You're joking, but in some countries there are taxes on blank recording media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy

https://mashable.com/2014/04/10/downloading-pirated-content-...

AFAIK there is no way around it, even in professional environment - we build a couple hard drives for a an internal company server and this levy was clearly marked there.

Same thing for all the other extortion money they extract from music festivals, pubs, hotels, radio stations, etc. - they do use some of it to bribe the most prominent and vocal old school artists to basically do advertising for their cause but the rest safely hits their coffers.

This is why decades ago you could buy blank CDR media designated for "music" at a slightly higher price. They are identical to "computer" CDRs, but the seller pays a fee to the copyright office.

> For the avoidance of any doubt, we are also providing you with the attached file tilted “GitHub_code_Nyaa” which shows code hosted on GitHub that provides all of the source code, templates, and utility API tools needed to host a copy of the Nyaa.si Bittorrent site, used to access infringing copies of motion pictures and television shows for which Nyaa.si provides torrent files and magnet links for the infringing content that users are looking for. The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law.

That's the real issue, but again it's hard to discuss since the files have been removed.

edit: I don't have access to the taken down repo but maybe not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836800

> The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Nyaa.si users in violation of copyright law.

I don't know if they mean that the code is preconfigured to connect to a torrent network which is known to host copyrighted material, or if there was a host_copyrighted_contet.cfg file, etc. Its hard to know how much they are stretching the truth because the code is gone.

I'm not clear on exactly what is being claimed so I don't know how real it is in this case.

No, it's not, except for the claim to copyright ownership of the allegedly infringed work. Particularly, the claim of infringement is not made under penalty of perjury (which makes some sense, as it is a legal and not a factual claim, but you don't have to allege the factual basis for the claim of infringement under penalty of perjury, either.)

There's no technical difference between a torrent containing ArchLinux.iso and TheBeatlesDiscography.zip however.

Torrents don't have anything like that. You don't have to deal with anything copyrighted to test any related stuff, be it client, tracker, or web server.

say for example, you have a torrent file or a magnet link. And you start downloading the file using client application, it will go to known trackers and ask them the address of peers who are uploading the file based on unique hash of it. Torrent breaks files in the chunks with size of few MB referred as pieces, Tracker will get the current status of downloaded and remaining chunks from you and give you the list of peers with same file available, at same time it will register your address for the other new peers to connect. now connecting peers have knowledge of one anther's address they will share pieces to others and download remaining from other peers to complete the download.

so, basically peer is backbone of system, its a tool which can have multiple use legal or not, one cannot simply call its source code violating the IPs, that's just an absurd argument.

So it really, isn't illegal anywhere (well except obviously authoritarian regimes).

The argument is for contributory copyright infringement via inducement, ala MGM v Grokster 545 U.S. 913 (2005) or Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. v. Fung 710 F.3d 1020 (9th Cir. 2013), the isoHunt case. Inducement occurs where someone distributes a device with the intent of promoting infringement and actual infringement occurs. Here, the argument is that nyaa intends to promote copyright infringement because it provides a tool that is tailored for copyright infringement. The notice letter cites various references in the code to nyaa.si. Exhibit A of the letter comprises "a series of screenshots taken from the Nyaa.si website for the Project that include images of copyrighted works available through the Project." The implication here is that the devs here are encouraging similar use of the code for infringing copyright.

I'm not saying I agree with it, but that's their argument.

With the repo down I obviously can't verify this hypothesis but it fits.

Basically the fact that the world's most predominant installation of the site (Nyaa.si) is serving a whole bunch of copyrighted materials through torrents makes the code itself violate DMCA.

> What's next, hard disk manufacturers? Internet providers?

Hard drives are already taxed in France because of piracy (well not exactly, but that's the real reason)

> Specifically, at the URL, the Repository hosts and offers for download the Project, which, when downloaded, provides the downloader everything necessary to launch and host a “clone” infringing website identical to Nyaa.si (and, thus, engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows).

This is not a generic BitTorrent tracker. This is source code for duplicating the nyaa.si website (which in the github source code, they state is "A BitTorrent community focused on Eastern Asian media including anime, manga, music, and more" [1]).

I think it would be a stretch to say you are interested in this source code so you could then rip out large pieces of it to host your Linux ISO's on...

I agree that some DMCA crosses the line. But in this case, I don't see a legitimate use for this source code other than enabling copyright infringement.

[1] https://github.com/seco/nyaa-1/blob/master/nyaa/templates/ho...

For example, there is torrent classification to detect whether the torrent contains an entire series, which subtitles it contains, whether it is a reencode/remux/scene release, etc [1]. Would that be useful for you to host legitimate content (which typically is not reencoded/remuxed/fansubbed)?

I am all for criticizing the chilling effects if the DMCA was targeting the DMCA protocol in any way. But in this case, it is targeting the source code for a CLEARLY illegal website (illegal, in this case, based on the jurisdiction in which github operates and is bound to)

[1] https://github.com/seco/nyaa-1/blob/master/nyaa/templates/he...