[jonoc]

"Even if I believe that what I'm doing is morally correct and legally protected, legal processes still have a financial cost. I can't afford to take on that financial risk for something that I do in my spare time to help others." - this is very logical and exactly what I would have done but it still makes me very sad that this is the way the world works right now :(

[all2]

The process is the punishment. Average Joe cannot go toe-to-toe in the legal system as it stands right now. The one with the most money nearly always wins, and - as in this case - the threat of financially ruinous litigation is enough.

[akudha]

The one with the most money nearly always wins

This is true in American elections too. I can’t remember the exact number, but something like 80% (or more) of elections are won by the candidate with more money.

When everything is tied to money like this - legal, democracy etc, the little guy is always going to lose

[ronsor]

And the solution is to nerf copyright into the dirt like you'd nerf an overpowered item in a game.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Average Joe cannot go toe-to-toe in the legal system

This is sort of the point of arbitration.

[akira2501]

The DMCA has been a net negative for America. It didn't actually afford any of the intended protections to the industries that bought it and it has destroyed the concept of "ownership" in an increasingly digital world.

[Waterluvian]

And America didn’t just harm itself with DMCA. We all suffer from this mistake.

[throw_a_grenade]

He should have added "I believe buying Mazda was a mistake and I encourage everyone to avoid this brand until they get their Legal together".

They need to be deterred. They should know that every time they do this, people will start recommending their competition.

[pdonis]

This seems like a case where an organization like the EFF could help. Does anyone know if they are aware of this specific incident?

[thomastjeffery]

The EFF would still need a defendant to defend. It sounds like that person is not interested in pursuing a legal battle, so we have already met the end of this road.

[alphazard]

I think we've made a mistake by linking our real world identities to the software we write. If the author released this under a pseudonym, and hosted the git servers in a country without strong copyright enforcement, there's very little Mazda could do to take it down. It's too late for that now since Mazda knows who he really is.

[shiroiuma]

It's not too late for that; the author just doesn't want to be bothered. If he really wanted to, he could move the code to that other country, and put it up under a pseudonym. If anyone asks, he can just claim he doesn't know who that person is, and he has nothing to do with it: how can they disprove him without literally spying on him? The code is open-source: literally anyone could have made a fork of the repo while it was still up, and then posted it somewhere else.

[dtgriscom]

Right or wrong, the legal system (in the US and elsewhere) is to be feared and avoided. I've served jury duty several times in the US, and each time it looked like we might be empaneled, the defendant settled with the DA. I've no idea if they were actually guilty of what they were accused of, but in any case they decided that being deemed guilty was less onerous than going through (and paying for counsel in) a jury trial.

[prepend]

I wish GitHub would do more to protect developers from this bullshit.

I know they aren’t required to, but I remember the olden days when more companies would fight dmca requests. But I suppose they were much less common then.

The EFF might help, but even expecting individuals to appeal to the EFF is probably too much work and too much risk.

I’d like to see GitHub partner with EFF to have first look at these requests and choose to fight ones that seem invalid. I’d donate to they cause.

[maxerickson]

What's it look like? The next step to fight this is for the user of the Github service to file a counter notice and wait to see if Mazda files a copyright infringement lawsuit against them.

It probably doesn't make sense for Github to indemnify them, and short of that, there's not really a lot of convincing they can do if someone isn't interested in engaging in litigation with some huge company.

[j1elo]

> this is very logical and exactly what I would have done

I made a comment regarding this, before realizing yours, so I'm kinda repeating myself here, but it's something that piques my curiosity:

What would stop you from just continuing in a different repo (even different host like Gitee), with a pseudonymous, and claim that you have no idea who's that mysterious person that forked and continued working on the project?

[Dalewyn]

As President Andrew Jackson once said, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it."

As it turns out, you need both the piece of paper underwriting your rights and the force necessary to exercise them.

[cooper_ganglia]

My freedom and financial future aren't the kinds of things I'd like to test their enforcement with. We need laws that prevent this type of bullying behavior.