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I know it is an unpopular opinion, but if you do not want your content to be scraped, you have to put it behind payment walls and copyright it. In Germany we have decisions from the highest courts that deemed websracping perfectly legal (it was in the context of a competitor scraping airline ticket fares).


They ignored the licenses, so kinda moot point you're making.


And how were those license conditions violated by downloading? Their are permissive in the first place, and violating without passing on to a third party is almost impossible.


Were they used in a commercial context when a commercial entity downloaded it?

If yes, they were in violation of the license. Fyi, that's explicitly stated in the article we're commenting on.


Supposedly they are, that is enforceable how? Download is not anything. Training AI on them is not anything. Using the trained model is not a violation of the terms just because you think it should be.


i see. as long as i can download Software that is made available for free for students its completely legal to do so and use them commercially as a non-student, after all its freely downloadable.

good thing you explained how copyright works legally, almost spend my money unnecessarily.


COPYright becomes relevant once you COPY something. As in, give it to a third party. I don't see any third party involved here. The download itself is not subject to copyright - licensing terms may or may not apply - and just because the license text says something doesn't mean it holds up in court.


Til you can download something without copying said something.

Wouldve been great to know for people that have been found guilty after downloading illegal and unlicensed content.

Fyi, the nation you mentioned (Germany) adheres to a much stricter concept called Urheberrecht. Under this regulation, you're actually in even more legal trouble. Though Roblox ain't German, so kinda irrelevant, admittedly


German Urheberrecht explicitly states, that downloading something is legal, if not downloaded from an obviously illegal source ("offensichtlich illegale quelle"). Thats why it is perfectly legal to download copyrighted music from youtube (because Youtube is obviously NOT illegal). Youtube ToS are irrelevant in that case. You are however still not allowed to copy the data (music) to a third party (that is when copyright starts).

Whether or not the file you downloaded was even allowed to be uploaded to that website, is irrelevant in that case. Then the uploader and provider are liable, not you the downloader.


> Urheberrecht explicitly states, that downloading something is legal

Technically right with your phrasing, but wrong considering the context.

That exception is explicitly about the fact that eg pictures served on a website will be copied to the local cache and can still be shown without violating it. But besides that, nobody argued that the download itself was the license violation.

If Roblox only downloaded and then deleted it without using it in any way, they'd not have violated the license. Was that the point you were making? If so okay, that's true but from my perspective a pretty stupid view. Surely you're aware that they didn't?


Incorrect.


Yes, as of now, you can do exactly what you assume that Roblox did. How is this still surprising to people?


How do you know what context it was used in?


If it’s fair use, the license doesn’t matter.


It's beyond fair use, it's statutory exemption to copyright and data protection in certain jurisdictions.

Tons of those are (as the site admins admit) models that are themselves infringing on copyright, and thus any license based on copyright ownership is invalid.

You can't enforce a license on a 3d model you in turn stole from a game.


Just to make sure I understand you right: the argument is that

Acteur a has a no permissive copyright

Acteur b has a non-commercial copyright on a model that infringes on a's non permissive copyright

Acteur c now can freely use it commercially, because b's copyright notice is invalid as it was never in a position to grant a permissive license

The stuff you learn on HN is truly breathtaking.

Thanks for clearing that up, that opens up a lot of avenues for future developments


No, it means that Actor B has no copyright at all. Copyright requires ownership, and a thief has none. So Actor A (e.g. Activision) can make a copyright complaint against Roblox, for their 3D model that Roblox now has, that Actor B was illegally hosting. Actor B can't say crap.




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