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Comment by iudqnolq | Hacker News Reader

The DMCA bans that too.

> (2) No person shall ... provide any technology ... that...

> (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

> (B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or

> (C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201-

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> The DMCA bans that too.

This is erroneous on multiple levels.

1. The DMCA takedown provision doesn't apply to circumvention devices: only direct infringements of copyrighted works.

2. Notice the "primary designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing..." "has only limited ..." etc. Format shifting Minecraft to the web has value beyond whatever authentication mechanisms are lost.

> The DMCA takedown provision doesn't apply

If you mean the notice-and-takedown system in Section 512 of the DMCA you're correct, that isn't the relevant section of the DMCA.

But if this software is an anti-circumvention technology than it's illegal for GitHub to host it under a different section (see my citation you replied to).

So GitHub accepts other kinds of takedown requests, including anti-circumvention takedowns, and acts on them if it determines that would be appropriate [1].

> Format shifting Minecraft to the web has value beyond whatever authentication mechanisms are lost.

I don't know enough to predict how a court would rule on that. But I'm pretty sure the necessary analysis is much much more complicated.

[1] https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/content-removal-polic... (added in edit)

Note that because this is not required for safe harbor, Github's policy in theory is much more forgiving of developers:

* In cases where we are unable to determine whether a claim is valid, we will err on the side of the developer, and leave the content up.

* In other words, we will not disable a repository based on a claim of circumvention technology without attempting to contact a repository owner to give them a chance to respond or make changes first.

Etc, etc.

Note Github in this case explicitly said "GitHub did not find sufficient information to determine a valid anti-circumvention claim"

Yes.

At the top of this thread I said the DMCA bans anti-circumvention tech.

You've made a lot of good points, but I don't get why you're arguing with me. None of that contradicts me.

Because while I may not disagree about all of the facts, I disagree about some key ones. I don't think it's a valid response to my rebuttal that Eaglercraft is fundamentally a "pirate version" of Minecraft. I don't think it's a circumvention device. Github also seems to not think that Eaglercraft qualifies as a circumvention device.

Finally, while Github hosting something that is a circumvention device might qualify as "trafficking", a provider's exact scope of responsibility to avoid hosting circumvention devices is not well defined or tested.

> (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

Wouldn't it be correct to say that if there exist a technology to circumvent a technological measure of access control then that measure is in fact ineffective?

If you have a bad lock on your door, is it still criminal if I bypass it with lockpicking tools and distribute them, telling everyone how to exploit your specific lock? FWIW I disagree with anti-circumvention laws as they exist in the DMCA, but it seems like a straightforward passage to interpret.

The devil’s advocate argument that I can come up with for it is that it allows developers incapable of adding sufficient protection to have their work have protection of the law, rather than code.

I believe it's different because the law about trespassing doesn't say anything about effective locks or other methods of denying access. AFAIK it would be illegal to enter even if there was no door at all.

I don't think the linked case tried to challenge anti-circumvention provision using the reasoning I've given but it would be interesting to know if anybody else tried it :)

No. Unfortunately a major issue in US copyright law is that the bar for effectively controlling access is incredibly low.

One particularly infuriating case involved a box that blocked the low-frequency part of a signal. That's all it took to interfere with a cable company's billing systems. Appeals court finds that was an effective measure.

https://cite.case.law/f3d/536/101/

minecraft is a ripoff of infiniminer. can thus minecraft be taken down?

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