On 6/25/19 10:53 AM, Jones, Philip via aur-general wrote: > Jerome > > I appreciate that the package > (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/libccmio/) is not hosted on the > site but if you Google " libccmio-2.6.1.tar.gz" it is the top hit.
This sounds like an SEO problem, have you tried contacting Google to discuss why your brand is being diluted by links to some unofficial website? I'm afraid we don't have any power over this, though. Note that the Google SEO ranking is an unrelated matter -- it does not have an impact on the legality of the use of the package. If the package is hosting copyright-infringing content, then the package is illegal to distribute, regardless of its SEO ranking. If the package is *not* hosting copyright-infringing content, then the package is completely legal to distribute, again regardless of its SEO ranking. > The source has a copyright that states “The unauthorized use, > distribution, or duplication of this program is prohibited.” And indeed, we do not use, distribute, or duplicate the libccmio program. We do, however, host a tutorial (in script form) that teaches people how they can, on their own, acquire and use the program. As far as I am aware, this tutorial is legal. One potential concern is the link itself: is the https://portal.nersc.gov/ website illegally redistributing this source code? If so, have you tried talking to them about it? > I don’t want to enter into a legal argument if the link is > distribution or not, all I ask is that the listing be removed as a > matter of courtesy. The material is clearly not designed to be > publicly distributed. There is no legal argument if the link is distribution -- it may be advocacy (or "contributory copyright infringement"), but distribution is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. :/ But as far as I can tell, it all boils down to whether that link is legally distributing the product. It is plainly distributing it in some manner... If I look at the google search links following the AUR search result, I see many search results all pointing to the OpenFOAM developer resources and source code repositories. For example, https://github.com/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-6#miscellaneous Since the libccmio source code linked in the AUR build tutorial/script is also used all over by the OpenFOAM project, it seems that it is being publicly distributed for the sake of many people. Is this infringement as well? Have you discussed this with them? The AUR package is only used by the AUR build tutorial/script for OpenFOAM, so my guess is that this primarily impacts OpenFOAM users -- one of whom has converted existing OpenFOAM documentation into AUR-compatible documentation. The OpenFOAM documentation exists irrespective of the existence of this AUR package, and if the latter is removed, the former will graduate to being the top Google search result anyway, so it is probably worth looking into that either way (and fixing the root of the problem, which is the distribution by https://portal.nersc.gov/ which may or may not have the right to do so). -- Eli Schwartz Bug Wrangler and Trusted User
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