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by justinmayer 3240 days ago
Agreed. I just reported that account (https://github.com/dmcahelper) for submitting spurious DMCA takedown requests. GitHub personnel responded promptly:

  Hi Justin,
  
  Thanks for writing in. We're looking at the account.
  
  All best,
  
  (GitHub employee name redacted)
GitHub is listening. Please consider reporting this account, which can be done via the link above. Look for Block or report user link under the user description at left.
3 comments
nilved 3240 days ago
How does that non-response (the same one they pasted to me) give you the impression they're listening? For one, they have done nothing to address the issue of flagrant DMCA abuse. For two, the account is still active. For three, the commit hasn't been reverted.

This is not the first time this has happened.[0] GitHub's response has been woefully inadequate and OSS maintainers should consider using another platform. Everyone using GitHub is vulnerable to suddenly and arbitrarily losing their repository.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5331766

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zaphar 3239 days ago
The beauty of git and similar DVCS's is that you essentially can't lose the repository. You can only lose the github namespace for that repository. And using a different platform has the same effect. If you are worried about losing the Github namespace for the repository then moving to a different platform doesn't seem like a solution.
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nilved 3239 days ago
Not true. Issues, pull requests, deploy keys, access control...
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zaphar 3239 days ago
issues, pull requests, deploy keys, access control. None of those the repository. They are associated with the repository and it would be annoying to lose them But with the exception of the issues all of them are replaceable with mostly minimal effort unless you did something really wrong.

And again switching to a different platform doesn't solve that problem either. You'd still lose the issues that are in github.

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RandVal30142 3240 days ago
Reported.

edit:

Response from support: "Hi xxxxx. This account is not affiliated with GitHub and we are looking into it."

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gressquel 3240 days ago
Reported. I think at one pooint GH has to make a decision if they want to kick him out or not, especially when paying members are reporting
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