
Dropbox disconnects Boxopus for unwanted features - Zirro
http://blog.boxopus.com/index.php/2012/06/25/dropbox-disconnects-us
======
iuguy
While it's easy to jump to conclusions, it might be a good idea to have a
think and maybe ask some questions first.

Dropbox provides a file sharing service, Boxopus uses this to provide torrent
downloading services. Should Boxopus become popular, how will this impact
Dropboxes cost base? Will people buy more dropbox space?

Are Dropbox possibly obliged to deactivate Boxopus due to onerous copyright
rules? Is there anything in their underlying contractual arrangements with
their suppliers for example that could result in the termination of dropbox's
service, or are they just trying to cover their backsides?

I think this shows a good example of the increasingly common problem where
startups tie themselves to a platform and suffer for it as well as benefit.
They're looking for another storage provider, but who's to say this won't
happen with a new provider too?

~~~
legutierr
One question that you are not asking is whether this decision was affected in
any way by the Megaupload case.

If I were Dropbox, I would see arbitrary action by the US authorities as one
of my greatest risks, and would do whatever it takes to stay in the good
graces of the MPAA, given the apparent influence that they have over US law
enforcement.

~~~
cabalamat
I expect that's what's happened. Copyright maximialism succeeds, yet again, in
killing creativity.

------
crazygringo
It bothers me that companies are allowed to make discriminatory decisions like
this, when providing public-facing services.

If your TOS states that Dropbox can't be used for files above a particular
size, or can only be used by individuals and not corporations, or something
like that, then fine.

But companies that discriminate based on the _purpose_ of usage -- this seems
fundamentally wrong. MasterCard blocking WikiLeaks payments, Dropbox blocking
torrents, PayPal banning a VPN provider... Private companies have no business
deciding what is "acceptable" in this manner. If it's illegal for them to
provide services, then obviously they can't, but if it isn't, then they should
continue to provide services.

Honestly, is this any different from a company ninety years ago denying
service to non-whites because it "could be perceived as encouraging the races
to intermarry?"

There's a reason we have anti-discrimination laws for races, gender,
orientation and religion. Why don't we have them for "purpose of use of
services"?

~~~
pflats
First, let's just ignore the straw man of:

>Honestly, is this any different from a company ninety years ago denying
service to non-whites because it "could be perceived as encouraging the races
to intermarry?"

I think we can both agree that it's a hyperbolic statement. Moving beyond
that, as a company, I should have every right to decide who can and cannot use
my service. Just because I provide a public-facing API doesn't mean I have to
allow you do to what you want with it. You're building off of my brand and my
infrastructure. If I don't want Initech Inc. to be associated with file
sharing, fire arms, or even the Irish, that's entirely within my rights. I'd
be far more aghast if companies were forced to take any comers.

On this specific issue, scan the headlines:

"Pirate’s dream come true: Boxopus pushes torrents to your Dropbox account"
"Boxopus Is A Pirate Friend, Drops Torrents Directly Into Dropbox‎" "New App
Makes Pirating Movies A One-Click Process"

The articles also point out that Boxopus was quickly integrated with a number
of torrent sites that host bootleg downloads.

The absolute last thing Dropbox wants to be associated with is piracy. The
company is in much more danger of going out of business due to piracy issues
than to any competitor.

~~~
nessus42
_> If I don't want Initech Inc. to be associated with file sharing, fire arms,
or even the Irish, that's entirely within my rights. I'd be far more aghast if
companies were forced to take any comers._

I'm rather aghast that any companies think this way. You might as well say
that it is well within Google's right to shut down my Google Docs account
because they don't want to be associated with the bad poetry I write using it.

One problem with this attitude is that it doesn't lead to a smoothly
functioning economy. If I have to worry that any online service might chose to
shut down my access for any arbitrary reason, then I am strongly disincentived
from using online services. The strength of any economy is in no small part
due to the ease and fluidity with which trusted transactions can take place.
Remove the forces that allow us to trust the transactions, and the economy
will falter.

The only reason that people are mostly willing to overlook this issue is
because service providers exercise their putative right to deny service for
arbitrary reasons rarely. But if you as a service provider exercise this
putative right more liberally, then you are damaging the entire economic
system (albeit only to some small degree for an isolated provider).

The only silver lining in all this free market rhetoric is that hopefully the
free market will step in and put you out of business. Unfortunately, however,
this often takes a lot longer than it should once network effects have
engaged.

P.S. What's with this trend of downvoting people just because someone doesn't
happen to agree with what someone else has to say. This is rather rude, if you
ask me.

~~~
shard972
> I'm rather aghast that any companies think this way. You might as well say
> that it is well within Google's right to shut down my Google Docs account
> because they don't want to be associated with the bad poetry I write using
> it.

What he is saying is that he believes it is Google's right to do that and it
is irrelevant to the fact it is stupid.

> One problem with this attitude is that it doesn't lead to a smoothly
> functioning economy.

Sure if people just put up with it but I don't think anyone is suggesting we
just accept dropbox's position and pretend it never happened.

~~~
nessus42
_> What he is saying is that he believes it is Google's right to do that and
it is irrelevant to the fact it is stupid._

And what I'm saying is that it is NOT within Google's right to do this. Among
other reasons, it is not within Google's right to fsck up the economy that
everyone depends on.

On the other other hand, I fully acknowledge that the best remedy is not
always more government, since that doesn't always lead to the greatest utility
either.

~~~
uxp
No shirt, No shoes, No Piracy, No Service.

> it is not within Google's right to fsck up the economy that everyone depends
> on.

I shut down a non-technology brick and mortar store almost a year ago, partly
because of dwindling sales due to the economy, and more importantly because I
had a single customer that maintained over 60% of my revenue. That customer
decided to move the business they were giving me in-house. Negotiations had
been ongoing for over 4 years, both to (naively) prevent them from doing so
(it wasn't a surprise that they did, they had been talking about it for
years), and to suggest that we could merge businesses. Suffice to say, they
hired someone else and I was forced to walk away.

I went through a period of "Fuck them", but I had known all along that if they
walked away from me, I was screwed. Relying on a single 3rd party API is
exactly the same thing. It's a contract with another business entity. If they
decide to implement your additions into their core product (take for example
today's Podcast app release form Apple), or if don't like your hair color, or
they just don't like what you are doing, it's not "fuck them" it's "what's
phase 2?". Grow up and move on. This is business. No one is entitled to
consume another company's API, or else there would be no such thing as an API
key.

~~~
nessus42
_> No one is entitled to consume another company's API, or else there would be
no such thing as an API key._

That would depend on what you mean by "entitled" and by "consume". Lawsuits
happen all the time because one entity believes that another entity backed out
of a deal in bad faith.

------
tomc1985
We're making mountains out of molehills. Don't build your shit on a platform
you could reasonably expect to be taken away from you. Company management
often sees piracy (and sex) as a plague that can erode customer and investor
support in their business.

* * *

Once upon a time there were three little pigs. One pig built a house of straw
while the second pig built his house with sticks. They built their houses very
quickly and then sang and danced all day because they were lazy. The third
little pig worked hard all day and built his house with bricks.

A big bad wolf saw the two little pigs while they danced and played and
thought, “What juicy tender meals they will make!” He chased the two pigs and
they ran and hid in their houses. The big bad wolf went to the first house and
huffed and puffed and blew the house down in minutes. The frightened little
pig ran to the second pig’s house that was made of sticks. The big bad wolf
now came to this house and huffed and puffed and blew the house down in hardly
any time. Now, the two little pigs were terrified and ran to the third pig’s
house that was made of bricks.

The big bad wolf tried to huff and puff and blow the house down, but he could
not. He kept trying for hours but the house was very strong and the little
pigs were safe inside. He tried to enter through the chimney but the third
little pig boiled a big pot of water and kept it below the chimney. The wolf
fell into it and died.

The two little pigs now felt sorry for having been so lazy. They too built
their houses with bricks and lived happily ever after.

------
jarcoal
Busy week for API drama. I'm going to have to side with Dropbox on this one.
This tool was quite obviously going to be harnessed for piracy.

~~~
Smudge
The internet is harnessed for piracy. I guess we'd better turn it off then.

~~~
billpatrianakos
You can't sue the Internet though. This line of argument begins with
entitlement. Dropbox is a company with an ass to protect. Anyone using any
service's API is never entitled to any guarantees regardless of whether they
comply with their TOS or not. The purpose of an API is to simultaneously add
value for users and widen use of the produc (both of those fall technically
under the banner of "to help the company providing the API make boat loads of
money).

The other part of people's defense of Boxupus is this whole idea that just
because it _could_ be used to violate copyright doesn't mean it will. Anyone
who honestly, deep down, truly believes this and isn't just towing the Pirate
Party Line needs to wake up. The majority of people downloading from torrents
are downloading copyrighted material which is not legal, like it or not, the
legalities of copyright law are irrelevant here. While I'm sure you can pop in
and say "but I was using it for legit use case x, y, and z", most people were
using it for downloading music and movies. Where's my proof? Fuck my proof.
Where's _your_ proof (I'm using the royal "your" here, not aimed at the op
here) that it was being used so innocently? It really makes me upset that I
just know someone will try to call me out for not having evidence on that one
point despite the fact that we all know what was up just like we all knew what
was up with MegaUpload. Demanding my evidence on that one point is the last
defense of a person who's just grasping at straws, defending some pro-piracy
ideology. But piracy isnt even the issue nor is it relevant!

Dropbox is a company here to make money. Just mentioning torrents puts people
in a frenzy. So they're protecting themselves from liability by making sure
their product is not associated in any way with torrents. It doesn't matter
whether they have a legit purpose or not. It's a case of perception trumping
all else and you have to remember that even beyond legal issues, Dropbox has a
brand to protect. The perception of Dropbox is that of an exceptionally
wholesome file storage/sharing service. Why would they even risk being seen as
even the teensiest bit shady?

~~~
executive
most people using dropbox like services are hosting copywrited material.

~~~
MalphasWats
You are absolutely right! I own the copyright to almost every single file
stored in my dropbox account, because I created them. Those that I didn't are
happily stored but not distributed, entirely within the licences granted by
the owners of the material.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
The solution is simple. Build a 2 tier app? One innocuous app (SendToDropbox)
that moves files into dropbox. Second app (TorrentIntoSendToDropbox) that
saves torrents into the first app.

~~~
eli
The legal system is surprisingly humorless when it comes to "hacks" like that.

~~~
aptwebapps
The tax system, on the other hand ...

------
andyjohnson0
As so many people have pointed out over the last few years, building your
product on top of someone else's product is a bad idea unless you have a
legally-binding agreement in-place. And having an api key isn't a substitute
for such an agreement.

If this principle had a name (ie "<someone's> law") then maybe people would
pay more attention.

(And OT: I read "boxopus" as "box o' pus", which makes me think perhaps its a
poor name)

~~~
executive
im not sure why anyone would want to build an app on a platform that lets you
log in to any users account without a password... maybe something low risk
like hosting torrent downloads

------
st3fan
The lesson here is to never let your core business depend on another company's
core business. You just don't want that kind of dependency.

------
inopinatus
It was an absurd pairing of two separate and dissimilar block-structured sync
protocols and I am not at all surprised. This should've been disallowed on
pure bandwidth efficiency grounds.

I'm sure the actual reason was "torrent user == pirate" and they just didn't
want any juvenile connections, bad news in any language.

Everyone who read the original story saw this coming.

------
dekz
I feel like this is the wrong choice for Dropbox. Wouldn't they still be under
DMCA safe harbour just as if I uploaded copyrighted material myself? Or is any
type of downloader to your Dropbox against the terms of service as an
'Unwanted feature'? Sure they reserve the right to who uses their service, but
if they are DMCA compliant are they just losing potential revenue?

~~~
citricsquid
I would guess[1] it's more about not painting a giant target on their back.
Yes Dropbox can be used for pirated material, but they don't promote it and
there are no features of Dropbox that enable it, however if this service
exists and gets substantial traction people will start to associate Dropbox
with piracy and when that happens Dropbox risk being targeted by groups like
the MPAA.

Look at Megaupload, they were supposedly complying with the law.

[1] Pure speculation

~~~
tptacek
I know you know this, but for the benefit of the thread:

Megaupload is commonly understood to have been "complying with the law" based
on a misapprehension of what the law actually is.

The misapprehension is that "compliance" with US copyright law means "honoring
takedown notices".

The reality of US copyright law is that there are two sides to compliance:
first, takedown notices need to be honored, and second, the service can't
operate with foreknowledge of infringing use.

You can execute takedown notices within milliseconds of their arrival, but if
an opposing lawyer or prosecutor can demonstrate that you repeatedly (a) came
into knowledge that your service was used for piracy and (b) took no action,
you effectively forfeit the service provider "safe harbor".

It was discovered by prosecutors that Megaupload not only knew about
infringing content on their own site (trading links among staff for particular
films, for instance), but also ran a promotional/affiliate program that
rewarded uploaders for pushing popular copyrighted material to the site.

------
jsilence
This shows the difference between an API and a protocol.

You are at the sole discretion of the company whose API you are using.

Different cloud storage provider, different API. I wish they all started using
the remoteStorage protocol.
<http://www.w3.org/community/unhosted/wiki/RemoteStorage>

------
vampirechicken
How is Boxopus better than just tellign your torrent client to download into
your dropbox folder?

~~~
joeblau
I was actually going to work on a project that did something similar. Doing
anything with large files while you're on a mobile device is difficult because
of bandwidth, processing, and screen real estate.

If you could move or process large files though a third party without having
to physically download the file to a temporary location, it would be
awesome... but apparently Dropbox doesn't think so. I deemed my project DOA
because I had a feeling that what happend to Boxopus would happen to me across
multiple platforms that I wanted to integrate.

~~~
jmanamj
I believe utorrent has a remote feature that can be accessed from mobile.
Point your torrents to dropbox on your desk/laptop and access on the go.
Unless your only computer is your phone this would work just as well...

------
warmwaffles
Who saw this coming? Not I! /sarcasm

------
MalphasWats
I'm genuinely curious, as I've never actually used it[1], but if someone waved
a magic wand, and ALL illegal music, movies and books vanished from bittorrent
networks, what would be left?

[1]blizzard uses it for WoW updates, but I don't think that really counts.

------
n9com
Surprise, Surprise... did you really not see this coming? Don't rely on 3rd
party APIs!

------
huhtenberg
Well, duh.

------
chris_wot
Perhaps Dropbox should block itself, given that it can also encourage
copyright violations. Time to setup OwnCloud!

------
petitmiam
What makes Dropbox special that they chose it as the only cloud storage
solution that Boxopus works with?

~~~
lmm
The fact that it's the only cloud storage solution most people have heard of?

------
wavephorm
This kind of reinforces my belief that Dropbox is merely a segway toward a
more private, decentralized (self-hosted), cloud-based filesystem.

How is Dropbox ever going to stay relevant in the future if they go around
telling people what they can and can't store in their directories?

~~~
edanm
Simple - no one cares (for values of "no one" equal to 99% of the population).

------
wissler
The original thread on this topic (that was evidently heavily flagged) is
here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4161940>

------
J3L2404
It's pretty appalling that people believe Dropbox has an obligation to bear
all the burden so some "startup" can make a quick buck off of copyrighted
material. Where are the thought leaders on this? Sitting around with
eyepatches over their mouths?

------
gubatron
I don't understand the need for this company in the first place, (Anonymity
when pirating?)

If you wanted to store BitTorrent downloads in Dropbox, all you gotta do is
tell your torrent client to use your local dropbox folder as a save
location...

------
shasty
Dont build anything of value on someone elses API. THey will kill you.

------
jQueryIsAwesome
I think this is a sign of weakness from Dropbox; for example, big strong
players like Google don't just erase all the links to ThePirateBay.se just
because some big record label says so; they wait until they are actually
forced to do so with a legal petition (e.g. DMCA)

