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pattywagon2go · 4 months

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Valve, Team Fortress 2, and My Frustrations

DISCLAIMER: Do not, and I repeat, do not, harass anyone at Valve. This helps nothing. This post is purely my own opinion and I do not represent the TF2 Community in any way. Feel free to disagree with anything I say here.

I normally don’t comment on these types of things, but with how much of a nerve this struck with me, I figured I couldn’t remain silent on it anymore. In light of the recent takedown of Team Fortress: Source 2 and (to a lesser extent) Portal 64 shuttering its doors, I want to talk about Valve and its mistreatment of Team Fortress 2, from letting the game rot with cheating bots and cheaters roaming servers to making false promises to the community so desperate for any kind of fix from the only people who can fix TF2.

Before I get into that, I want to address the takedown stuff regarding Team Fortress: Source 2 and Portal 64, as there's been a lot of misinformation regarding both of these fan projects.

So to get everyone up to speed, one day ago (at the time the script of this post is being written), Team Fortress: Source 2, a port of TF2 to Source 2 using S&Box (the spiritual successor to Garry’s Mod), and Portal 64, a demake of Portal 1 to run on the Nintendo 64, both had their plug pulled after Valve filed a DMCA Copyright Takedown to TF: Source 2's Github repository, and after the dev for Portal 64 got a message from Valve warning them not to continue. The reasoning for TF:Source 2's takedown appears to be because the game used assets ripped from TF2, which is very much not allowed by Valve, while Portal 64 shut its doors not because Valve filed a DMCA takedown, but because the dev got a message from Valve saying that they shouldn't continue since the project relies on Nintendo code libraries.

If you want more information, there's a great video explaining it here, but either way you chop it, Valve shouldn't be called out as having changed their stance on mods, because they haven't. A mod, by its definition, is a modification to an existing game. The first Team Fortress was a mod of Quake I, not a full remake of it in a different engine. Something like Portal: Revolution, a mod for Portal 2 which adds in a brand new campaign, and TF:Source 2 are NOT comparable at all simply because one is adding to a preexisting game, while the other is basically a carbon copy of said game but in a different engine. And low and behold, Valve was fine with Portal: Revolution, while Valve wasn't fine with TF:Source 2. You cannot say that Valve's stance on modding has changed when looking at TF:Source 2 simply because TF:Source 2 isn't a mod to begin with. And in the case of Portal 64, first of all the rhetoric that Valve filed a DMCA takedown isn't true at all. If so, you would have seen the list of DMCA takedowns on Github increase by two. Valve just messaged the dev creating Portal 64 with a warning that they shouldn't continue due to it using proprietary Nintendo libraries. And if you don't know already, Nintendo is infamous for how hard they are on anyone who uses their properties without their permission. If anything, Valve should be getting praise for this for stepping in and preventing a powder keg from exploding in front of this dev's face. And even if Valve did say nothing about it, Nintendo would have said something about it eventually, and we all know how that could have turned out. Frankly, the simple warning from Valve is infinitely preferable from the ways Nintendo could have easily ruined the person who was making Portal 64's life forever.

So now that that's out of the way, time for the actual meat of the post. Time to discuss Valve's treatment of Team Fortress 2 and the community at large.

First off, how did we get here to begin with?

To make a long story short, TF2 had an issue of cheaters roaming servers as far back as 2019, but it kicked into high gear in 2020, when cheating bots were swarming Casual servers left and right, making the game unplayable for many. And this continues to this very day in 2024, 4 entire years after this whole mess began.

This isn’t even hard to prove, all you have to do is queue for Casual and you’ll find a bot immediately (all names censored to not give the people who run these things attention).

For 4 years straight, TF2 has been ravaged by cheaters and bots hellbent on ruining the game. And what has Valve done about it? Mute and gag free-to-play players, make some changes to how votekicking works, etc. Except all of these were just stop-gap solutions, not actual solutions which could fix the issue long-term. For four years straight, Valve hasn’t even made an attempt at fixing the larger issue whatsoever, while the bots just became worse and worse as the years went by. Now, it’s almost guaranteed any lobby you join will have bots in it. There’s basically nowhere in Casual that isn’t safe anymore.

"But what about savetf2?"

Good point. Let's talk about that.

This is the one I’m most salty about, as this was the very FIRST instance Valve actually acknowledged the state the game was in, and they promised to do anything about it.

For anyone out of the loop, in 2022, a bunch of people within the TF2 Community banded together to get a hashtag on Twitter trending called #savetf2, as a way to get Valve’s attention to the state of the game, due to the bot crisis having gone unresolved for (then) two years. What shocked the community was Valve using the official Team Fortress 2 Twitter account to acknowledge the hashtag, saying “TF2 community, we hear you! We love this game and know you do, too. We see how large this issue has become and are working to improve things.”

You can still find the tweet here:

At the time, this was huge. Valve, a company infamous for their lack of transparency, had finally responded to the community, promising to fix things. Flash forward two years later, did anything substantial come from this?

I wish.

Valve did their thing and went radio silent once more. No follow-up tweet, no blog post, absolutely nothing. And especially no bot fix update.

And now (at the time of me writing the script for this) #savetf2 is trending once more to bring back Valve’s attention to the issue.

Personally, I can't help but just not expect anything from Valve at this point, because why should I? Why should I expect Valve to do anything when the last time this happened Valve blatantly lied to everyone by saying they were going to do something to fix the issue, yet they didn’t (and so far) still haven’t?

The community, as a whole, have done everything we can to get Valve to do anything.

We bought the new cases and keys.

We bought Tour of Duty tickets for Mann vs. Machine.

We even broke the record for the most players online at a given time.

Valve, thanks to our support, is still actively making money off of this game. And lots of it, at that.

We gave you (and continue to give you) everything, Valve. You gave us (and continue to give us) nothing we want in return.

And this isn't even an isolated example of Valve not being open with the community. Remember the 2023 Summer Update? It was a fairly decent update, which added in a lot of cool community created content, but the leadup to the update was yet another example of Valve not being honest with the community.

Originally, Valve advertised the update as an “Update-sized update”, meaning something bigger than the usual holiday stuff like Smissmass and Scream Fortress. And when people saw that, everyone went crazy. It was a dream come true. Valve would return with the milk at last. Everything would be so great and awesome aaaaaaaaaannnd it was changed sometime later to say “Holiday-sized update”. And everyone was disappointed again.

(Evidence)

Now whether you think this was an accidental miscommunication or a malicious rugpull is up to you. Which one is actually correct we will never know because Valve hasn't (and still hasn't) told us yet! And knowing Valve, this is something I expect they will take to their graves instead of telling the community exactly what happened!

This lack of transparency is exactly the problem I have with Valve.

Valve isn’t being open and honest with the community at all, and this results in false expectations and promises being broken.

Alright, time to preemptively address some of the inevitable criticism I’m going to get with this post.

“Oh what about the new cosmetics, taunts, maps, etc., Valve still cares, you're being too harsh.”

With regards to cosmetics, taunts, maps, etc., first of all, those are all created by the community. Valve had nothing to do with those. Second of all, that’s doing the bare minimum. It doesn’t take a genius to go on the Workshop and approve a certain amount of cosmetics and maps to package into a seasonal update like Scream Fortress and Smissmass. Valve is only feeding us the bare scraps in terms of keeping players engaged. Yes, it’s keeping us alive, but only barely. That isn’t something someone who actually cares would do.

And here's the thing: Don't get the people who work at Valve and Valve as a corporation confused. Valve has some awesome people under its belt, yes, but the people do not represent the company. Valve, as a corporation, only cares about making money. They do not care about you in the slightest. All they see you as is a walking wallet. Valve is very much making a lot of money off of Team Fortress 2, from literally anything that is being sold off the Mann Co. Store. As far as Valve as a corporation is concerned, if the money continues to roll in, why bother doing anything more than the bare minimum?

“If Casual sucks so much just go play on community servers”

Community servers are a fucking mess to begin with. Ads, weird plugins, unwelcoming communities, along with it being more of a “Hang around” experience vs the pick up and play experience Casual offers makes them unappealing for most, if just not an option at all. Community servers only make sense if you are familiar with the community of said server. If you aren’t, then you’re more than likely going to be scared away because of how overwhelming it can be. Casual’s pick up and play nature is much more appealing, especially for new players. Think of it like a new kid who joins your class at school midway through a semester. Everyone knows each other already, so everyone else is fine with being together, but for the new kid, they may stick out like a sore thumb. It may become overwhelming for them. Casual doesn’t have this issue at all, since you are thrown around with different people each time. Community and Casual servers are two completely different camps, so saying Community servers should be the solution just won’t work on a fundamental level.

"The bot problem is complicated, it must be hard for Valve"

Oh most definitely, but even then, what exactly is stopping Valve from simply communicating this with us? Valve's lack of communication with the community is what's causing people to run wild with speculation as to whether a fix is happening or not, and this only results in false promises being made and expectations not being met. If Valve was open about how hard the bot problem is to fix, then I wouldn't be making this post. But that's not the case, and look where it got us. Rock fucking bottom.

“Valve isn’t structured like other companies, people don’t want to work on TF2”

The first part of this is definitely true, Valve is indeed different. Valve employees are free to work on what they want instead of being forced by upper management to work on stuff. But the thing is, if Valve, a company valued at $7.7 billion, can’t find people to help work on TF2, then what the hell is stopping them from asking others to give it a shot instead? There’s plenty of absolutely talented devs who have been working with TF2 for literal YEARS at this point who Valve could absolutely send out a job offer to. Why not them?

“Major updates are hard to do”

This one kinda ties into the one above, in that Valve could hire people to make content for TF2, but I wanted to address this one in a more personal way.

Here’s a controversial take: I don’t want a major content update.

What I want is Valve to finally be honest with us.

Valve’s inaction and radio silence has driven the community up the wall for 4 years straight in the hopes that something was coming to remedy the bot issue. Yet nothing has materialized so far. And the thing is, if Valve absolutely doesn’t want to work on TF2 anymore, why won’t Valve just tell us this? Why do they continue to keep the door open to a possible solution despite the current situation showing nothing is coming from Valve? Why do they continue to leave the community on a cliffhanger as to whether they will help us eventually or we’re going to be on our own for good? It’s this dishonesty from Valve that absolutely boils my blood and leaves me with zero faith in whether anything is coming for TF2 at all. At best, Valve has just said nothing. At worst, Valve made promises to the community about things getting better yet they would either do nothing or change the story last-minute with no explanation whatsoever.

If you made it all the way through this rambly post, you must really care about Team Fortress 2 as much as I do. I love this game and seeing its current state makes me sad. But what makes me angry is the lack of any actual work from Valve whatsoever. Valve had four entire years to fix things, yet didn’t. When Valve finally acknowledged TF2, they only gave Band-Aid fixes to the issue. And when the community asked for more, Valve gave us empty promises that they never acted on.

I didn't make this post to dunk on Valve for the sake of it or to cause people to boycott Valve. I made this post to show that Valve has a history of dishonesty with TF2, and any and all things that Valve says or promises that are beyond the usual stuff we should expect from Valve at this rate should be met with intense amounts of scrutiny, because Valve is very likely going to break any kind of promise they make to us beyond the stuff that is to be expected from them.

Valve is not honest to the Team Fortress 2 Community.

Valve is not transparent to the people who continue to hold up their aging team-based first person shooter game from 2007.

Valve does not care about people like you and me.

#savetf2 #valve #team fortress 2

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newtechmania · 18 days

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Nintendo floods GitHub with more than 8,000 DMCA takedowns linked to emulators - technology - https://newtechmania.com/nintendo-floods-github-with-more-than-8000-dmca-takedowns-linked-to-emulators-technology/

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nintendojerk · 18 days

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Nintendo blitzes GitHub with over 8,000 emulator-related DMCA takedowns

http://dlvr.it/T6NhnW

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bilaldemirkr · 4 months

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Team Fortress: Source 2 ve Portal 64 hayran projeleri Valve tarafından kapatıldı

New Post has been published on https://bilaldemirkr.com.tr/team-fortress-source-2-ve-portal-64-hayran-projeleri-valve-tarafindan-kapatildi/

Team Fortress: Source 2 ve Portal 64 hayran projeleri Valve tarafından kapatıldı

Hayran projelerinin kalbine darbe vuran Valve, merakla beklenen iki teşebbüs olan Team Fortress: Source 2 ve Portal 64’e karşı Dijital Telif Hakkı Yasası (DMCA) yayından kaldırma talepleri yayınladı. Klasik Valve oyunlarını yine canlandırmaya ve tekrar hayal etmeye adanmış her iki hayran teşebbüsü de Valve’ın fikri mülkiyet haklarını ihlal etmesi nedeniyle birdenbire durduruldu ve geliştirmeye son verildi.

Valve hayran projelerini iptal etti, Team Fortress: Source 2 ve Portal 64 rafa kaldırıldı

Valve’ın ikonik nişancı oyununu Source 2 motoruna aktarmayı amaçlayan hayran odaklı bir teşebbüs olan Team Fortress: Source 2’yi iptal etti. Valve’ın bir DMCA yayından kaldırma bildirimi yayınlaması, projenin GitHub’daki kaynaklarının engellenmesiyle son buldu.

Hello everyone. We have some unfortunate news to share with you.

Today, we received a DMCA takedown from Valve on all our public GitHub repositories and all its forks made by the community.https://t.co/BQvtPwjPtn

— Team Fortress: Source 2 (@TeamFortressS2) January 10, 2024

Amper olarak bilinen geliştirme takımı, Team Fortress 2’ye yeni bir soluk getirmek emeliyle 2021’den beri proje üzerinde çalışıyordu. Garry’s Mod’un manevî halefi olan s&box çerçevesinde klasik oyunun yeni bir versiyonunu öngören proje epeyce iddialıydı.

Projenin geleceği ve s&box’taki son motor değişikliklerinin yarattığı zorluklarla ilgili şirket içi tartışmalara karşın, Team Fortress: Source 2 zati geliştirmeyi durdurma kararı almıştı. Lakin DMCA sebebiyle yayından kaldırılması tabuta çakılan son çivi oldu ve hayran odaklı teşebbüs resmen sona erdi. Geliştirme grubu, Valve’ın fikri mülkiyetini korumak için yasal hakkını kabul ederek, üç yıllık geliştirme müddeti boyunca alınan takviye için minnettarlığını lisana getirdi.

youtube

Paralel olarak, Valve’ın 2007 klasiği Portal’ı Nintendo 64 donanımına getirmeyi amaçlayan bir hayran projesi olan Portal 64 de emsal bir yazgıya sahip oldu. İlerlemesini 5 Ocak’ta yayınladığı bir görüntü ile paylaşan proje, Nintendo’nun tescilli kütüphanelerine olan bağımlılığı nedeniyle rafa kaldırıldı. Portal 64 için yapılan Patreon güncellemesi projenin kapatıldığını doğruladı ve yayın gösteriminin akabinde yaşanan kısa vadeli heyecanın akabinde hayranları hayal kırıklığına uğrattı.

Portal 64

Hem Team Fortress: Source 2 ve Portal 64, sevilen klasiklere yeni bir soluk getirmek için gönüllülerin vakit ve marifetleriyle katkıda bulunduğu tutkulu geliştirme grupları tarafından desteklenmişti.

Siz ne düşünüyorsunuz? Fikirlerinizi yorumlarda bizlerle paylaşmayı lütfen unutmayın.

#Geliştirme #Hayran #Proje #Valve #Yayın

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gpedia · 4 months

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since you keep putting dungeon meshi on my dahs you now have to tell me where I can watch/read it

I read Dungeon Meshi on Mangadex, using, at the time, the official Mangadex extendion on the Tachiyomi reader app on my Android.

However, as Tachiyomi has since closed service due to malicious DMCA takedown notices, I'd recommend Mihon instead. It is available as an APK through Github.

You will need to add the Keiyoushi Repository and manually add Mangdex to the trusted extensions list every time it updates by tapping on the red hexagonal warning sign. You will also need to install Mihon and the Mangadex extension as third-party apps, after turning on the allow installations from untrusted sources option or equivalent for your device.

If you enjoy archiving your manga locally, mihon also allows you to download the chapters from mangadex as .cbz files.

@cat-with-no-name hope this helps

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dailyshocker · 1 year

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indotrust · 2 years

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Deezer mediakeys

Deezer mediakeys software#

Deezer mediakeys plus#

Deezer mediakeys download#

“We have discovered that the following links make available Github repositories created to make available softwares which enable users to download the Deezer Content without any authorization,” the notice reads. Specifically, the apps are illegally retrieving and then publishing Deezer’s secret encryption keys on Github. This time Deezer emphasizes that it has put in place “strong Digital Right Management tools” to protect musical content alongside “extremely high level encryption” to protect supporting systems.Īccording to the notice, the targeted tools (which include Deezloader, Deemix, Deezloader Reborn, Deezloader Remix, SMLoader and Deezer Grabber) circumvent Deezer’s systems to download copyrighted content and elements of its service. In common with earlier notices, Deezer highlights that downloading tracks from its service outside user licensing terms is forbidden. “Malicious” Tools Defeat Deezer’s Encryption However, in a new notice filed against Github this week, the company goes into much more detail. The company has mostly stuck to the same notice format, stating that third-party apps use “illegal methods” to download music. Many have been filed against Github, requesting that the development platform removes tools such as Deezloader and several successors.

Deezer mediakeys software#

Over the past five years, Deezer has targeted these pieces of software with DMCA takedown notices. With the assistance of third-party tools, it’s possible to download high-quality tracks from Deezer with minimal effort, without paying a penny. Millions of former pirates have left the high seas to join Deezer and rivals such as Spotify but for the past several years, Deezer has been trying to mitigate piracy of a different kind. Marche niquel, attention pensez a redémarrer votre navigateur ou au moins a recharger la page de deezer pour que cela fonctionne.In common with all music streaming services, French streaming giant Deezer played an important role in the fight against file-sharing and other forms of music piracy. Worked wit Microsoft Desktop Keyboard, but doesn't work on Logitech K800 keyborad. So you have to switch to the desktop and back to the game. The only thing I don't like so much is that when you are in a game, it's not working. I love it so far, it's really awesome for me. Scott ĭoes exactly what it says on the box. Now I can use Deezer as if it's a desktop media player. May I ask what didn't satisfy you that you voted only two stars? Wian

Deezer mediakeys plus#

Pour le reste rien à dire, les touches fonctionnent même lorsque chrome n'a plus le focus, ce qui n'est pas le cas de toutes les extensions. L'icone reste grisé bien que l'extension est active. Works on mac keyboard hotkeys, stopping them to open/control itunes. "MediaKeys are working in background" thumbs up for that Nikolai I honestly could not live without this extension. 100 (Official Build) (64-bit) Ubuntu 16.04 Andre Lovely extension, that makes deezer in Chrome work like a desktop media player! A tip for people on Ubuntu, who have Media Keys stop working - Nic ĭoesn't work on Chrome Version. Único que funcionou no FC30 com Chromium Anton Thank you a ton, a simple extension that does as it says :) JaseB.

#Deezer mediakeys

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mainsnames · 2 years

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Dmca counter notice

Automattic reports, for its latest data set, that “less than 0.6% of the DMCA notices we received were later subject to a counter-notice of those cases, we’re aware of further action being taken by the original DMCA complainant only once.” 101.Github reports some counter-notices, but counts them in the same category with retracted DMCA notices, reporting 17 counter-notices or retractions out of 258 notices, which may each have identified numerous alleged infringements.99 Tumblr received additional counter-notices that it did not honor, though it is unclear whether those counter-notices were rejected based on substantive copyright problems or formal noncompliance with section 512(g). Tumblr’s June 2015 report states that of the 77,357 posts that were removed pursuant to takedown notices, 0.08% were restored using the counter-notice process.Twitter’s latest semiannual report says that 56,971 tweets were withheld pursuant to DMCA notice, and the company received counternotices for 65 or 0.11%, all of which led to the restoration of the targeted content. Twitter’s transparency report includes counter-notices, though seemingly only for tweets, not for Vine or Periscope material.These companies don’t appear to aggregate the data over time and, in some cases, they track it using non-parallel categories so that comparison is difficult. Counter-notices certainly appear to be far less common than the improper removals that they are intended to counteract.Ī handful of companies track counter-notices in their transparency reports. 97 Based on our own experience and discussion with other practitioners, we believe that it is rare for users to file counter-notices. We have not seen studies or significant public data on this question, though there will be useful information in the study just published by Urban, et al. How effective is the counter-notification process for addressing false and mistaken assertions of infringement? Copyright Office's 2016 Notice and Request for Public Comment on notice and takedown practice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This blog post is excerpted from our filing in response to the U.S.

#Dmca counter notice

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gbatemp-net · 2 years

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ITotalJustice's Nintendo Switch sigpatches GitHub has been removed due to DMCA takedown

ICYMI: https://gbatemp.net/threads/itotaljustices-nintendo-switch-sigpatches-github-has-been-removed-due-to-dmca-takedown.616218/

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hackernewsrobot · 1 year

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Pirate Bay Proxy Defeats Police’s GitHub Takedown with DMCA Counternotice

https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-proxy-defeats-polices-github-takedown-with-dmca-counternotice-230204/ Comments

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altscifi · 6 years

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Just When You Thought it Was Over: Fighting Back Against Bullying and Continued Harassment Across Social Media (on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Tumblr)

This story is worth telling because it just keeps getting better.

And by better, the meaning is "worse".

You might want to catch up on the 10 Everyday Information Warfare Tactics You've Already Fallen For - and the case of the AltSciFi zine project (the number has grown to 15 tactics, with examples illustrating how they're used).

Here's a timeline of the past year or so:

Our Tumblr blog reaches ~1,500 subscribers (unlike AltSciFi Twitter, the Tumblr follower count is not curated, so many followers are probably bots). The AltSciFi Tumblr blog has several hundred posts accumulated over at least four years.

A prototype of the AltSciFi gallery/store site is posted to GitHub. Four out of 15 pages have working PayPal links, but the site is obviously not complete. Hint: it's on GitHub -- a site for programming and web development, not e-commerce; 11 pages have no links at all.

The attack begins on Twitter. An artist finds the GitHub site. The artist (we'll call her "MiraKillian") does not contact AltSciFi, but instead creates a Twitter slander/libel attack about how AltSciFi is "stealing art". This attack spreads across social media. Many artists on Twitter use copyright-trolling this way to earn "clout". In this case, MiraKillian is a member of a gang called "The (Twitter) Artist Community" who obsessively Like and Retweet each other's posts to get more magical "clout". Ironically, the Like/Retweet game rewards the best narcisssists and biggest bullies who rise to become "Influencers", some of whom act like megalomanaical miniature Harvey Weinsteins lording their imaginary status over less-popular followers who beg for "signal boosts", prostrating themselves to win the Influencers' favour.

AltSciFi is accused of "promoting" the unfinished site via Tumblr. The Tumblr blog's homepage is the only one that links back to the Github site, since that page was used for testing Tumblr's layout. The Github pages that have PayPal links aren't connected anywhere on the homepage at all -- meaning that no one could find them in any case. (And in case you've ever tried to sell anything via social media, it's a complete waste of time unless you have an extremely specific niche, or ten of thousands of followers. AltSciFi had neither of those, since we haven't publicly marketed, promoted, or launched the zine yet.)

The slander/libel attack reaches GitHub. One sci-fi makeup artist whose work was posted to the AltSciFi Github test site submitted a mostly-false DMCA takedown notice. GitHub never investigates, but rather automatically posts all DMCA takedown notices. This creates the illusion of "guilt" -- but also puts the makeup artist in legal jeopardy for libel based on her own gullibility.

A few months later, MiraKillian's name appears above the title of a cyberpunk webcomic created by a popular artist (we'll call her "Miirai") who has been publicly scammed quite recently. Miirai has built a public persona around being shy and trusting, which makes her the perfect target for yet another scam. This time, MiraKillian has taken over drawing Miira's webcomic along with one other artist, while Miirai herself begs her followers on social media for money to "support" the comic due to repetitive-stress injuries (art is hard work). That is a well-known tactic called a "sympathy scam".

The slander/libel attack reaches Reddit. Nona goes on Reddit and creates a topic to ask, "would you raise funds to help Miirai get proper medical attention for her injuries?" One of Miirai's new "team" appears and lies that Miirai is still creating art for the cyberpunk webcomic herself, which contradicts what she wrote on recent entries of her own blog about being disabled due to her injuries.

The slander/libel attack poisons a Reddit community. A day later, Miirai herself shows up and defends MiraKillian, making up a conspiracy theory about how a fake Patreon account claimed to be her -- therefore it must have secretly been AltSciFi! And the idea about her being scammed is "fake news"! (Note: a key tactic in any scam, obviously, is to gain the confidence and complicity of a vulnerable person.)

The slander/libel attack poisons a subreddit's moderators. The subreddit in which this conversation takes place starts arbitrarily deleting Nona's posts about the topic. Nona quickly narrows down exactly which moderator was likely the culprit based on who was active on Reddit when the most recent post was taken down, and asks a different moderator to deal with it.

Instead of disciplining the culprit, the moderator starts bullshitting, trying to make the problem about Nona instead. Nona contacted the moderator using a relatively new account to create distance from the attackers who are on Reddit. The moderator used that as an excuse, saying "creating alt accounts and posting about the same thing repeatedly is 'suspicious'." The mod also lied that adding links to further information about the incident was "spamming", and intentionally misinterpreted Reddit's rules (do not post the same comment repeatedly) to mean, "do not post about similar topics more than once".

The Reddit admins do nothing. Nona messages the Reddit admins. A week passes. No response.

Note: on that same subreddit, Nona previously posted a topic about the zine, and a well-known copyright troll appeared, spamming the comments section. After Nona reported the troll's comments, Nona was banned for "spamming the moderators". So Nona wrote a blog entry about it, and two years later, another artist commented on the blog that they were dealing with the same idiot. It's been _two years_ and the moderators of that subreddit are still allowing the troll to use their sub as his personal toilet for trolling. So much for "just ignore the trolls."

So you can see that as this story unfolds, it shows how much of a sham the idea of "free speech" really is on social media. Tribalism by a small, aggressive group of motivated (and mostly illiterate) bullies (the "Artist Community" on Twitter, who are actually just a few hundred idiots who are heavy Twitter users) spreads into an internet-wide disinformation campaign.

TL;DR The fallacy of "free speech" on the modern internet is a question of what is deleted or people who are bullied into silence. You can't know what's missing if you never see it in the first place.

Sounds like the perfect starting point for a dystopian sci-fi story, doesn't it?

The AltSciFi project is now fully dedicated to the fight against misinformation, disinformation, internet bullying and copyright trolling. The AltSciFi concept is only the beginning. We are here especially to support members of maginalised communities online (nonwhite, women, LGBT as well as non-neurotypical and older users). A safe and empowering internet for marginalised users creates a better internet for everyone.

If you want more information about ongoing and upcoming efforts to help independent artists and fans like you to create a better internet, send a DM -- or email altscifi at tutanota dot com.

P.S. Keep fighting for net neutrality. If we stop fighting, copyright trolling will become multinational corporate law, and the open web will effectively cease to exist. In other words, welcome to a real cyberpunk dystopia. The only way to stop that from happening is to create a better future for ourselves, since no one else will do it for us.

#science fiction #altscifi #internet bullying #internet harassment #minsooky #2018-01-18-MinSooKy.md #altscifi dmca 2018 #altscifi dmca takedown #altscifi dmca 2018 github #respectartistspls #respect artists #online harassment #online bullying #independent science fiction #indie science fiction #indie sci-fi

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gslin · 3 years

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youtube-dl 的恢復與後續 GitHub 的處理模式

youtube-dl 被下架的事情後續又有不少進展了 (先前寫過「youtube-dl 被 RIAA 用 DMCA 打下來的事件」這篇)，主要是 GitHub 恢復了 youtube-dl 的 Git Repository，然後丟出了一篇文章解釋過程，以及後續的作法：「Standing up for developers: youtube-dl is back」。

要注意這次的事件完全是法律戰，所以裡面發生的敘述都是各自的說法，大家可以自己解讀…

GitHub 的這篇文章是由 Abby Vollmer 發表的，從 LinkedIn 上的資料也可以看到他以前的經歷都是法律相關，現在在 GitHub 的頭銜是「Director of Platform Policy and Counsel」，而這篇的用字也可以看出來很小心。

首先 GitHub 認為下架的原因是 Section 1201：

S…

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#1201 #counter #dmca #eff #git #github #notice #repository #riaa #section #takedown #youtube #youtube-dl

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Adobe uses copyfraud to preserve spyware

The death of Adobe Flash in January 2021 was long overdue; Adobe’s hyper-proprietary interactive runtime was a source of persistent, terrifying security vulnerabilities that had harmed web users for decades.

But the demise of Flash also meant that all the Flash-based media that had been created since its debut (as 1995’s “Futuresplash”) was snuffed out, orphaned, unplayable and lost to history.

Adobe may have skimped on security, but it spent lavishly on sales and marketing, so major media and public organizations locked up years and years of media and interactives in the Flash abandonware format.

All that meant that the reports of Flash’s death were greatly exaggerated. Adobe quietly kept the Flash player on life-support with an “enterprise” version for companies with unpayable, Flash-based technology debts.

And they licensed Flash Player to China’s Zhong Cheng Network, whose flash.cn site still offers Flash Player downloads. But that Flash Player comes bundled with commercial spyware and an Adobe-controlled killswitch that can remotely deactivate it.

That offered people who needed to view Flash videos or other media with a stark choice: if you didn’t work for an “enterprise,” you either accepted spyware and a killswitch, or you abandoned the media you needed to see.

Which is where Clean Flash Installer comes in. This is a free/open project maintained by a developer called “darktohka”: Clean Flash Installer was a way to install the Flash Player without the spyware or killswitch.

Darktohka told Torrent Freak that he created Clean Flash Installer as a passion project, to preserve the Flash media that was “a huge part of his childhood.”

https://torrentfreak.com/adobe-uses-dmca-to-nuke-project-that-keeps-flash-alive-secure-adware-free-211012/

Darktohka built Clean Flash Installer from scratch in .Net; it contains no Adobe code and no code from Zhong Cheng Network — Clean Flash Installer is Darktohka’s code and his alone, hosted on Github for all to inspect, use and improve.

Or rather, it was hosted on Github — until earlier this month, when Adobe sent a fraudulent DMCA Copyright Takedown notice to the company, falsely claiming that darktohka’s code infringed on their copyright.

https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/10/2021-10-04-adobe.md

This is pure copyfraud: Adobe didn’t write Clean Flash Installer. Their notice to Github — “under penalty of perjury” — that Clean Flash Installer violated their rights is an outright, unambiguous lie.

Adobe would prefer that its business arrangements with Zhong Cheng Network remain intact and that every non-enterprise Flash user would have to run its partner’s spyware and tolerate Adobe’s killswitch.

It’s doubtless more lucrative for Adobe that way — what company doesn’t dream of compelling its customers to arrange their affairs to benefit its shareholders, even if that is to their detriment?

Often, awful laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act can be used this way, twisted into a kind of “Felony Contempt of Business Model” (as Jay Freeman calls it).

But not this time. Adobe has no right to block Clean Flash Installer — but they didn’t let that stop them.

Image:

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Genusfotografen (Tomas Gunnarsson) (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Extended_arm.jpg

CC BY-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

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