How to respond to the takedown request email?

[Xmader]

Hi, I'm Musescore developer. You need to takedown this repository: https://github.com/Xmader/musescore-downloader and any other your public repositories with same code. Because you illegaly use our private API with licensed music content. All not Public domain content on musescore.com is licensed by major music publishers (Alfred, EMI, Sony, etc.). Distribute licensed music content from Musescore.com for free you violate their rights. Therefore, in pre-trial procedure, I suggest you close the following resources: • https://github.com/Xmader/musescore-downloader (and all your forks and mirrors) • https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/391931-musescore-downloader 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.

Thanks, Max Chistyakov


P.S. You can always download Public Domain content for free from musescore.com.

2020-02-08T11:03Z

[Be-ing]

So who is going to fork MuseScore?

[PookaMustard]

EDIT: On second thought, I will not and just leave it at that. It seems the internet is fed on outrage and must interpret every intent as malicious.

So let me get this straight. You know that if Xmader breaks the law, he may be deported. Worse yet, you know he may be deported to China, which you know won't take lightly to his other repo that you know is critical of its government.

So you know (or believe) that any action you take against Xmader is going to ruin his life majorly. Instead of realizing the grave danger you're putting him in for the sake of those so-called "rights holder" scumbags and opting to quietly let it go, instead you're threatening him to comply, or, for all you know, get killed by China.

And instead of owning up to the vile things you said, you blame the internet for feeding on outrage. Who knows, maybe in a few minutes you'll pretend you've been "canceled" by the evil internet. You're a real piece of work.

Before all the rights holders you serve can go have some lonely fun with themselves, you should do that first.

[PookaMustard]

God knows what will happen to Musescore if something will happen to him.

Don't stoop to the same level as him.

[gameshack]

Considering @workedintheory is the same person defending audacitys new privacy policy and telemetry, all this isn't even surprising. https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/1225

[j0lol]

Once again, unacceptable behaviour from Muse Group. Shame.

[Be-ing]

for the sake of those so-called "rights holder" scumbags

I find it very ironic that @workedintheory is doing all this on behalf of those so-called "rights holders", presumably out of fear of their retribution on his business interests. Yet, as far as I know, not one of those so-called "rights holders" has said anything about this issue.

[umutseven92]

I urge everyone to report @workedintheory to GH support for abuse.

[sealsrock12]

I urge everyone to report @workedintheory to GH support for abuse.

Won't this classify as "imminent physical harm to myself or another person because of content or behavior on GitHub"?

[LER0ever]

I urge everyone to report @workedintheory to GH support for abuse.

Won't this classify as "imminent physical harm to myself or another person because of content or behavior on GitHub"?

That's the one I chose, and have just got an automatic response from GH Support. I'll update this comment if they ever reply.

Thanks for contacting GitHub Trust & Safety.

We’re investigating your report and will get back to you if we need any additional information.

Regards,

GitHub Trust & Safety

[sealsrock12]

I think that would always happen, though. They do need time to investigate it.

[Fortfite]

it's good to know that people were right to be afraid for the future of audacity

[devshgraphicsprogramming]

This repository violates 17 U.S. Code § 1201 - Circumvention of copyright protection systems.

No, it does not. It's in the first sentence:

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

A public API does not effectively control access to a work.

Another repository of his, musescore-dataset, has far more serious implications as it may be considered willful infringement with criminal intent (see: 17 U.S. Code § 506 - Criminal offenses). That repository is actually illegally distributing copyrighted works licensed to MuseScore by major music publishers.

That repository is doing no such thing, as no copyrighted works are hosted as part of that repository. The copyrighted works are on IPFS, which is a distributed filesystem. The legality of linking to infringing content is not settled in US case law.

Simply put, the actual process of requesting the take down and proving violation would have severe implication on Wenzheng Tang, so I have hesitated in the hopes he would simply choose to take it down himself.

The arrogance and FUD in your words is palpable.

Upon further investigation, it became clear that Wenzheng Tang is a Chinese national, but not resident in China. As a guest in his current country, his residency status is predicated on a number of conditions, one of which is not violating the law. If found in violation of laws, residency may be revoked and he may be deported to his home country. This becomes even further complicated given another repo of his - Fuck 学习强国, which is highly critical of the Chinese government. Were he deported to China, who knows how he may be received.

This is blatant blackmail.

What I have described in this post is not at all a threat, but an informed assessment of your own personal legal risk.

Dude.

You are young, clearly bright, but very naive. Do you really want to risk ruining your entire life so a kid can download your illegal bootleg of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" theme for oboe?

I don't think this requires further comment.

@workedintheory threatening deportation to a country rife with Human Rights absuses (dem Uighurs) = you're a cunt.

[Semisol]

Also.. asking for confirmation: wasn't the developers site taken down after the claim was sent?

[rickbutton]

Highly encourage those who interpreted @workedintheory 's comment as a threat of violence to report them for abuse (link here).

[krisu5]

Highly encourage those who interpreted @workedintheory 's comment as a threat of violence to report them for abuse (link here).

Done, FU @workedintheory.

[purplesyringa]

Dammit, @workedintheory, do you even realize what you're doing? Stop thinking about contracts and money at least for a minute and try to grasp what you have done!

Please, please stop treating people as cattle. Your customers are real people with their own problems. The community is not only the people who pay you. Your community does and can do much more than you can imagine. And now you're just telling them to fuck off, you don't care about any of them, 'major music publishers' are of more importance to you now.

You literally said you sold the information about and the data of your customers. Want to know how that's called? Don't trouble yourself, I'll answer this for you, it's called slavery. Those who want to look innocent rename 'master' to 'main' and think those are their two cents. Those who want to be innocent admit mistakes and work for people, not corporations. Damn, many companies literally selled stuff at a loss to make people love them!

You keep alluding to laws. Laws are not always right, especially those written many years ago. We're living at the time when discoveries are happening at an incredible rate, and people still think it's right. Talking from a developer standpoint, most laws are just a bunch of if-else statements. Every ML scientist knows that's not going to work well, and people like you are still relying on them as if that's the truth! Laws were intended to be ethics written down -- please don't let them make you think laws are ethics.

We're not living in Animal Farm, or at least I want to believe so. It's incredible that you're working on free software and don't get what's wrong with what you're doing. Free software is not just a term or a workflow like open source is, it's like a whole religion. It looks like you think that free software is the same as open source, or maybe it's open source plus GPL. No, it's not just that, and please convince Muse to stop referring to themselves as free software developers because they're not ones.

Pretend you're someone who hasn't heard of MuseScore until today and has stumbled upon this issue and now read all your comments. To me it looks as if you didn't understand there are people behind the scenes!

You are young, clearly bright, but very naive. Do you really want to risk ruining your entire life so a kid can download your illegal bootleg of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" theme for oboe?

Now read that out loud. I have no idea how you figured that out, but if you're right, what you're doing is threatening to literally kill a teen because he copied something! He hasn't even stollen anything, he just copied a file, and you're saying you'll keep working toward killing or jailing him if he doesn't do what you want him to do! Come on, this is 21th century! This is not World War II. You work for a company. You don't have to everything illegal or immoral they want you to do, you can even quit as a last resort!

Weren't you thinking about the same things at that age? I mean, freedom, morality and stuff like that. You're ready to sacrifice one's health or life because of revenue and contracts?

Please, please, please stop this Massacre of the Innocents! You surely don't want to be remembered like this. I'm still hoping you'll understand how badly wrong you are. Do 'major music publishers' want you to go through this all while hiding in the shadows themselves? You don't deserve this fate, you shouldn't do this dirty work, the humanity doesn't deserve this, goddammit, say them to fuck off if they insist.

People use Audacity and other free software projects because they believe in them. They believe developers won't betray them. They believe developers believe in the project itself and the community, not in the profit. They believe they will be heard.

You did nothing of that. Bye Muse Group, bye Daniel. Please quit Free Software, for you betrayed us all.

[ainola]

This doesn't provide a whole lot of value in the context of this ticket, but this really rubbed me the wrong way:

Do you really want to risk ruining your entire life so a kid can download your illegal bootleg of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" theme for oboe?

This belittles the value of a kid being playing music they like on an oboe. Yeah, the Pirates of the Caribbean isn't high art but this sort of arrangement helps kids bridge the gap between the music they know and the music they may grow to love. First they may be enjoying movie music, but soon they may enjoy Rose etudes and then concerti.

That line may have been a quip but it betrays your motive of bending over to monied interests over enriching the world. It may not be much, but those pieces are important. Screw your "bootleg" rhetoric: It may technically not be sanctioned by the big companies but come on, man, why are you even in this community if not to milk it for profit?

[Edit]: I want to clarify that I'm not ranking the bullied party's value of life. I'm merely addressing the disregard for the community.

[Voltra]

I didn't know who MuseGroup was until this thread. I use MuseScore (mainly for composition) and used Audacity quite frequently. Upon knowing that MuseGroup is indeed owner of MuseScore which as a service has been degrading itself for years, it is no surprise to me to find out about these exactions and the decline of Audacity. (F)OSS has never been for the greedy and I hope it stays that way. This is just one more reason as to why I will not use the paid sheets service. This is absolutely disgusting and repulsive but please, do keep ruining your own reputation like this.

[marcan]

That line may have been a quip but it betrays your motive of bending over to monied interests over enriching the world. It may not be much, but those pieces are important. Screw your "bootleg" rhetoric: It may technically not be sanctioned by the big companies but come on, man, why are you even in this community if not to milk it for profit?

FWIW, Daniel has also commented on Twitter that the reason why MuseScore.com does not support Creative Commons-licensed music (which would just involve changing a database / web field for compositions) is because he does not believe the CC music niche is sustainable. So this isn't the first time he's shown strict support for the big music industry and complete disregard for everything else.

[ghost]

@workedintheory Wtf. No seriously, wtf. What kind of horrible person are you? You and the organization you represented would’ve been absolutely cancelled by the Internet had you not deleted that blatantly racist and discriminatory comment.

Upon further investigation, it became clear that Wenzheng Tang is a Chinese national, but not resident in China. As a guest in his current country, his residency status is predicated on a number of conditions, one of which is not violating the law.

At this point your problem’s not even threatening an individual. What good can it ever do to you by blackmailing someone publicly exploiting their nationality? And that’s not to say what he does is not even illegal and you’ve been the one infringing IPs of the artists. How dare you attacking someone based solely on their social status. Would you have done the same if the other person is a DA or a senator?

Seriously what’s wrong with you? Does it even make you proud being a non-Chinese citizen so that you could bully and discriminate against people based on the region their from and their race?

This becomes even further complicated given another repo of his - Fuck 学习强国, which is highly critical of the Chinese government. Were he deported to China, who knows how he may be received.

“Who knows how he may be received”??? Centuries of western human rights movement down the drain. Absolute shame on you for thinking that way. Every bit of that comment needs to be reported for harassment and this is utterly unacceptable. Finally we have someone who’s sensible enough to be critical of his own government’s wrongdoings and this is how you treat him? Are you even human?

It’s already made me sad enough to see the recent pass away of one great developer of the century and I’m certainly not letting the bully happen again.

@workedintheory You and your corporate BS can eff off.

[AeroNotix]

When you cannot innovate; litigate.

[ghost]

@imachug and @JQ555888 You might be surprised at how few rights an immigrant has, unfortunately. As someone with deepest sympathies for people trying to learn to better themselves living in another country. A non-native born can be deported at any time even if they are living in the US legally. I only know this because I have helped legalize a few of my close family and we went through the process ourselves without the help of expensive price-gouging lawyers. It is absolutely terrifying to live every day with the threat of having your entire life completely uprooted by forces outside your control. I live with this fear and I live with a suitcase packed.

Were he deported to China, who knows how he may be received.

Thankfully, and ironically, there are numerous independent states in the area which are also critical of the Chinese government. Should he be deported, I'm sure they will be happy to receive him.

[BenMcLean]

There could be a legit argument for requesting that software which violates the musescore.com's terms of use but which nevertheless does point users at musescore.com be changed to remove references to musescore.com. Seems a little petty, but OK, I could see that.

But threatening somebody with the evil Chinese government in order to get your way? That's evil. That's pure 100% Satanic, straight from Hell, zero ambiguity, mustache twirling Saturday morning cartoon villain Evil.

[alxndr42]

I have reported @workedintheory for harrassment.

[Xmader]

@kirwinia Feel free to quote me.

---

@workedintheory You could soon rebrand yourself as the Head of Tragedy, because the internet will "cancel" you and your MuseGroup upon the numerous personal harassments about my nationality and my well-being, which are completely unrelated to the copyright claim.

[Be-ing]

FWIW, Daniel has also commented on Twitter that the reason why MuseScore.com does not support Creative Commons-licensed music (which would just involve changing a database / web field for compositions) is because he does not believe the CC music niche is sustainable. So this isn't the first time he's shown strict support for the big music industry and complete disregard for everything else.

That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. He's in a perfect position to make it easier for musicians to fairly monetize Creative Commons licensed music but chosen to ignore that business opportunity out of closed-mindedness and instead pisses people off more every time he comments. "Head of Tragedy" is a fitting title I think.

[cadadr]

I have reported @workedintheory for harrassment.

Me as well. Also sent a link to this issue to to Ars Technica. Their coverage of the telemetry issue was shitty, but still. I don't know much tech news outlets, those who know some, preferably with some integrity (unlike Ars Technica), give your favourite ones a heads up.

These people want to suck the blood out of both musicians and FOSS communities. :middle_finger:

[Semisol]

I am actually not able to comprehend how they think they are fine saying essentially this: (this is MY personal interpretation of the message) You did a thing that "infringes" on other record companies' rights. Please remove this, because it is against our corporate interest, or we will take action on the companies' behalf. Oh look! You are vulnerable too, so we will tell you that you may be deported to China if you do not comply! And we totally want to prevent this from happening! And we don't give a s*** about what happens to you.

[Semisol]

And small thing, I got a response around 7 hours ago.

[cadadr]

@Semisol we've all seen a very high profile case with youtube-dl, haven't we? Did the company or whatever throw a tantrum or say anything publicly? They just sent the DMCA, the repo was taken down, and later restored. Here they either can't afford lawyers or they so utterly lack any legal ground, even worse than in the youtube-dl case, that they resort to threats in public.

[Semisol]

@Semisol we've all seen a very high profile case with youtube-dl, haven't we? Did the company or whatever throw a tantrum or say anything publicly? They just sent the DMCA, the repo was taken down, and later restored. Here they either can't afford lawyers or they so utterly lack any legal ground, even worse than in the youtube-dl case, that they resort to threats in public.

Yep. I am sort of going to be honest it is 95% like that case.

[Be-ing]

And small thing, I got a response around 7 hours ago.

That is a generic response GitHub moderation says to any report.

[Semisol]

And small thing, I got a response around 7 hours ago.

That is a generic response GitHub moderation says to any report.

But it must mean at least someone was assigned, I know it is automated.

[Be-ing]

Here they either can't afford lawyers or they so utterly lack any legal ground, even worse than in the youtube-dl case, that they resort to threats in public.

Or don't talk to their lawyers before talking, ignore their lawyers, or have incompetent lawyers. They sure are incompetent at public relations.

[maxymax13]

@workedintheory pretty lame bro, totally not cool man

[kirwinia]

Reported :)

[ghost]

Let us not forget this guy https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-01-26-fox-shamelessly-steals-still-alive-composers-song-for-glee

Jonathan Coulton. Here's how copyright law works in the US. A creative person publishes their work online, they give up their rights to the publishing company be it YouTube or MuseScore, which means for purposes or reuse, the thief only needs to defer to the publishing company and not the original artist, even if the publishing company did not make it clear how their work could be reused. @workedintheory embodies the fact that copyright laws only protect corporate interest and never protect the disenfranchised like they were originally intended.

To put it more simply, DMCA is intended to protect content owners, not content creators. They are usually not the same person/entity.

[summer-espresso]

Reported.

[leetfin]

@workedintheory This is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen on GitHub. You should be ashamed of yourself, and take the time to google a little thing called the Streisand effect. Ignoring the entire community with Audacity was bad enough, but threatening a developer is way past any reasonable line. You are digging a hole for yourself and Muse Group, but with a nuclear backhoe instead of a shovel this time. Reported for harassment.

@Xmader I'm sorry you have to deal with all this bs. It's escalated since I last read this thread, and I hope you're doing alright. Keep up the good fight!

[chris-hatton]

@workedintheory MuseScore concerns aside; attempting to exploit a persons vulnerability to political violence is utterly deplorable. Worst thing I've ever seen on GitHub, or witnessed first-hand anywhere for some time. Shame on you. Reflect.

[agent255]

@workedintheory You deserve to be banned from github and fired from muse

[CoWinkKeyDinkInc]

@workedintheory People's lives shouldn't be ruined over sheet music, that you yourself don't even own!

[ghost]

@workedintheory I really hope you get fired/ get thrown out of Muse Group. Your Behavior is unacceptable and should not be tolerated at Muse Group!

ok maybe not that bad, but I still think your behavior is unacceptable

[ghost]

@Xmader I don't know your exact situation, but if you would like help applying for citizenship, I'd be happy to help. Civil disputes are hardly grounds for removal.

[CSharperMantle]

@workedintheory I really hope you get fired/ get thrown out of Muse Group. Your Behavior is unacceptable and should not be tolerated at Muse Group!

Well don't talk things as bad as him.

[mayukhnair]

@Xmader, atleast from their GitHub profile, seems to be a national of the Republic of China (Taiwan), not the People's Republic of China (Mainland China). Unlike the latter, I don't think ROC will take any action whatsoever (and PRC doesn't deal with ROC nationals not on its territory either) unless they committed a crime under Taiwanese law, but if that were the case it would be a legal notice to them and not a threatening comment on GitHub.

Jesus christ @workedintheory, god forbid your family ever has to deal with a government that has no qualms in ruining its own citizens' lives over dissent. This is straight-up the GitHub issue comment equivalent of the mafia leaving a dead fish on someone's doorstep. I really hope MuseScore gets shamed enough to the point of dropping Audacity off. Oh, btw, go revisit your elementary school geography class to learn the difference between the two Chinas.

More power to you @Xmader, and hoping you are taking whatever action you need to stay safe.

[kstenerud]

Upon further investigation, it became clear that Wenzheng Tang is a Chinese national, but not resident in China. As a guest in his current country, his residency status is predicated on a number of conditions, one of which is not violating the law.

If found in violation of laws, residency may be revoked and he may be deported to his home country.

This becomes even further complicated given another repo of his - Fuck 学习强国, which is highly critical of the Chinese government. Were he deported to China, who knows how he may be received.

[dic1911]

@workedintheory You simply made yourself one of the worst people I ever seen on GitHub. Good luck with all those abuse report.

[pistasjis]

@workedintheory Please leave FOSS/open source immediately. None of us accept your behavior in our community.

[SkyfallWasTaken]

@workedintheory I never heard of MuseScore until I randomly found this issue on GitHub. Your behaviour is absolutely disgusting. Saying "Wow you're having a great life now, it'd be a real shame if you lost it" or things like that is NOT acceptable. Here is what he said:

Thanks for injecting a more human element to this discussion. There is actually quite a bit more to this story here than most people realize.

I'll try to explain.

Wenzheng Tang (@Xmader) is actually violating the law with both repositories related to MuseScore, one of them a rather severe violation.

This repository violates 17 U.S. Code § 1201 - Circumvention of copyright protection systems.

Another repository of his, musescore-dataset, has far more serious implications as it may be considered willful infringement with criminal intent (see: 17 U.S. Code § 506 - Criminal offenses). That repository is actually illegally distributing copyrighted works licensed to MuseScore by major music publishers.

That such distribution is considered copyright infringement on a massive scale (hundreds of thousands of works) is unambiguous.

This purpose does not meet the four necessary requirements for fair use claim according to Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act.

Those factors are:

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

the nature of the copyrighted work;

the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Further explanation of the four factors can be found in this article - The Fair Use Exception.

--

To provide further context, it is important to understands that 100% of all rights to transcription or arrangement of a copyrighted work belong to the rights holder, regardless of who performed the transcription or arrangement. This is a point of great confusion for many.

Further explanation of this topic can be found in the following article - No, You Don’t Own Your Arrangement of That Hit Song.

--

So, if it is such a clear violation, it should be quite easy to get this taken down, right? Why hasn't this repo been taken down yet?

Simply put, the actual process of requesting the take down and proving violation would have severe implication on Wenzheng Tang, so I have hesitated in the hopes he would simply choose to take it down himself.

I'll explain why...

Upon further investigation, it became clear that Wenzheng Tang is a Chinese national, but not resident in China. As a guest in his current country, his residency status is predicated on a number of conditions, one of which is not violating the law.

If found in violation of laws, residency may be revoked and he may be deported to his home country.

This becomes even further complicated given another repo of his - Fuck 学习强国, which is highly critical of the Chinese government. Were he deported to China, who knows how he may be received.

While under normal circumstances, he could apply for asylum in order not to be deported, but this option is extremely limited when found in violation of the laws of the country you are a guest in.

And though the laws cited above are in reference to US law and he is neither a resident or national of the US, this is simply the starting point as the initial distribution is through Github, which is a us company and the copyrights in question are US copyrights. There are treaties between countries that would allow this to then be extended to his country of residence in accordance with their own laws (I do not mention which country out of courtesy or any other details such as the basis of residency out of respect for personal privacy).

So, both repositories remain up, for now, not because we are powerless to take it down... it is that the process of exercising this power could very literally ruin the actual life of another person.

At the same time, the company is legally obligated to enforce violation of copyrighted works licensed to them. There will soon come a time where hesitation is no longer possible.

But do keep in mind that enforcement may also come from any one of the rights holders of the hundreds of thousands of copyrighted works illegally distributed at any time. It is unlikely that any others will be as empathetic.

As you can see, there is far more to this story than what may be assumed by the external observer.

So, Wenzheng Tang (@Xmader), I'm writing this entire post here not as a representative of any company or entity, but just human-to-human to strongly encourage you to remove both repositories and move on with your life.

The LibreScore project is fully within your right as MuseScore is GPL, and is even encouraged, but I would suggest you remove any reference to registered trademarks.

What I have described in this post is not at all a threat, but an informed assessment of your own personal legal risk.

You are young, clearly bright, but very naive. Do you really want to risk ruining your entire life so a kid can download your illegal bootleg of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" theme for oboe?

Please, like @Odyssey346 said, leave FOSS immediately.