PayPal's Honey extension should be pulled by Google for doing the exact same thing. There is no difference and Honey shouldn't get special treatment just because it's owned by PayPal.
Are you a lawyer? Asking because "cookie stuffing" (which is indeed criminal) refers to the practice of setting a ton of referral cookies for the sites the browser had no intention of visiting, just for the case it will visit them some time in the future. In my understanding it does not refer to setting a cookie for the site the browser is currently on.
This reminds me of how as times changed, once illegal behaviors are now considered normal because "big tech" embraced it.
Remember Kazaa, BonziBuddy, Gator (The OG adware), etc.? They were demonized for collecting data on all the web traffic you were doing it. They got sued by the FTC and were forced to change their business models and/or close down.
Then Facebook, Google came along and did the same thing in the early 2010's except via cookies and Javascript, but somehow that's ok. Even worse, it's considered a normal business practice.
It amazes me that Honey has been able to become so popular given it's business model has always been more of a hack than an actual product. How did commission programs not sue them for fraud?
Probably because they had good ole Silicon Valley VC money to scare them off.
Pie also removed its footer reference to being the team that made Honey and then deleted all of the team photos from the who are we page. They seem to understand cookies and affiliate links well but aren’t versed in the way back machine.
The ethical standards of everyone involved with Honey/Pie are deplorable and they should be outcast from the software industry.
And it's spiraling from there into lawsuits etc. I'm kinda glad PayPal bought them as they can't just shut down and file bankruptcy. Hopefully some of these creators will get paid out for lost revenue.
Great find. I noticed the photos disappeared yesterday, but didn't catch that footer reference change.
Sadly, Ryan Hudson knows how to play the game and Pie (with its charming .org domain) is on a roll --- already hit 1M downloads just 9 months after its launch and grown to 10+ Engineers/20+ employees.
Shameless.
On the bright side, LegalEagle also called out Pie in the video. Hopefully that'll help shine a light on them.
I know it’s not necessarily the same people, but it feels contradictory for this community to say “copyright infringement isn’t theft” when we’re talking about movies, but use the opposite language when talking about GPL source code.
The GPL does the exact opposite of copyright; the fact that it uses copyright to achieve that is just an implementation detail.
If you believe information should be free to share and remix, you would believe that copyright infringement is not theft and that not releasing code is wrong.
The fact that the proprietary code is based on GPL code just shows that the ex-Honey folks are hypocrites: they're trying to use copyright to control their code, but breaking the same rules in the way they reuse others' code.
If it isn’t the same people your observation is that some people say one thing about one topic and other people say something else about a completely different topic. That is like saying some people like elephants and other people speak Portuguese
Being fair these are semantically different meanings of “theft”.
1. Movie copyright is compared, by its owners and the law, to physical theft. This type of theft does not remove the physical use or any use from the owners.
2. GPL copyright only requires sharing changed code. Failing to disclose the changes actually does affect the owners in the way claimed.
They’re two different social contracts and we need different words for them. Honestly many social problems are like this.
> this community to say “copyright infringement isn’t theft” when we’re talking about movies
I wasn't aware there was this community standard. I explicitly disagree with it and I presume many others here would as well. The contradiction exists only in your one sided assertion.
I think the position is more nuanced. Once I've paid for the movie then breaking it's "copyright circumvention measures" so I may copy it or display it for my own purposes and reasons is neither immoral or illegal regardless of what hollywood or the law they paid for says.
I also think that Copyright terms being the life of the author are explicitly in violation of the Constitution, let alone, life plus some arbitrary term. These laws have fallen out of the service of the many and into the hands of the few.
There's a habit to "point out the contradiction" in these forums. I think it's almost always misguided.
Not saying I agree with infringing on copyright, but I don't think it's contradictory:
GPL: "The code must be shared"
Downloading/Pirating movies. "The movies should be shared"
I don't think people that people who believe in the GPL and pirate movies often do so because "pirating is the right thing to do", but one can certainly make the case that they share the same basic idea.
Individual pirates are rarely profiting from it. I'd wager most people who think pirating a movie is fine aren't cool with printing 1000 bluerays and hawking them at the flea market.
They are different senses of the terms. In "copyright infringement isn't theft", "theft" is in the sense if car theft. In the title, "stolen" is in the sense of a stolen idea.
Copyright infringement, while it may be wrong, truely isn't akin to car theft. It is however akin to a stolen idea. A car theft deprives the rightful owner of the car, but they don't otherwise care that the thief now has a car. An idea theft doesn't deprive the thinker of the idea, but they care that the thief is benefiting from the idea without compensation. Yet they don't care if someone becomes aware of the idea, but keeps it to themself.
Copyright infringement isn't theft, whether it's about movies or source code.
I don't care about the movie industry, and don't care if they lose money. I don't care about the software industry or if they lose money.
I do care about information being freely available whether its in the form of movies or source code - it's in no way contradictory for me to want people locking up source code to be stopped from doing so while also wanting to see more torrenting. Copyright law is a tool - much like fire. I don't want my house to burn down, but I also don't want the fire in the furnace to go out... is it contradictory that i want to use fire to keep warm but not have all my possessions destroyed?
There are very many differences already pointed out, so to add an other one, there is a difference between a company doing something at scale and for profit, and a private person doing something for themselves.
The people in this community that says “copyright infringement isn’t theft” do not refer to copyright infringement where people exploit the work for-profit and put it out as their own (feel free to find a single occurrence to prove me wrong). The word plagiarism comes to mind, which is morally and (depending on country and circumstance) legally a bigger crime than copyright infringement. The legal system usually also recognize that exploitation done for-profit and large scale should be considered worse and punished harder.
You're missing the point of GPL-style licensed Open Source Software. It's a matter of copy_left_, vs copyright. The difference isn't comparing the rights of GPL software writers/publishers vs the rights of movie publishers.
It's about the idea that software (and, for many, all digital media) should be free. The GPL is designed to "infect" other projects, by forcing them to be free if the GPL code is included. It's using IP/copyright laws to combat profiteering in software (and, in the case of movies, Blender releases a GPL'd movie every few years).
It's the activists' FOSS license, unlike the MIT/BSD/Apache licenses, which are just the literal definition of Free and Open Source, no strings attached.
Yeah, they used the wrong word. No "stealing" of code is happening here. It's just infringement of someone's copyrights. Theoretically, they could be taken to court over it. In practice, courts are a rich corporation's game.
Copyright should not even exist to begin with. GPL is just there to try to use the system against itself by essentially forcing everything it touches to be public domain. GPL is barely above the copyright industry from a moral standpoint. That usually causes people to treat violations of it far more charitably. Nobody feels sorry for the trillion dollar copyright industry.
We live in a world where the same trillion dollar corporations who compare us all to high seas pirates who rape and burn will also engage in AI washing of copyrighted material at industrial scales. That's a far more interesting contradiction than what you're presenting and far more deserving of the people's indignation.
I guess the difference lies in ownership. If I pirate movies I won't claim that I own the rights to that movie. Can't really say the same when I have a product with stolen code.
“So you’re pro assault when somebody’s broken into your home at night, but suddenly anti assault when I want to punch your grandma?” Exaggerated but the same idea. Though people often communicate and maybe even internalize it in simplified “copyright bad” form, actual beliefs are much more contextual. The piracy debate would look a lot different if it weren’t literally millionaires demanding money from children.
People are willing to let behavior slide when it aligns with their interests, but will call it out when the "other team" does it.
- Copyright abuse of games, movies, commercial software vs open source software
- Censorship of conservative speech vs censorship of liberal speech
- Genocide of one geopolitical entity vs another geopolitical entity
- Separation of church/state with mandated removal of religious symbols from students and government places vs freedom of religion with removal of LGBT symbols from students and government places
- Use of executive branch authority for [liberal goal] vs [conservative goal]
It's the same behavior on both sides, just different groups of people doing it.
This isn’t the first time they’ve been accused of shady practices.
> MegaLag also says Honey will hijack affiliate revenue from influencers. According to MegaLag, if you click on an affiliate link from an influencer, Honey will then swap in its own tracking link when you interact with its deal pop-up at check-out. That’s regardless of whether Honey found you a coupon or not, and it results in Honey getting the credit for the sale, rather than the YouTuber or website whose link led you there.
2 years before PayPal bought Honey. It's possible that the extension was fine at the time. Even if it had always been hijacking the referral codes, I wouldn't consider that a scam from the perspective of the users.
The fastest way is often to just run the "Strings" program on the software. Often it will dump out a bunch of strings that match those in the Open Source project: Error Messages, Logging messages, etc. Sometimes if they're really sloppy it'll spit out the name of the GPL program/library directly and a version number.
I often add magic arrays to my code. So.. if I find them in a binary blob...
Have there been any lawsuits involving breach of open source licences?
Suspecting users can try the software to see if it has the exact same functionality or bugs as the copied GPL library. This is of course not a definite proof, but some amount of rare enough coincidences can be considered as a very strong sign for copying. Legal measures can be taken on account of these evidences.
And of course there is always the option of a whistleblower.
Usually 'strings' on the binary shows up tell-tale signs.
Granted that means the 'smart' infringers are likely to slip through the sieve, but at that point they'll have to essentially be re-writing the code anyway, and lose most of the benefit that they'd get stealing the GPL code (they'd have to hand-roll any bug or security fixes back into their stolen-but-obscured GPL code)
Pretty much any (non-entry level) engineer at a decent software company knows what licenses to avoid. There are strict policies against the use of viral licenses along with training and automation to detect it, etc.
Also I don't think it's that easy to conceal and not sure any serious company would risk the liability.
Is he correct? That you can't have GPL files in your project without all code adhering to it? I thought it has to be linked static. So just calling a GPLed js library likely wouldn't be enough. I think the law is muddy here and not clear at all, even if the code is directly bundled.
There are multiple aspects here. In short, any kind of linking or equivalent process definitely makes your code a combined work with the GPL parts; the "safe" way of using the code are more like calling a GPL process like `system("ls -l")`.
First, if you are distributing modified code or code compiled from GPL sources, in any way, you must advertise that fact clearly, and extend an offer to the original sources plus your compilation methods to anyone who recieves this from you. This is true regardless of whether your work constitutes a combined work.
Then, if you are distributing a work that includes GPL parts and parts that you don't want to release under the GPL, you have to check specifically how the GPL parts are used. The relatively safe boundary is calling GPL binaries as separate processes, especially over a network - if this is the only way you are using the GPL code, it's probably OK to keep your other parts under an incompatible license.
If you are using the GPL parts any more closely, such as calling functions from a GPL library directly through an FFI, or worse, linking to that library, then you are almost certainly building a combined work and all of your own code has to be released under the GPL if you wish to distribute the GPL parts.
Even if you are calling the code only as a separate process, the amount and type of communication you use matters - if you are exchanging extremely complex and specific data structures with the GPL process, rather than just a few command line switches and parsing some yes/no answer, then your work may still constitute a combined work and have to be entirely distributed under the GPL.
GPL is called a viral license. Any project that you add GPL code to must be licensed under GPL (and made available to others under the GPL guidelines). That's why many commercial companies don't include GPL code - see Apple.
LGPL is typically meant for code packaged as a standalone library called from other, possibly non-GPL, code. You can distribute and call LGPL code from your code but your code does not have to be GPL/LGPL-licensed.
I believe the intent of LGPL was to have free LGPL versions of libraries where only popular non-LGPL libraries existed before. Any changes made to LGPL source code must be released under the usual LGPL/GPL guidelines, i.e. you can't make changes to LGPL code, release it in your project, yet keep the changes to yourself.
If the GPL code is an integrated part of your code, then you've created a derivative work, a "work based on the Program" as the GPL calls it. In this case your work must also be licensed as GPL.
>5. Conveying Modified Source Versions.
>You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to produce it from the Program, in the form of source code under the terms of section 4, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
>[...]
>c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.
It seems to be the case here since, as the top comment by RraaLL says, they've included GPL-licensed JavaScript from uBO in their extension.
I think you might be thinking of the LGPL, where it’s fine to use a piece of code if you dynamically link to it (and maybe something about providing relinkable object files, but I’m not too clear about that). The GPL, on the other hand, mandates that any code that interacts with GPL’d code must be GPL’d, unless it can be easily replaced or such and such (i.e. your non GPL code calls a GPL binary via fork & exec or the like).
I’m not an expert in this sort of thing, so a more knowledgeable person may chime in.
To be fair, Honey could easily bypass the blocklist redistribution legal issue by downloading filter lists at runtime from the official source. Then they aren't redistributing the resources.
Update: It looks like they're also using code from uBO without attribution or authorization. That's most likely illegal.
I would be careful handing out legal advice as a non-legal expert, especially when it is about "bypassing legal issues". You might be doing someone a big disservice.
@readers: Obligatory notice: Don't base your business decision on random internet comments.
If any software ever deserved being sued into non-existence it is the Honey browser extension, and any other scam software they turn out (Pie Adblock in this case).
I've seen a few ads from them on YouTube promoting their ad blocker, specifically touting that it gets around YouTube's efforts to block ad blockers.
I thought it was interesting that YouTube, in the midst of trying to crack down on ad blockers, allows ads promoting an ad blocker that is specifically claiming to evade that crackdown.
From what I've gathered, honey basically replaced affiliate codes with their own and then gave the user part of the commission back? Is there something they did that users should be unhappy about?
This video is just rage bait and weaponizing creators and their fans by singling out Honey and not providing any additional context. Anybody in the affiliate industry knows how last click attribution works. This isn't new or specific to Honey. CapitalOne Shopping, Rakuten, RetailMeNot...they all work the same way. Merchants partner with these shopping extensions knowing how they work, nobody forces them to do so.
The affiliate networks (CJ, Impact, etc) are the ones who determine what attribution method to use, shopping extensions just comply. The vast majority of shopping sessions don't have any prior attribution and merchants fund all of these commissions (nothing is taken from a creator or a user). Yeah, it does seem like the codes Honey has have gotten worse in recent years, probably just a consequence of PayPal acquiring them and not giving it any attention (and layoffs). But the example MegaLag points out of finding a better code on a coupon website DOES THE SAME THING AS HONEY (overides the attribution).
So are there some problems with the affiliate industry? Probably. But calling Honey a "scam" seems completely unfair and lacks critical thinking. It's saved me thousands of dollars over the years.
Minor quibble with the linked complaint: the GPL doesn’t require you to post source code, it just requires that you have to provide it when asked, and only to people using your software. (But you’re not allowed to restrict anything they do, like repost it.) Just follow the whole Redhat / CentOS drama for exhibit A in this behavior.
It works. The only reason I knew what Honey was because so many Podcasters and Youtubers have advertised it on their content. I have never used it, but I recognized the name and knew what it does.
Yes, possibly a huge difference. If they provided legitimate work and contributed to the project, with diligence and respect for the licensing, and respectfully, transparently, honestly ran with some sort of referrals / adshare type program for monetization, it would almost be respectable.
What they did was out themselves as garbage humans, with laziness, antisocial grifting, disrespect for the law, and general unpleasantness at every possible level. It'd be difficult to be worse people without adding murder or violence to the mix.
I would never install anything advertised on youtube. Not claiming that I'm an elitist, but the audience on youtube would not have the ability to differentiate between a chocolate bar and a landmine.
Looks like they sold in 2020 for $4Bn, and both founders left two years later in March 2022. One founder started Pie, which basically seems like Honey with a slightly different angle. The other founder became a VC.
I really wish PieAdblock was in the article headline, since it's more relevant.
"UBlockOrigin GPL code stolen by Pie Adblock Extension and Honey team"
Of course Pie is scummy, it is brought to you by the people behind Honey.
In addition to stealing GPL Source the new over-hyped Adblocker that probably also steals (silently rewrites in the background) affiliate links, just like the old "coupon finder". No surprises!
The developers of the misused code can sue for breach of copyright. The people in breach in this case have money and are worth going after if there are a reasonable number of copies of the code illegally distributed.
Is there a better option to Honey? The extension has saved me a good bit of money over the years, especially on newer and independent sites that sometimes offer deep discounts for your first order. But it does seem like the coupon codes come from the community and there should be a community version of the extension.
I don't think you can copyright lists of publicly available information (iirc there was some case with phone numbers before).
That being said, they also stole code...
> For Zeidenberg's argument, the circuit court assumed that a database collecting the contents of one or more telephone directories was equally a collection of facts that could not be copyrighted. Thus, Zeidenberg's copyright argument was valid.[1] However, this did not lead to a victory for Zeidenberg, because the circuit court held that copyright law does not preempt contract law. Since ProCD had made the investments in its business and its specific SelectPhone product, it could require customers to agree to its terms on how to use the product, including a prohibition on copying the information therein regardless of copyright protections.
Moreover, it doesn't seem like static linking to me.
A similar example would be using a GPLv3 licensed JavaScript library in a website. What it implies to other HTML/JS/CSS code is controversial [0]. The FSF actually believed that they should not be "infected" [1], and the legal implications may need to be tested in court.
Right, or: maybe. Depends on where you are (or maybe better: where they are), and whether data collections fall under copyright or some other protection that is translateable enough for the gpl to apply. But if they really also used code that point is moot.
The author of UBlockOrigin should contact the PayPal legal department (in a legal manner). That might be a more direct path dealing with the Honey business.
The bad pushes out the good until you’re only left with bad.
A system that tolerates bad actors like this will in time only have bad actors. It’s tolerated because it makes a large amount of money for a small number of people.
How do you propose a company like Honey should make a profit without deception and scams?
Their product is supposedly: install a FREE extension and you get discount codes applied for you at retailers when you check out.
It turns out they were able to be profitable by making themselves the affiliate every time you purchase something, but that's scammy because it's stealing from others who actually generated the referral.
But what other non-scammy business model could they have? There's basically no business model for what they're trying to offer that makes sense other than end-users paying for it.
> Why can't people just run businesses decently without deception & scams?
1 - Because investors are now the customer. There is no incentive to solve a problem or provide a product for end-users, only to funnel money to investors. That is the business model.
2 - The attention economy is run entirely on deception. Without solving someone's problem, the best option is to keep their attention and prevent them realizing they don't need a subscription. Literally addicting people to notifications and scrolling.
Many businesses can be profitable without deception, but can Honey in particular can be profitable without deception? I'm not so sure. It seems like they have been deceptive about their core business from the start.
some people have a substantially lower bar for personal ethics. "why can't people..." what you and I consider to be normal is not even on some people's radar.
Most do, but the scammers and hustlers often win. When you're scamming and hustling you don't have to do the real work, which means you can spend 100% of your time and energy marketing and you win there.
I'm deeply pessimistic about the future of open source. A lot of people are going to give up on it as it becomes clear that it's just free labor for SaaS companies and hustlers. That and I expect far more supply chain attacks in the future. I'm quite surprised there haven't been a lot more like the attempted XZ poisoning... yet. Or maybe there have been and we haven't caught them.
Edit: I forgot free training data for code writing AI. It's that too.
OSS is one of the Internet's last remaining high trust spaces. It'll be dead soon like all the others. The Internet is a dark forest.
My general belief is that you can be a millionaire by acting ethically, but you can’t be a billionaire. Lots of people motivated by money want to be billionaires.
Because we, as a society, have decided that lying should be effectively mandated and there should be no punishment for it in general. It's not just a few businesses, it's practically all of them. As a rule, an honest businessman can't make enough money to survive while being undercut by everyone else.
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
kelseydh|1 year ago
PayPal's Honey extension should be pulled by Google for doing the exact same thing. There is no difference and Honey shouldn't get special treatment just because it's owned by PayPal.
---
UPDATE: It's criminal wire fraud.
Brian Dunning sentenced to 18 months jail for cookie stuffing: https://www.businessinsider.com/brian-dunning-ebay-and-affil...
“Cookie Stuffing" internet fraud schemer Jefferson Bruce McKittrick pleads guilty: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdal/pr/cookie-stuffing-interne...
maratc|1 year ago
TheKarateKid|1 year ago
Remember Kazaa, BonziBuddy, Gator (The OG adware), etc.? They were demonized for collecting data on all the web traffic you were doing it. They got sued by the FTC and were forced to change their business models and/or close down.
Then Facebook, Google came along and did the same thing in the early 2010's except via cookies and Javascript, but somehow that's ok. Even worse, it's considered a normal business practice.
It amazes me that Honey has been able to become so popular given it's business model has always been more of a hack than an actual product. How did commission programs not sue them for fraud?
Probably because they had good ole Silicon Valley VC money to scare them off.
TrapLord_Rhodo|1 year ago
aunty_helen|1 year ago
The ethical standards of everyone involved with Honey/Pie are deplorable and they should be outcast from the software industry.
aunty_helen|1 year ago
For context, this all started about 2 weeks ago with one of the best pieces of investigative journalism I've seen on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4yL3YTwWk
And it's spiraling from there into lawsuits etc. I'm kinda glad PayPal bought them as they can't just shut down and file bankruptcy. Hopefully some of these creators will get paid out for lost revenue.
HeyTomesei|1 year ago
Sadly, Ryan Hudson knows how to play the game and Pie (with its charming .org domain) is on a roll --- already hit 1M downloads just 9 months after its launch and grown to 10+ Engineers/20+ employees.
Shameless.
On the bright side, LegalEagle also called out Pie in the video. Hopefully that'll help shine a light on them.
Suppafly|1 year ago
BadHumans|1 year ago
relwin|1 year ago
nicce|1 year ago
zer00eyz|1 year ago
Online advertising is a cesspool that makes things more expensive not less.
Honey isnt a problem it's a symptom.
jzb|1 year ago
shwaj|1 year ago
tikhonj|1 year ago
If you believe information should be free to share and remix, you would believe that copyright infringement is not theft and that not releasing code is wrong.
The fact that the proprietary code is based on GPL code just shows that the ex-Honey folks are hypocrites: they're trying to use copyright to control their code, but breaking the same rules in the way they reuse others' code.
traverseda|1 year ago
jrflowers|1 year ago
bnjms|1 year ago
1. Movie copyright is compared, by its owners and the law, to physical theft. This type of theft does not remove the physical use or any use from the owners.
2. GPL copyright only requires sharing changed code. Failing to disclose the changes actually does affect the owners in the way claimed.
They’re two different social contracts and we need different words for them. Honestly many social problems are like this.
timewizard|1 year ago
I wasn't aware there was this community standard. I explicitly disagree with it and I presume many others here would as well. The contradiction exists only in your one sided assertion.
I think the position is more nuanced. Once I've paid for the movie then breaking it's "copyright circumvention measures" so I may copy it or display it for my own purposes and reasons is neither immoral or illegal regardless of what hollywood or the law they paid for says.
I also think that Copyright terms being the life of the author are explicitly in violation of the Constitution, let alone, life plus some arbitrary term. These laws have fallen out of the service of the many and into the hands of the few.
There's a habit to "point out the contradiction" in these forums. I think it's almost always misguided.
jorl17|1 year ago
GPL: "The code must be shared" Downloading/Pirating movies. "The movies should be shared"
I don't think people that people who believe in the GPL and pirate movies often do so because "pirating is the right thing to do", but one can certainly make the case that they share the same basic idea.
derac|1 year ago
GrantMoyer|1 year ago
Copyright infringement, while it may be wrong, truely isn't akin to car theft. It is however akin to a stolen idea. A car theft deprives the rightful owner of the car, but they don't otherwise care that the thief now has a car. An idea theft doesn't deprive the thinker of the idea, but they care that the thief is benefiting from the idea without compensation. Yet they don't care if someone becomes aware of the idea, but keeps it to themself.
loeg|1 year ago
sophacles|1 year ago
I don't care about the movie industry, and don't care if they lose money. I don't care about the software industry or if they lose money.
I do care about information being freely available whether its in the form of movies or source code - it's in no way contradictory for me to want people locking up source code to be stopped from doing so while also wanting to see more torrenting. Copyright law is a tool - much like fire. I don't want my house to burn down, but I also don't want the fire in the furnace to go out... is it contradictory that i want to use fire to keep warm but not have all my possessions destroyed?
belorn|1 year ago
The people in this community that says “copyright infringement isn’t theft” do not refer to copyright infringement where people exploit the work for-profit and put it out as their own (feel free to find a single occurrence to prove me wrong). The word plagiarism comes to mind, which is morally and (depending on country and circumstance) legally a bigger crime than copyright infringement. The legal system usually also recognize that exploitation done for-profit and large scale should be considered worse and punished harder.
spoaceman7777|1 year ago
It's about the idea that software (and, for many, all digital media) should be free. The GPL is designed to "infect" other projects, by forcing them to be free if the GPL code is included. It's using IP/copyright laws to combat profiteering in software (and, in the case of movies, Blender releases a GPL'd movie every few years).
It's the activists' FOSS license, unlike the MIT/BSD/Apache licenses, which are just the literal definition of Free and Open Source, no strings attached.
matheusmoreira|1 year ago
Copyright should not even exist to begin with. GPL is just there to try to use the system against itself by essentially forcing everything it touches to be public domain. GPL is barely above the copyright industry from a moral standpoint. That usually causes people to treat violations of it far more charitably. Nobody feels sorry for the trillion dollar copyright industry.
We live in a world where the same trillion dollar corporations who compare us all to high seas pirates who rape and burn will also engage in AI washing of copyrighted material at industrial scales. That's a far more interesting contradiction than what you're presenting and far more deserving of the people's indignation.
raincole|1 year ago
croes|1 year ago
GPL violation: less people than intended can see the code.
llm_trw|1 year ago
In short: until society changes you play by its rules.
ramon156|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
mulmen|1 year ago
prmoustache|1 year ago
Affric|1 year ago
Copyright infringement may be criminal. But compared with theft there’s, rightly, a higher standard of proof required.
handsclean|1 year ago
cherryteastain|1 year ago
FSF address this issue directly. GPL is basically fighting fire with fire.
timeon|1 year ago
medo-bear|1 year ago
infringing on copyleft is like stealing from the poor
its the difference between robin hood and government corruption
mouse_|1 year ago
If copyright infringement isn't theft (our goal), then it doesn't matter.
Hope that makes some sense.
echelon|1 year ago
People are willing to let behavior slide when it aligns with their interests, but will call it out when the "other team" does it.
- Copyright abuse of games, movies, commercial software vs open source software
- Censorship of conservative speech vs censorship of liberal speech
- Genocide of one geopolitical entity vs another geopolitical entity
- Separation of church/state with mandated removal of religious symbols from students and government places vs freedom of religion with removal of LGBT symbols from students and government places
- Use of executive branch authority for [liberal goal] vs [conservative goal]
It's the same behavior on both sides, just different groups of people doing it.
alsetmusic|1 year ago
> MegaLag also says Honey will hijack affiliate revenue from influencers. According to MegaLag, if you click on an affiliate link from an influencer, Honey will then swap in its own tracking link when you interact with its deal pop-up at check-out. That’s regardless of whether Honey found you a coupon or not, and it results in Honey getting the credit for the sale, rather than the YouTuber or website whose link led you there.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/23/24328268/honey-coupon-co...
15155|1 year ago
twostorytower|1 year ago
[deleted]
octacat|1 year ago
mulmen|1 year ago
kelseydh|1 year ago
zeveb|1 year ago
hotdogbaines|1 year ago
akimbostrawman|1 year ago
ziml77|1 year ago
matt3210|1 year ago
lizknope|1 year ago
There are cases here where companies used GPL code without releasing their changes.
How do licenses of a source code check if the people using their code is complying with the license it uses?
https://www.reddit.com/r/embedded/comments/18gie6l/how_do_li...
The fastest way is often to just run the "Strings" program on the software. Often it will dump out a bunch of strings that match those in the Open Source project: Error Messages, Logging messages, etc. Sometimes if they're really sloppy it'll spit out the name of the GPL program/library directly and a version number.
I often add magic arrays to my code. So.. if I find them in a binary blob...
Have there been any lawsuits involving breach of open source licences?
https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/11452/have-th...
yuvalr1|1 year ago
Suspecting users can try the software to see if it has the exact same functionality or bugs as the copied GPL library. This is of course not a definite proof, but some amount of rare enough coincidences can be considered as a very strong sign for copying. Legal measures can be taken on account of these evidences.
And of course there is always the option of a whistleblower.
NikkiA|1 year ago
Granted that means the 'smart' infringers are likely to slip through the sieve, but at that point they'll have to essentially be re-writing the code anyway, and lose most of the benefit that they'd get stealing the GPL code (they'd have to hand-roll any bug or security fixes back into their stolen-but-obscured GPL code)
random3|1 year ago
Also I don't think it's that easy to conceal and not sure any serious company would risk the liability.
throwaway48476|1 year ago
mx20|1 year ago
tsimionescu|1 year ago
First, if you are distributing modified code or code compiled from GPL sources, in any way, you must advertise that fact clearly, and extend an offer to the original sources plus your compilation methods to anyone who recieves this from you. This is true regardless of whether your work constitutes a combined work.
Then, if you are distributing a work that includes GPL parts and parts that you don't want to release under the GPL, you have to check specifically how the GPL parts are used. The relatively safe boundary is calling GPL binaries as separate processes, especially over a network - if this is the only way you are using the GPL code, it's probably OK to keep your other parts under an incompatible license.
If you are using the GPL parts any more closely, such as calling functions from a GPL library directly through an FFI, or worse, linking to that library, then you are almost certainly building a combined work and all of your own code has to be released under the GPL if you wish to distribute the GPL parts.
Even if you are calling the code only as a separate process, the amount and type of communication you use matters - if you are exchanging extremely complex and specific data structures with the GPL process, rather than just a few command line switches and parsing some yes/no answer, then your work may still constitute a combined work and have to be entirely distributed under the GPL.
canucker2016|1 year ago
GPL is called a viral license. Any project that you add GPL code to must be licensed under GPL (and made available to others under the GPL guidelines). That's why many commercial companies don't include GPL code - see Apple.
LGPL is typically meant for code packaged as a standalone library called from other, possibly non-GPL, code. You can distribute and call LGPL code from your code but your code does not have to be GPL/LGPL-licensed.
I believe the intent of LGPL was to have free LGPL versions of libraries where only popular non-LGPL libraries existed before. Any changes made to LGPL source code must be released under the usual LGPL/GPL guidelines, i.e. you can't make changes to LGPL code, release it in your project, yet keep the changes to yourself.
Arnavion|1 year ago
>5. Conveying Modified Source Versions.
>You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to produce it from the Program, in the form of source code under the terms of section 4, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
>[...]
>c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.
It seems to be the case here since, as the top comment by RraaLL says, they've included GPL-licensed JavaScript from uBO in their extension.
doubletwoyou|1 year ago
I’m not an expert in this sort of thing, so a more knowledgeable person may chime in.
mzajc|1 year ago
Sephr|1 year ago
Update: It looks like they're also using code from uBO without attribution or authorization. That's most likely illegal.
Raed667|1 year ago
mainframed|1 year ago
@readers: Obligatory notice: Don't base your business decision on random internet comments.
slowmovintarget|1 year ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4yL3YTwWk
tzs|1 year ago
I thought it was interesting that YouTube, in the midst of trying to crack down on ad blockers, allows ads promoting an ad blocker that is specifically claiming to evade that crackdown.
chasebank|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
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ndriscoll|1 year ago
iou|1 year ago
twostorytower|1 year ago
The affiliate networks (CJ, Impact, etc) are the ones who determine what attribution method to use, shopping extensions just comply. The vast majority of shopping sessions don't have any prior attribution and merchants fund all of these commissions (nothing is taken from a creator or a user). Yeah, it does seem like the codes Honey has have gotten worse in recent years, probably just a consequence of PayPal acquiring them and not giving it any attention (and layoffs). But the example MegaLag points out of finding a better code on a coupon website DOES THE SAME THING AS HONEY (overides the attribution).
So are there some problems with the affiliate industry? Probably. But calling Honey a "scam" seems completely unfair and lacks critical thinking. It's saved me thousands of dollars over the years.
jzl|1 year ago
zb3|1 year ago
Would it make a difference if this garbage was GPL licensed?
blibble|1 year ago
and not just cut it off once, but cut it off forever
and as a bonus: cut it off for all other influencers too
nicce|1 year ago
zb3|1 year ago
> Pie Adblock: Block Ads, Get Paid
Really? Do people not understand how the economy works or something? Education failed so bad :(
observationist|1 year ago
What they did was out themselves as garbage humans, with laziness, antisocial grifting, disrespect for the law, and general unpleasantness at every possible level. It'd be difficult to be worse people without adding murder or violence to the mix.
LordShredda|1 year ago
65|1 year ago
It's free so I'm suspecting they're doing more affiliate marketing stealing or something similar to Honey.
encroach|1 year ago
> Get Paid to See Ads — Opt-in to see a limited number of partner ads and earn rewards.
gonesilent|1 year ago
gkoberger|1 year ago
kurthr|1 year ago
"UBlockOrigin GPL code stolen by Pie Adblock Extension and Honey team"
Of course Pie is scummy, it is brought to you by the people behind Honey. In addition to stealing GPL Source the new over-hyped Adblocker that probably also steals (silently rewrites in the background) affiliate links, just like the old "coupon finder". No surprises!
graemep|1 year ago
exabrial|1 year ago
Basically every dollar the company has made is basically illegal.
Larrikin|1 year ago
ragingroosevelt|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
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moonshadow565|1 year ago
gs17|1 year ago
> For Zeidenberg's argument, the circuit court assumed that a database collecting the contents of one or more telephone directories was equally a collection of facts that could not be copyrighted. Thus, Zeidenberg's copyright argument was valid.[1] However, this did not lead to a victory for Zeidenberg, because the circuit court held that copyright law does not preempt contract law. Since ProCD had made the investments in its business and its specific SelectPhone product, it could require customers to agree to its terms on how to use the product, including a prohibition on copying the information therein regardless of copyright protections.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProCD,_Inc._v._Zeidenberg
maxloh|1 year ago
A similar example would be using a GPLv3 licensed JavaScript library in a website. What it implies to other HTML/JS/CSS code is controversial [0]. The FSF actually believed that they should not be "infected" [1], and the legal implications may need to be tested in court.
[0]: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/q/4360/15873
[1]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#WMS
RobotToaster|1 year ago
onli|1 year ago
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unknown|1 year ago
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ChoGGi|1 year ago
mfer|1 year ago
philipwhiuk|1 year ago
Havoc|1 year ago
blackeyeblitzar|1 year ago
efitz|1 year ago
SamInTheShell|1 year ago
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max_|1 year ago
I'm sure they can be profitable.
This deceptive behaviour actually makes the business loose customers in the long term.
cjbgkagh|1 year ago
A system that tolerates bad actors like this will in time only have bad actors. It’s tolerated because it makes a large amount of money for a small number of people.
dmazzoni|1 year ago
Their product is supposedly: install a FREE extension and you get discount codes applied for you at retailers when you check out.
It turns out they were able to be profitable by making themselves the affiliate every time you purchase something, but that's scammy because it's stealing from others who actually generated the referral.
But what other non-scammy business model could they have? There's basically no business model for what they're trying to offer that makes sense other than end-users paying for it.
bravoetch|1 year ago
1 - Because investors are now the customer. There is no incentive to solve a problem or provide a product for end-users, only to funnel money to investors. That is the business model. 2 - The attention economy is run entirely on deception. Without solving someone's problem, the best option is to keep their attention and prevent them realizing they don't need a subscription. Literally addicting people to notifications and scrolling.
0xDEAFBEAD|1 year ago
joshstrange|1 year ago
Some aren’t and never will be without the deception and those companies just shouldn’t exist.
FergusArgyll|1 year ago
https://fee.org/resources/the-road-to-serfdom-chapter-10-why...
hathawsh|1 year ago
talldayo|1 year ago
But can you be as profitable as your indecent, deceptive, scamming competitor?
If not, it won't matter how much of a goody-two-shoes you are. If the market sets the bar low, you either limbo or leave.
whalesalad|1 year ago
consumer451|1 year ago
api|1 year ago
I'm deeply pessimistic about the future of open source. A lot of people are going to give up on it as it becomes clear that it's just free labor for SaaS companies and hustlers. That and I expect far more supply chain attacks in the future. I'm quite surprised there haven't been a lot more like the attempted XZ poisoning... yet. Or maybe there have been and we haven't caught them.
Edit: I forgot free training data for code writing AI. It's that too.
OSS is one of the Internet's last remaining high trust spaces. It'll be dead soon like all the others. The Internet is a dark forest.
yoyohello13|1 year ago
throwawaysleep|1 year ago
I don’t see any incentives for decency.
Decency is as desired by society as “made locally.” Very few people are willing to pay for it and behaving that way he tremendous opportunity costs.
unknown|1 year ago
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o11c|1 year ago
throawayonthe|1 year ago
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unknown|1 year ago
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s5300|1 year ago
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weiichongy24|1 year ago
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hippycruncher22|1 year ago
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aaron695|1 year ago
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throawayonthe|1 year ago
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marcodiego|1 year ago
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phoe-krk|1 year ago
Breaking into someone's car and riding off isn't stealing, just disrespecting the concept of ownership.