5.5 KiB
Are you the owner of the content that has been disabled, or authorized to act on the owner’s behalf?
Yes, I am the content owner.
Please describe the nature of your content ownership or authorization to act on the owner's behalf.
I have read and understand GitHub's Guide to Filing a DMCA Counter Notice. I am the author and copyright owner of the repository https://github.com/scrypt-sv/specification, which is my original work and does not infringe any copyright of others' work.
What files were taken down? Please provide URLs for each file, or if the entire repository, the repository’s URL.
The repository https://github.com/scrypt-sv/specification is taken down. So are repositories forked from it.
Do you want to make changes to your repository or do you want to dispute the notice?
Dispute the notice.
Is there anything else you think we should know about why you believe the material was removed as a result of a mistake?
The notice of infringement received by GitHub comes from a developer working on a directly competing cryptocurrency project (Bitcoin Cash BCH which competes with Bitcoin SV BSV); the different Bitcoin cryptocurrency camps are notoriously tribal and competitive. I believe the complaining party is wrongly submitting an infringement notice and abusing the copyright notice and takedown procedure in an attempt to disrupt or censor me, a developer in a competing Bitcoin ecosystem, and the complaining party has not asserted a legitimate copyright infringement claim. I believe the complaining party has made misrepresentation in his/her infringement notice, in violation of 15 U.S.C. section 512(f).
The complaining party claims "https://github.com/scrypt-sv/specification <- the overall structure and significant portions of this repository (especially https://github.com/scrypt-sv/specification/blob/master/docs/syntax.rst) is copied from documentation of my work and should be taken down or the original copyright and license should be restored." However, there are 4 notable defects with the complaint: (1) The complaint fails to identify exactly which “significant portions” of my repository copy the complaining party’s work. In addition, a detailed comparison between https://scryptdoc.readthedocs.io(the webpage version of https://github.com/scrypt-sv/specification) and https://spedn.readthedocs.io (the complaint's webpage) finds no content similarity, let alone being copied. My work should not be disabled based purely on a conclusory and vague assertion that portions of work are copied, without any actual identification of the copied works. This is especially important because much development in the Bitcoin world is based on previously published open source code, so that it is impossible to determine from the complaint whether the complaining party’s work is his/her own or derives from other open source code. (2) The complaint alleges similar in “overall structure” but overall structure is NOT copyrightable material. Any similarity in structure is because both the complaining party’s work and my work are both generated using https://readthedocs.org, which is the largest open source documentation hosting site in the world. Therefore, the complaining party cannot claim copyright interest in any “overall structure” which he/she based upon open source documentation; (3) it is evident that the complaining party based his/her work product on open source documentation (such as https://readthedocs.org) or other open source material, which is not surprising and is a very common practice among Bitcoin developers. The complaining party has not identified what is copyrightable material that he/she owns, apart from open source work product which is available for anyone to use, and therefore should not be permitted to sustain a copyright infringement notice without so identifying his/her exact copyrightable material which is infringed; (4) the complaining party admits that he/she made their work product available under the MIT open source license, and at most requests that a copyright notice be restored to reflect his/her work product, and that my work product be provided under a more free open source license. Under this circumstance, it would be abusive to disable my work product from GitHub. Instead, the complaining party should be required to identify what exact portions of my work product actually infringe his/her work, so that GitHub and I can properly evaluate whether there is a basis to the claim for restoring any copyright notice (if any is even owed) to the complainant.
I am concurrently submitting a counter-notification to GitHub under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act pursuant to 15 U.S.C. section 512(g)(3).
I swear, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good-faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of a mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.
I consent to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which my address is located (if in the United States, otherwise the Northern District of California where GitHub is located), and I will accept service of process from the person who provided the DMCA notification or an agent of such person.
Please confirm that you have you have read our Guide to Submitting a DMCA Counter Notice.
So that the complaining party can get back to you, please provide both your telephone number and physical address.
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Please type your full legal name below to sign this request.
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