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A website has “stolen” my program and reselling it

39 points by reliefs ↗ HN
Hi the website https://www.ektor.io has stolen my entire program https://github.com/instabotai/instabotai/. He is breaking both my old license and my new. He does not credit me or the repo in any place and he has just excluded the license from my program which he sells for $49.

What can i do about this ? I am thinking contacting his host today.

Thanks

44 comments

[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] thread
stazz1
Super shady. I wonder how often this occurs. Let's make a website just to index open source software being sold inappropriately/ against the agreement of the software. Seems like this problem will only grow if someone can grab some open source software on this corner of the web and put it on a shelf with a pricetag on this other corner. Rightfully the profits would belong to you, but it's free software, so people are just handing this person $50 to get access to your github effectively?
reliefs
yeah that's a good way to describe it :) He also excluded my license which states "this license should always be included"
sevenf0ur
How do you know, did you pay the $79 to gain access and inspect the download?
modzu
well i just google'd one of my popular open source apps and the result above mine was a sketchy app store site doing exactly this!! :(
brudgers
If it matters, hire a lawyer.
gruez
Send a DMCA request? Since he's not following your license, he's infringing on your copyright.

edit: looks like other commenters are saying that it was previously licensed under apache 2, so this advice might not apply (I initially assumed it was GPL3).

drenvuk
Contact the host. Contact a lawyer. Send a cease and desist. He just showed you a valuable market so take his spot and make that paper.

Good luck.

falcolas
Definitely a copyright issue, since they're not complying with the license.

That said, if they complied by including the Apache license by restoring the copyright notices and license text, as I understand it there's nothing further you can (realistically) do. Putting energy into being upset about an Apache licensed program being "stolen" won't help you in the long run.

Narty
How do you know for sure they are using your program?
throwaw1
Offer the same product for half the price. Market it free ektor.io or something
nsxwolf
Yes. Copy the page wholesale, and put up a notice that the other site has pirated yours, and is trying to sell your software for twice the price.
gus_massa
> Copy the page wholesale

That's a bad idea, they can sue back.

glofish
is it piracy really?

I will say that it is an eye-opening reminder for people to not license code without understanding what the license does and does not permit.

maxvapor710
Your repository had an Apache License up until yesterday, which parts of the License do you feel that is being violated?

It seems he is selling this product as a SaaS, so not necessarily redistributing the software but I could be mistaken.

sairamkunala
product is being offered to be downloaded, which means re-distribution.
glofish
specifically what terms are violated by offering Apache-licensed code for download?
sairamkunala
I see that usually you need to add a file mentioning the list of the original licenses.

See https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0#redistribution

You must give any other recipients of the Work or Derivative Works a copy of this License;

glofish
Is the top poster's main concern here that the person that resells their program does not include the disclaimer somewhere in the documentation?

Note how that information could be placed anywhere, even a remote and not well accessible or logical place. Would that solve the complaint the top poster has? Not really.

Would most people that potentially buy this software even read that information? Or be wanting to redistribute the code? After all, the code is already freely distributed and available!

Not that I condone the behavior - I think it is deplorable, it is stealing, it breaks the spirit of the license.

It is more about not fully understanding what licenses may be used for.

ohiovr
If apache licensed code had contributers, can the code be relicensed with a restrictive license and attain full ownership of everyones work?
_tkzm
a) hire a lawyer, what do you want us to do about it??? b) in the modern era of internet, next time embed some type of homing mechanism or simple license requirement checked in startup process to avoid unlicensed misuse.
_-___________-_
The OP's software is open source. The "homing mechanism" or license requirement check could simply be removed.
dewey
Looks like someone violated the license of your software that's build to violate the ToS of Instagram.
ivanstojic
Additionally, it looks like the OP's program is based on an open source program "InstagramBot" which seems to live as a copy in the OP's repo without a matching LICENSE.
_-___________-_
The license you had until yesterday (which he's free to use the code under as it was available yesterday) allows him to sell a service that uses your program.

If he's actually redistributing the software without including the license then that's another thing.

_-___________-_
Hmm: "ektor.io is not a service, it's a software you own forever after downloading it"

IANAL but I believe the Apache license should be retained on any unmodified parts of the program (and distributed with it)

rolltiide
How does that work btw, would I just use rollback the commit and branch from the old commit if I wanted the apache license version?

I've also seen people try to erase old commits to change licenses, I was wondering what that actually means for use since the code would have still had an older version with the more liberal license

_-___________-_
If you have, or can get, a copy of the code that was released with the old license, you can use it under that license.
rolltiide
Nice yeah. Most of the time I just skip the controversies on Hackernews and stick with my philosophy of "just clone and move on"

You can tell when some repositories are going to be hot and removed soon, often times that nukes the forks too. So just download.

thatha7777
It looks like until 14 hours ago, your project had an Apache 2.0 license, which explicitly allows any usage of your code. Additionally, the “you must include this notice” requirement applies only to redistributions of the code (and running it as SaaS somewhere isn’t a redistribution).

I think the real question here is... why are you upset about this? Apache does indeed mean I permit everyone to use my software in anyway they see fit. Do you regret that? Or did you not fully understand the implication of the Apache license?

Maybe you think that bundling up your software and making money is immoral—-however someone put significant effort into making a pretty website, running it 24/7, and providing customer service, they are adding something on top of what you made.

If I take an Apache 2.0 JSON parser and make a website that pretty-parses JSON and I convince people to pay me, am I doing anything wrong?

asadhaider
Noticed that too, fully agree with you.

They also added a "Premium license" at the same time too which allows exactly what the person has done but under the new license, doesn't say how to get granted this license though.

time0ut
Just out of curiosity, how do you know it is your software?
nathanaldensr
Flagging this submission as the software is suspicious and likely breaks ToS. Additionally, the author changed licenses recently in an attempt to rewrite history.
hncensorsnonpc
Best case for GPL 3.0 but every idiot out there uses MIT ... without even understanding it and the calling foul when other people use their code in SAAS.