Github caves in to Whatsapp's Legal Assault
3 comments
Is Github expected to take on personal liability for every repository it hosts, and provide free legal representation for their owners in court? I don't know if that's a winning business. Following the DMCA is probably a smarter move, which means taking down the repositories when a claim is filed, and restoring them 10 business days after a counternotice is filed.
Several of those counternotices were filed at the very end of last month, and the 10 business days have not yet elapsed. Github can't put them back online early unless it wants to lose the liability protection.
Several of those counternotices were filed at the very end of last month, and the 10 business days have not yet elapsed. Github can't put them back online early unless it wants to lose the liability protection.
It did sound like I was criticising Github but that wasn't what I intended. Github actually came out looking good because like Google, its done a good job posting a copy of all takedown notices. In fact, looks like Github put all the repos back online again!!
I guess that time was going to come eventually. Tarek Galak's Open Whatsapp was a great project for the Nokia N9 initially. A great mobile platform that had 0 support, but with a strong community (over at maemo.org) that reverse engineered WhatsApp.
And they're back in business :)
Take a look at the takedown notice here - https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-02-12-WhatsApp.md