GitHub reverses DMCA takedown
May 2021 Newsletter
GitHub has reversed the DMCA takedown and reinstated OpenBeta climbing-data repository. Access to the repository containing the crowd-sourced climbing route data files was disabled for over two months. The reversal came after the Electronic Frontier Foundation submitted a counter-notice two weeks ago.
GitHub wrote in their email:
As we did not receive notice that an action has been filed seeking a court order to restrain you from posting the materials on GitHub’s system, your repository has now been restored.
This is a huge victory for climbers. I'm humbled and grateful for all the help I received — first and foremost, I owe many thanks to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for providing pro bono legal assistance. I also wanted to thank everyone for voicing their support in public and many others who wrote to me in private.
So what's next for OpenBeta?
Victor Hugo said, “Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.” I believe there's no better time than now that climbers step up and steward the climbing information. The existing climbing content and future contributions need a proper license that encourages collaboration and at the same time puts the community's interest first. I'm forming a task force to work on choosing a license.
If you're interested in participating in the task force, please write to hello@openbeta.io.
Interview Series
MountainProject Reddit Bot with Derek Antrican
Links
Free the facts in the MountainProject database — Supporter's petition on Change.org
Mountain Project, OpenBeta, and the Fight Over Climbing Data Access — ClimbingMagazine
Free as in Climbing: Rock Climber’s Open Data Project Threatened by Bogus Copyright Claims — Electronic Frontier Foundation
Stop stealing creative content like route descriptions from other sites. I craft them for MP and not for some random site to steal word for word with no attribution. You go too far with that vs basic route data like name, # of bolts, and FA. Your contributors should write their own descriptions, not steal them.
Just looking through what you have for Rumney, almost all of the descriptions have been stolen from me and my friends without permission. Please be honorable and remove them, otherwise it is a complete turnoff to ever contributing anything to this site and I would recommend nobody else be part of it either.
Mark Sprague