[marcan_42]

What scares me is musescore.com. That website went from being a largely free repository of sheet music to a subscription service paying into the music industry, with no support for CC style licenses (it's either public domain or paywalled), locking everyone's sheet music retroactively behind a paywall regardless of actual license, sometimes in violation of said licenses (e.g. anything with a BY-NC or similar style license). None of the profits go to independent creators, only to a few major rights associations, regardless of who actually owns the music. They then tried to threaten folks who had written download tools with vague and ridiculous threats. [1]

It seems these days they support CC (finally...), but not any ad-hoc or third party licenses. So most of the music I'm interested in, which is legal to distribute sheet music of for free but not commercially (but under a non-CC license), is still paywalled in violation of its copyright.

MuseScore the software is fine, but the MuseScore.com fiasco has left a really bad taste in my mouth. I hope none of that nonsense bleeds over into the development teams of the actual OSS software, but absent any kind of apology or change of direction MuseScore.com, I'm scared.

[1] https://github.com/Xmader/musescore-downloader/issues/5

[ratww]

On the link you posted:

> Otherwise, I will have to transfer information about you to lawyers who will cooperate with github.com and Chinese government to physically find you and stop the illegal use of licensed content.

This is by far the worst takedown request I've ever seen in Github. The physically find you is especially concerning, since the owner of the repository seems to be a Chinese national.

Apparently by the time the takedown was written, the API was public but the documentation was taken down. The next replies don't make it better, and it seems they don't have a leg to stand on to send a proper DMCA.

I also had no idea they belonged to Ultimate Guitar. Honestly I lost some of the respect I had for MuseScore and Audacity teams after seeing this.

This is IMO worse than the youtube-dl debacle.

EDIT: The same developer who wrote the email seems to be making threats involving the police in another repository: https://github.com/Xmader/musescore-downloader/issues/42#iss...

[zxzax]

If you do illegal things, the authorities will get involved. That's how that works.

[ratww]

The way the issue is worded is not how things work in the civilised world.

The affected parties have first to prove or at least argue that the software is doing anything illegal. The repository owners were using a documented, public, authenticated, third party API that was only taken down after the issue was posted. This is not illegal.

If there were anything illegal like piracy happening, it should have been resolved is by having the affected parties send a DMCA to GitHub, just like in the YouTube-dl situation, just like the repo owner asked Daniel J. Rey to do.

This is how it's done. Not by sending lies ("illegally using our private API" that was actually publicly documented) and making mafia-like threats ("will physically find you").

[zxzax]

If you are committing crimes in China, the police (i.e. the Chinese government) will find you and stop you. I don't know why this is a point of contention. That is a fact.

If the API was protected in any way, the usage can fall under anti-circumvention. That's how the DMCA works. This is also a fact.

We can dispute what actually happened, and we can dispute invididual laws in China (or in EU, or the US), but your assertions seem to be suggesting that it's wrong that these things happen at all, which is not true.

[ratww]

Making a program is not illegal, as long as it's not circumventing anything. If it were, SEND A DMCA. FOLLOW THE LAW.

The API was public, authenticated, documented and intended for third party developers. Even if it was reverse engineered there is still legal grounds for that, as seen by the YouTube-dl situation.

If there was any law-breaking, it would be the people downloading scores and MuseGroup for distributing them.

Repeating what I said below:

Even if musescore-downloader was doing illegal things (and I would argue it wasn't, since there was no circumvention of anything), the law should be followed by both sides, no excuses. That means sending a DMCA instead of a threat.

[zxzax]

This may have been an accident where the legal notice was sent out before taking the API offline. If that's the case I agree they messed up. The DMCA may not apply here.

[meibo]

I was mentioning this last time MuseScore appeared on HN - their CEO gave some insight in the comments on how this came to be.

Seems to boil down to "music publishing mafia didn't like it", which is understandable.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25825533

[matkoniecz]

This does not excuse

> Otherwise, I will have to transfer information about you to lawyers who will cooperate with github.com and Chinese government to physically find you and stop the illegal use of licensed content.

part

https://github.com/Xmader/musescore-downloader/issues/5#issu...

Especially given that person making threats appears to be from Russia and target in China.

[coldtea]

It's not like he's reporting them to the Gestapo for termination.

He's reporting them to the police of a country for a copyright complaint. The fact that the country is China doesn't mean anything ominous.

Besides the "state persecution" thing, there's regular police and court work in China, every day, for 1.6 billion people, and millions of criminal, civic, business disputes, and other such cases, which is where this will fall into.

That it's China probably makes it even lighter, not harder, since copyright abuses there are seen much more lightly than in the west.

[diydsp]

musescore.com has some dark patterns in the their pricing, too. Just 2 weeks ago, when I couldn't find out how much it costs, I asked my friend circle. They pointed me to some indirect references to how much it costs, but it's not out there in front. You also have to make an account in order to see the price.

Plus musescore.com has numerous shenanigans with payment, ending subscriptions, etc [0]

It leads me to wonder, what is the other side of this deal? Will muscore.com repeat what they did with the free musescore software and utilize it to ensnare a large number of community resources? What kind of deal are the Audacity devs getting offered? I hope tantacrul doesn't become the face of a dumpsterfire.

[0] https://www.trustpilot.com/review/musescore.com

[Hinrik]

I found it amusing that the originator of the takedown email commented with this:

>We are genuinely committed to open source and do want to make as much as possible as free as possible. The fact that I am sitting here and writing in these discussions at all should be evidence of our commitment to open source and engagement vs. simply passing the issue on to lawyers to deal with.

And then this next (and final) comment ended with this:

> I will not be commenting further on this topic.

[zxzax]

The copyright holders should just upload the sheet music to a different website. There is no requirement for anyone to redistribute a piece of Creative Commons content for free. That's true even with the NC licenses, in that case, the only real option for non-compliance is for the copyright holder to file a takedown notice to get the material removed. I know it seems counter-intuitive since you probably want to download that music, but this is what you're actually asking for.

If the copyright holders are absent then not much is going to be done about this -- that's one of the major reasons why artists join these large copyright holding organizations, to handle this stuff for them!

[simondotau]

On the other hand, isn't it nice to have a funding model that allows developers of open source software to be sustainably salaried?

[dTal]

Not at the expense of what it stands for, no.

[simondotau]

I'm sorry, I don't understand. Can you explain what you mean by that? Then more broadly, can you explain how the creation of more GPL-licensed source code can ever be a bad thing?

[marcinzm]

An extreme example since you asked a very absolute question:

I sell software to the Chinese government to track down dissidents and kill them with drones. I release a lot of code under a GPL license and use the funds to promote OSS software. Most people wouldn't consider this a positive for the world even though more GPL software is created. Or in other words many people do not believe that "the ends justify the means" is a valid reason for something.

[simondotau]

You described multiple distinct events. The killing of people was the bad thing. The releasing of code under the GPL is at most a neutral thing.

[marcinzm]

They are not distinct, stopping the former would also stop the latter, as such they are linked.

[btown]

One of the comments by a MuseScore developer in that thread is much more nuanced: https://github.com/Xmader/musescore-downloader/issues/5#issu...

Essentially it boils down to this: if you see value to society in allowing people to share musical scores with each other, that's fundamentally at odds with a libre software philosophy. Because if you let people share music on a platform, they will inevitably share copyrighted melodies, which means not only that you are forced to monetize to be able to strike licensing arrangements, or else be sued into oblivion. And you are also required to enforce that the sharing software be used as intended in order to placate rightsholders, or else be sued into oblivion. And it's that "as intended" that is fundamentally different from how many of us think about FOSS.

There's a lot of corporate speak in the official post here related to the emplacement of score downloads behind the paywall in the first place https://musescore.com/groups/improving-musescore-com/discuss... but it's the same sentiment: if MuseScore.com doesn't put in place paywalls for downloads and enforce them, they will lose their ability to negotiate with major music publishers, and they see that outcome being a net loss to society of access to digital scores.

Frankly, I think this is a reasonable tradeoff. MuseScore sees monetization and adherence to these restrictions as a necessary step to ensure they have the resources and community to promote music literacy. That's a distinct mission from, say, GNU's mission, and just as valid. And of all the corporations using GPL for visions distinct from GNU's vision (here's looking at you, AWS), this one at least has a reason beyond being a naked cash grab.

[ratww]

No, it's not nuanced.

The discussion stops being nuanced as soon as the company starts the discussion with a threat such as "will cooperate with github.com and Chinese government to physically find you and stop the illegal use of licensed content".

At the point the email in the Github issue was written the API was public. It was removed after the repository owner responded, as can be seen on the Internet Archive.

Nothing ever justifies offering a public API and getting people to use it, to only later backtrack, accuse users of "stealing" and threaten developers with use of physical force.

If the problem is caused by major industries, then just remove the previously public API and don't send mafia-like threats.

[zxzax]

I think the wording of that email is bad, but your assessment of the situation is incorrect. The threat of legal action is real and it comes from the copyright holders. The company can't do anything about that, they are being threatened by the same copyright holders. Removing the public API doesn't really change the situation.

[ratww]

"Threat of legal action" is MuseScore letting/recommending the copyright holders to send a DMCA, like in youtube-dl. This is even what the repository owners say in the first few comments.

Threatening someone with words like "Chinese government to physically find you and stop the illegal use of licensed content" is extremely serious and shouldn't be casually dismissed.

This is not "badly worded". This is either a lie, or MuseScore is dealing with institutions that behave like the Mafia. There is no excuse for either of those behaviours.

Also, you seem to be implying that the company had the opportunity to work together and alert the repo owner, but instead they decided to double down on the threats and accusations. This is also completely unacceptable.

[markn951]

Religious zealotry is not realistic nor is it useful.

[smolder]

This seems misdirected to me. Not all principled stances can be fairly compared to religious zealotry. Standing up for the rights of users strikes me as pretty useful.

[ratww]

One of the takedown emails to a Github repository owner says "who will cooperate with github.com and Chinese government to physically find you and stop the illegal use of licensed content".

I think any reasonable person would find this unethical mafia-like behaviour.

[dTal]

You call it religious zealotry, I call it "having principles" and I do find it useful.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Thankfully, this is a practical concern, not religious zealotry.

[IshKebab]

How do you expect them to pay for developers without some form of income?