The article does not provide evidence that the users are fake (may well be true, but presumption of innocence applies). If they are not fake, and reports of copyright violation to the platform are duly considered, then it would appear to comply with DMCA in much the same way as Youtube or Facebook do - am I wrong?

> one of the world's most visited sites

> According to Alexa the site is ranked as the 209,334 most visited site in the world

Clickbait much? I think to be considered "one of the world's most visited" it should at least be in the top 1,000

Is this some kind of political prep piece for passing legislation in Europe against google, internet archive, and other search engines indexing public content?

I love how we are kvetching about the legality of rehosting/profiteering/copyright etc and not a single concern for the cancer that ads truly are...

I understand the economic lubricant that ads provide to keep many things connected and operating, but its such a one way flow that ads are a syphon more that they are a grout.

This is a fascinating investigation!

The guy would do the same, but he cannot even dream of that income.

Report loaded with envy have no place on my list.

Let the Russian live.

Extracted from a (french) song and roughly translated :

In life, son, you have two choices : you work or make money

For my own sake.

> Of course it is "more useful" to perpetrate than to suffer injustice, but for the sake of the thinking dialogue with myself this utilitarian standpoint has to be given up."

> Natürlich ist es "nützlicher", Unrecht zu tun als Unrecht zu leiden; um des denkenden Dialogs mit mir selbst willen muss gerade dieser Nützlichkeitsstandpunkt aufgegeben werden.

-- Hannah Arendt, "Wahrheit und Politik"

It's a very important question. IMO we should be most mindful of our work and moneymaking since we spend most of our waking life doing these things.

When we are dishonest in our moneymaking, we are probably creating unnecessary suffering for others. That's enough reason for some.

IMO it also feels easier to love and be loved (e.g. by friends, family, your children, etc.) if you are honest in your dealings with others.

Honestly though. I feel like I'm seeing so much grifting these days, from stuff like this, to people charging for faux-lifestyle courses, to (ahem) crypto speculators, plus a bunch of stuff from public figures and politicians. I'm sure a lot of it is not new, but it does make you wonder what the point is.

Its not that easy question to answer anymore. The same can be said for working at or for Google or Facebook etc

For the amount of good Google has done for human beings and Internet, there is equal amount of morally questionable ways they make money. 'Honest work' is such a fluid concept now that the grey area seems okay.

This is an important question everyone should ask themselves. Should you be honest or sacrifice it for money? Do you want to sleep well every night? Do you have a moral compass or is it broken already? Should you sell your ethics? You probably have more space to decide than those who struggle surviving the day. You can choose.

Wise words indeed.

For one thing, you might not want to risk being in jail.

Your post reads (to me) like you no longer believe in absolute ethics.

If that's the case, how can you argue with someone else's definition of ethics?

My spot checks indicate it was 10/10 on the money, not that this has anything to do with the subject on this thread. Just because some anon on the internet is giving me 'friendly advice' to not take any of the information as factual because Putin might like it (or because it makes Browder sad).... Why are you even bringing this up?

This one is a little different. There's the blatant, willful copyright violation. And misrepresenting the doc authors as endorsing this website.

I completely agree with you on that. So it remains more questionable than good, though I do not think the '12 year old swatters' will click beyond the main article (from last year's rtl.nl website which did not contain info if i remember correctly) and go to the more detailed page described in OP.

It provided the content using a online PDF viewer it seems, so downloading the actual PDF is not that important

Never ascribe to Napoleon etc.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/12/30/not-malice/

TL;DR Seems to have been first attributed to 'Napolean' on Usenet in 1997!

That's Hanlon razor :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

so what would comprise the requirements for an adequate explanation of incompetence in this case?

Original text removed as I already stated below it was wrong but people keep complaining.

Apparently it is illegal since the start of this year (in the Netherlands, as it is where the article is from) since may 2018 as the new AVG went into effect and it is considered personal data which requires approval for publishing.

It's very well possible though, so jumping to "organized crime" is also a stretch

Again, I wouldn’t be so sure. It’s a useful practice to use real people’s info for precisely situations like this.

Step 1) register foo.com Step 2) make email address John.doe@foo.com Step 3) register bar.com using John.doe@foo.com as contact info. Include contact info for John Doe with a real address and random phone number

This meets Whois requirements and makes it a bit harder for any real lookups. It’s easier than providing wholly fake info because journalists will Lee dogging. When journalists contact John Doe who denies owning bar.com then they will work it like an uncooperative subject.

You can just take address/phone book and point at a random lucky guy and register as him.

People are selfish and wish to capitalize on the viral nature of reuse. So they make up "legal rights" to protect their ability to out gain you even after they're long dead.

This is a common copyright fallacy. So common that Brad Templeton was combatting it 20 years ago. Publication does not waive copyright.

* https://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

> If a file is available through non-auth http it’s unclear what the copyright is.

Protocol has nothing to do with copyright. “Non-auth http” doesn't suddenly make copyright murky.

> But by releasing a document publicly with unlimited access via URL the author explicitly allows unlimited distribution (and due to the nature of tcp/ip redistribution).

There is an implicit license to exactly the redistribution necessary to effect access by URL, sure, but this is not “unlimited distribution”.

Republishing is, particularly, not what is licensed.

> If a file is available through non-auth http it’s unclear what the copyright is.

No. Everything that is copyrightable is either under copyright or the copyright has expired. There are no copyrightable works that are neither. What you can do with a file on "non-auth HTTP" depends on what rights the copyright holder grants you. Making it available implies you are allowed to read it. Doesn't imply you're allowed to copy it, print it, sell it, make money with it, ...

Since the article contained some private Dutch governmental documents, I think you are correct to state the last case (some non-public). Though if the are public, reselling them (or making profit as a side business) without referring to the original document is problematic at best, illegal at worst. There are plenty of sites who reference or even quote published documents from the overheid.nl (goverment) websites and make profit from them, but not by copying them without reference. Though they all serve some legitimate purpose and you can actually download them instead of having to click though quizzes and other annoying things in the hope you will click one advertisement.

However, their point stands true: in exUSSR climate, registering a dummy entity through an ignorant proxy is an easy and common way to run a shady business, and sometimes even a legit one. It's entirely unnecessary to bring Magnitsky's deal as an example, but this method is well known and practiced since perestroika. It's safe to assume the person in question was a proxy, and that further investigation is needed.

Ahem. The maker of that documentary is anti-Putin to the extent he supports the theory that Putin blew up some Russian apartment buildings to start a war.

Browder, on the other hand, is actively surpressing the documentary; even if none of the things said about him in the documentary are true (in which case you'd think he would sue the guy who made it for libel; a guy who lives in the UK), that's pretty shady.

The law concerned, in this case of a (purportedly) Russian citizen using EU-located servers to serve WWW pages to people in the EU, is not U.S. law. You have made this further error twice, now.

You and xe were both quite clearly talking about implicit licences.

You can call them anti-Trump as well. And they have to serve jail time in Russia, btw.

Or we do not hear about low-profile ones. Being high profile (Navalny, Khodorkovsky) might be even an insurance policy to keep one at least alive.

Sadly, this isn't true.

You can use google translate to read this:

https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2018/10/22/78289-povar-...

TL;DR version: Small time regional bloggers disappear and the "executioners" are then erased themselves.

This is one of the very few newspapers left in Russia which does this kind of investigative journalism, they get death threats regularly.

EDIT: Spelling.

In most places it's not part of criminal law but a civil matter, although the copyright industry has taken steps to change that under the guise of "counterfeiting".

Following the same logic killing someone would also be legal as long as "nobody complains".

It is illegal but you may escape consequences if no one complains.

> I get the impression ATM that copyright infringement is legal as long as nobody complains.

Copyright infringement is never legal. Yes, it's often not enforced until someone complains, but there is a difference between enforcement and legality.

> TL;DR it's not a crime if nobody complains.

It is a crime even if nobody complains, you're just not getting caught or reprimanded. It is possible to hurt someone without getting caught. That doesn't make it okay.

Then several infringement cases have to be opened, in each country according to its specific copyright laws. This may drown the author in costs and time spent to fight these claims that he/she may be discouraged and shut the business down. However this orchestrated "attack" would require coordination from the accusing parties. Further the complexity of such cases requires highly educated lawyers educated in law in cyberspace which means that they are expensive. That is why copyright laws cannot be solved easily in a decentralized way, if they are deemed to be a problem of course. I would claim even that there is no economic feasibility in such infringement claims i.e. there's no money to be made in them directly (acquired from the infringing party) and since the documents are public already, they hold implicitly no monetary value, thus even indirectly there is no money to be made there.

That's... an interesting interpretation of Magnitsky's murder. (regardless of whether Browder himself was involved in any shady dealings). They, and supporting citations, also come from only one source, too.

So, I'm supposed to believe some anon's interpretation of this documentary... apparently based on his subjective analysis of some guy's twitter feed... over my own lying eyes?

How do you explain the Russian documents on Browders website that say ... what Nekrasov says, and NOT what Browder says? It's a pretty simple fact check; you don't even need to speak Russian to do it. I did it, and it appears that Nekrasov was honest and Browder is the deceptive lunatic who wants to start WW-3 over his tax bill. Hey, I could be wrong: on the other hand, I'm providing citations and you, an anon, are providing opinions as to the political content of someone's twitter feed.

Not to do anything to violate HN's rules, and you certainly are free to believe what you want, or what you need, but in this particular matter I will take an opinion of someone who doesn't even speak Russian, and does not care to look at any of the primary sources with a great grain of salt.