a DMCA takedown notice, but is
| download.cnet.com hosting OP's software because a user has
| uploaded it? If they have chosen to host it themselves, why isn't
| this ordinary copyright infringement for which the operators of
| the site would be liable without any safe harbor under the DMCA
| to protect them in the first place? The US legal system provides
| for considerable damages in cases of copyright infringement, so
| if there is reasonable evidence for a claim and OP believes they
| have lost money as a result of the infringing hosting, an initial
| discussion with a real IP lawyer might be a more useful starting
| point for OP here.
| jaked122 wrote:
| This is precisely what the dcma is for
| amelius wrote:
| But it could backfire, if you can't pay for a lawyer I suppose.
|
| I suspect DMCA is for big companies with a legal department
| only.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > But it could backfire, if you can't pay for a lawyer I
| suppose.
|
| How? If anything, the biggest complaint about the DMCA is
| that it has no penalties even against people acting in
| obviously unreasonable ways.
|
| > I suspect DMCA is for big companies with a legal department
| only.
|
| No? Looks like you just send a certified letter to the
| address listed at https://www.redventures.com/legal/cmg-
| terms-of-use.html under "Legal Complaints" and you're done.
|
| (IANAL, of course, but nothing here seems special)
| gruez wrote:
| Bacfire how?
| buran77 wrote:
| Maybe misfire is a better term. The DMCA process ends up
| with a lawsuit if the 2 parties don't agree. This means
| that the submitter of the complaint has to be ready for an
| expensive legal battle even if they win, or can drop the
| whole thing.
|
| The US justice system encourages anyone with deep enough
| pockets to freely step over the law when their opponent
| can't outspend them.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| No. If CNET refuses to take it down, _you_ (OP) could
| file a lawsuit, but CNET has _no_ grounds to sue you for
| a DMCA notice that you are legally correct in sending.
| buran77 wrote:
| No to which part exactly? Nothing in " _ends up with a
| lawsuit if the 2 parties don 't agree [...] or can drop
| the whole thing_" suggests CNET can file a lawsuit.
| Without an agreement the only way to take down the
| content is a lawsuit.
| macintux wrote:
| I think the fundamental dispute is this: sure, CNET could
| ignore the DMCA notice, but in that case the developer is
| in no worse shape legally than if they don't file the
| notice at all.
|
| So "backfire" is definitely not the right word, and
| "misfire" is true but not a reason to discard the best,
| cheapest weapon in this fight.
| eli wrote:
| There's no plausible scenario where sending a DMCA notice
| gets you into a lawsuit you don't want to be in.
| buran77 wrote:
| I said nothing about "lawsuit you don't want to be in". A
| DMCA claim either ends in an agreement (CNET agrees it's
| infringement or the submitter agrees it's not), or else
| the submitter has to go to court to prove their case. As
| I said they can of course "drop the whole thing": avoid
| any lawsuit but also drop the claim. Which is where the
| "misfire" rather than "backfire" analogy comes from.
|
| Unlike the usual YouTube situations, CNET is both the
| online service provider and the party accused of
| infringing so the content can only go down if CNET agrees
| to take it down, or a court decides this.
| [deleted]
| not2b wrote:
| Short answer: file a DMCA takedown notice if you want them to
| stop violating your copyright (distributing it without
| permission). Anything else is wasting time; they will ignore
| polite letters.
| teddyh wrote:
| Are they violating your copyright? Does the license of the
| software which they obtained allow them to give copies away? If
| not, then this is a straight case of copyright infringement.
| avipars wrote:
| Send a DMCA to them. They'll either comply or ignore it in most
| cases.
| textman wrote:
| OP here. thanks for the suggested links which I will try. I hope
| I don]t offend any open source folks here but this is commercial
| software with a EULA that clearly states the software may not be
| redistributed without written permission so it is a license
| violation and has cost me some $. I found out from a potential
| customer that alerted me to this and said he thought my software
| being on sleazy download sites creates a bad image for me. I am a
| tiny, 1 person bootstrapped operation so I really don't want to
| go the DMCA route if I can avoid it.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| In that case you are definitely in the right position legally.
| The DMCA is about as simple as it gets. No lawyer is needed,
| its just a form letter. Most likely they will just take it
| down, only if the uploader submitted a counter-notice would you
| have to take further legal action.
| geocrasher wrote:
| Agreed. A DMCA is the correct route, won't cost you anything,
| and will work. Be sure to send it to their upstream providers
| too.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > Be sure to send it to their upstream providers too.
|
| Not immediately.
|
| > we recommend that you submit a notification pursuant to
| the DMCA directly to the originating site. In order for a
| DMCA takedown notice to a system caching service provider
| to be effective under 17 U.S.C. 512(b), the notice provider
| must demonstrate either (a) that the content has already
| been removed from the originating site or (b) the notice
| provider has obtained a court order requiring the content
| be removed from the originating site or access to the
| content to be disabled.
|
| https://www.fastly.com/acceptable-use/
| geocrasher wrote:
| I work in the web hosting industry. A lot of times people
| will only send dmca complaints to our upstream providers.
| Those upstream providers require us to take that
| information offline or else they'll actually cut off our
| access. It's a dirty tactic but it is effective.
| shaicoleman wrote:
| First thing to try is the "Report Software" link, and say that
| you're the author, and it's against the EULA to redistribute the
| software, and you will take legal action if it's not removed with
| x days.
|
| Just the threat of legal action may be enough to get them to
| remove it.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-07-03 23:01 UTC)