4/6/2026 at 3:57:59 AM
It's important to remember that these projects are not violating copyright law, are not circumvention tools, and that filing a DMCA notice against them is in fact unlawful.by ronsor
4/6/2026 at 4:51:31 AM
No one has the guts, time, or money to challenge it thoughby sammy2255
4/6/2026 at 4:59:02 AM
This is what groups like the EFF are for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_litigation_involving_t...by userbinator
4/6/2026 at 8:32:12 AM
In general no! The EFF is not interested in litigating laws that are firmly established! They spend their resources on cases that can set legal precedent.When you call about something like this, they’ll try to give you some general advice and refer you to a law firm.
by awakeasleep
4/6/2026 at 10:57:28 AM
but can't it set a dangerous precedent if it escalates further?by bpavuk
4/6/2026 at 5:05:58 AM
Sadly, you're mostly right and the comments section saying to find a pro-bono lawyer is laughable. I think anyone who believes that exists should actually reach out to a real lawyer and see how that conversation goes. I've had those conversations.Firstly, they can't exist most of the time you can't actually call a lawyer and talk to them - you get their office and their "job" is to gatekeep that lawyer from making any discussions with anyone who isn't represented or paid for a consultation.
Secondly, once you do get into contact with them you'll get a blank stare or phone silence. This is not how most lawyers view pro-bono work. Most of them have a very small quota of pro-bono work to be done and that's it. They get assigned a case by their firm or go and accept a few a year from the state and they're done with it. The idea that an altruistic lawyer exists out there ready to do free and unpaid work is virtually non-existent today.
by ddtaylor
4/6/2026 at 4:39:00 AM
[dead]by imrozim
4/6/2026 at 4:04:38 AM
Linking to piracy sites whose content is all blatantly stolen from artists does seem violating to me.by charcircuit
4/6/2026 at 4:52:22 AM
That seems like an argument to go after the actual alleged illegally hosted materials through the proper DMCA takedown request.by ddtaylor
4/6/2026 at 4:54:18 AM
Both should be done. Often the actual illegally hosted materials are on servers not friendly with takedown requests or will get immediately reloaded by the pirates. By going after the links it can cut off the ability for people to find the illegally hosted materials.by charcircuit
4/6/2026 at 7:32:20 AM
Is this like how in France, DNS resolvers are legally required to block certain websites? That's right, if you run "unbound" with default options in France you're a felon.by direwolf20
4/6/2026 at 8:42:21 AM
Yeah. The government can dictate what you are and aren't allowed to do. This is not a novel concept.by charcircuit
4/6/2026 at 5:02:14 AM
Seems like a strange way to attempt to police the internet by proxy. The Internet should ignore or route around people attempting to police how nodes connect to each other.by ddtaylor
4/6/2026 at 8:35:08 AM
I agree that the larger Internet should be capable of routing lawful traffic through jurisdictions where such traffic is lawful to another jurisdiction where the traffic is lawful. But within a country for example local laws should be applied to the traffic.by charcircuit
4/6/2026 at 8:44:39 AM
There are two options here:1) You can have an encrypted connection between two jurisdictions that have different laws, but then anyone can route around censorship because you don't know if they're discussing geopolitics or distributing DeCSS.
2) You can't have an encrypted connection between two jurisdictions that have different laws, which is >99% of all connections because even different cities have different laws, which is an Orwellian panopticon and the destruction of all privacy.
I'm going to have to insist we stick with the first one.
by AnthonyMouse
4/6/2026 at 4:46:34 PM
I am fine with encryption, but there should be a legal process that can stop the violation of laws such as by disconnecting nodes that violate laws or preventing linking to nodes that violate laws.by charcircuit
4/6/2026 at 6:03:11 PM
I think you're missing the concept here that laws change as a packet travels from one switch to another, not to mention what happens after they go under the ocean.Are you prepared to be held accountable for breaking the laws of repressed countries that sentence people to death for leaving a religion or insulting authority?
I assume not, but then it's an arbitrary game of whos laws and when. The only logical continuation would be if we had a standard of law worldwide, but that's a separate problem in itself and not anywhere near reality today.
by ddtaylor
4/6/2026 at 6:10:33 PM
Suppose there is a shared server outside your jurisdiction which is hosting a wide variety of content none of which is a violation of the law in their jurisdiction, but 2% of the content is a violation of the law in your jurisdiction. Or isn't hosting any content at all but also isn't a jurisdiction that does the same censorship as yours and then people can use the connection as a VPN.If people in your jurisdiction can make a secure connection to it, e.g. to get the 98% of the content they have which is lawful in your jurisdiction, then they can also get the content you were trying to ban because you can't tell which one they're doing. Preventing this is all or nothing: Either they can connect to the server that isn't subject to your laws, or they can't. And the latter is heinous and tyrannical.
by AnthonyMouse
4/6/2026 at 10:12:35 AM
Which is heartbreaking (and I'd argue misleading too), but not the whole story.You can only issue takedowns in relation with material that you have copyright over. At least one of these sites I know for a fact routinely scrubs FAKKU licensed content, and abides by takedown requests.
by perching_aix
4/6/2026 at 4:22:40 AM
what piracy sites is gallery-dl linking to?by raziel2701
4/6/2026 at 4:30:20 AM
I do not want to promote them here, but if you read the linked github thread you will see the names of what extractors were deleted.by charcircuit
4/6/2026 at 5:08:59 AM
Wait a second... By the view you're espousing right now, doesn't that make this conversation "illegal"? Why aren't we filing DMCA takedowns to HN because the list of the naughty sites is at the top of the page for this very thread?This seems like turtles all the way down.
by ddtaylor
4/6/2026 at 4:55:30 AM
Through the DCMA lens, does a tool having the ability to download from example.com = linking to example.com?by logifail
4/6/2026 at 5:00:43 AM
In this case the files you could view on github literally had links directly to copyrighted works. It was not just that it was compatible with pirate sites.by charcircuit
4/6/2026 at 5:16:08 AM
Where? I looked at a copy from March 16, and I only saw placeholders like 12345 and 12345/67890abcde in the files mentioned in the issueby KomoD
4/6/2026 at 5:19:17 AM
Look in the test vectors and you will see ones that are not for generic ids.by charcircuit
4/6/2026 at 7:28:15 AM
It's lawful if you have a good faith belief that it's a circumvention tool.It might even be true. Not having a download button is a copy protection measure as defined in the DMCA. If this project bypasses not having a download button, it's an illegal circumvention measure under DMCA.
by direwolf20
4/6/2026 at 7:42:17 AM
> Not having a download button is a copy protection measure.That's absurd. Not having something is different from actively implementing measures to prevent something. I could similarly make the argument that any content that I can watch on my device doesn't really have copy protection measures because those bytes were purposefully copied into my display buffer.
Anti-circumvention provisions are a cancer that needs to die. They can be used to criminalize just about anything.
by dns_snek
4/6/2026 at 4:25:40 PM
You will own nothing and you will be happy. Or else.by ls612
4/6/2026 at 7:32:32 AM
The problem here is that the complaint seems to be filed by the copyright owner (or licensee) but the code is accessing piracy sites. There could be a circumvention case if the piracy site is the one filing the copyright complaint, but they have not.by ehhthing
4/6/2026 at 8:52:02 AM
https://github.com/mikf/gallery-dl/discussions/9304#discussioncomment-16279674
https://github.com/mikf/gallery-dl/discussions/9304#discussioncomment-16280050
by nondrool
4/6/2026 at 8:34:33 AM
> It's lawful if you have a good faith belief that it's a circumvention tool.Is it? Isn't Section 512 the takedown section that applies to infringing works (e.g. notices require "Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed", 512(c)(3)(A)(ii)) and Section 1201 the separate anti-circumvention section which has government-imposed criminal penalties but no private takedown provision?
by AnthonyMouse
4/6/2026 at 7:58:50 AM
Is that the benchmark? A website that disables the right click to prevent visitors from saving the content can still be saved by the browser. That’s an active measure to disable downloads being circumvented by the browser. So is Chrome going down?by close04
4/6/2026 at 12:39:29 PM
Can you cite the relevant passages from the DMCA that support this argument? I have trouble bringing the two together.by 47282847
4/6/2026 at 9:09:24 AM
But that's a different process, not the usual notice-and-takedown notice procedure. If it's consider a circumvention device, there is no way to file a counterclaim, among other things.by fweimer