
Google Won’t Take Down ‘Pirate’ VLC with Five Million Downloads - ghostDancer
https://torrentfreak.com/google-wont-take-down-pirate-vlc-with-five-million-downloads-180206/
======
sli
So basically Google looks at the terms of the software license that applies
(GPLv3) and throws them out. Well that's a bit chilling.

My question is, would they fight to protect the GPL licensing of Android if
someone infringed it? To be consistent, Google would have to say no, but it's
going to be one hell of a hard sell to convince me that Google would let that
go.

~~~
dragonwriter
> My question is, would they fight to protect the GPL licensing of Android if
> someone infringed it?

Probably not in many cases; they only use GPL where upstream forces them to;
for their own original unconstrained work they tend to prefer permissive
licenses rather than copyleft. They are probably willing to let the upstream
that is forcing the use of the GPL bear the burden of enforcing it if they are
concerned, and happier still if they generally don't making it permissive-in-
effect.

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otterley
This seems easily resolvable via a DMCA infringement claim, but there’s no
mention of one in the article. Perhaps the copyright owner (i.e. Kempf or his
agent) didn’t file one? The process is pretty straightforward.

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fwdpropaganda
Not a rhetorical question: it seem to me that google becoming a despicable
company; does anyone have a view on this?

~~~
randomString1
I live in fear
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12062807](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12062807)

~~~
fwdpropaganda
Oh wow. The screenshot with the large text the guy says "Google's free
products shouldn't be used for business." Yikes.

------
fwdpropaganda
How can we be sure that we have the correct VLC app?

~~~
newbie912
The article is about how they copycat app makes no mention of vlc or their gpl
requirements, so while there's no guarantee you have the official vlc version,
if it mentions vlc in the name you don't have this one.

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lambada
I may be wrong but doesn’t GPL (any version) simply require that source code
be made available to customers on request, rather than pro-actively?

As it stands the developers don’t appear to have actively refused to provide
source code - it might be premature to call them out for breaking the terms of
the license.

Edit: My interpretation above appears to be correct in so far as you don’t
have to make the source code proactively available (unlike what Video LANs
President claimed in the article)

>Moreover, they don’t seem to share the source at all, which is also a
violation.”

But there is still the requirement to include the license to inform the user
of their rights. Unfortunately the article doesn’t seem to explicitly say
whether there’s a licensee tucked into eg the About screen from the
screenshot.

IANAL but assuming there is, then the developers here could still be in the
clear?

~~~
fenwick67
You have to offer the source code. It's in section 6, more specifically parts
D or E apply since it's distributed over the network.

Option D:

> Convey the object code by offering access from a designated place (gratis or
> for a charge), and offer equivalent access to the Corresponding Source in
> the same way through the same place at no further charge (...)

or option E...

> Convey the object code using peer-to-peer transmission, provided you inform
> other peers where the object code and Corresponding Source of the work are
> being offered (...)

Also, in section 5e:

> The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released under this
> License

This is pretty blatantly violating these terms.

[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html)

~~~
lambada
Hmm interesting, that's a subtle change between gplv2 and v3 I was unaware of,
thanks!

For completeness, GPLv3 has the following option available:

>c) Convey individual copies of the object code with a copy of the written
offer to provide the Corresponding Source. This alternative is allowed only
occasionally and noncommercially, and only if you received the object code
with such an offer, in accord with subsection 6b.

Whilst the equivilent in v2 (
[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html)
) is

> b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to
> give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically
> performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the
> corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1
> and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, [next
> clause]

Which is a lot less restrictive over when you can use the written offer
approach.

