there is a link in in old HN post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2910554) that no longer works: http://cnet-upload.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2064
anyone know if there is good contact form or email address for any of these download sites to ask that they not offer my app?
If I am not successful getting them to comply, would a DMCA be appropriate and would I be asking for legal troubles if I submit a DCMA?
If your software is MIT licensed or similar, you can still ask, but you're probably SOL if they don't agree to remove it. With those kinds of licenses, they're under no obligation to remove it just because you ask them.
Simply contacting them at any of the email addresses listed here: https://www.cnet.com/about/contact-us/ or calling them should get you routed to the right person eventually. You could also try generic emails like legal@cnet.com, abuse@cnet.com, dmca@cnet.com, etc. In the worst case, here's a list of CNet employees: https://www.cnet.com/about/meet-us/ - figure out their email format (e.g. firstname.lastname@cnet.com) and shoot them some emails.
However, you should be prepared for them to simply do nothing unless/until there's an attorney involved.
Do you stand to lose income or receive some other kind of material injury if they don't take it down?
Edit: The help center at the bottom of the Download site took me here: https://cbsi.secure.force.com/CBSi/articles/en_US/Knowledge/... - this might be what you want?
How? Absent a license, there is nothing permitting the redistributing of software. There is no such thing as a “license violation”; if you do not fulfill the terms of the license, you have no license to distribute, and are violating copyright.
https://www.romanolaw.com/2020/01/13/is-breach-of-a-licensin...
"License" is a very general concept. You can give somebody "license" to do almost anything. See e. g. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/license
"Copyright" is a specific thing that you can possess - see the definition here: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/definitions.html
You can therefore grant somebody license to use something over which you hold copyright. You can also grant them license to do all sorts of other things, and you can breach the license in all sorts of ways. See for instance:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e4b1226a-b6b4...
My main point, though, is that simply informing CNET that they are in violation of a program's license should be enough to make them stop, in theory. You may not need a DMCA takedown to do it, though one wouldn't hurt.
> Absent a license, there is nothing permitting the redistributing of software.
That's not true, because of fair use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use.
> if you do not fulfill the terms of the license, you have no license to distribute, and are violating copyright.
You may still have a license to distribute. You just aren't, in this case, distributing in accordance with that license. Licenses don't necessarily terminate upon violation (though they often do).
That contact is for CBS Interactive. CNET was sold to Red Ventures in October of last year, so OP needs to contact Red Ventures' legal department, or CNET's. (they could try to contact CBSI, but there's no guarantee they'll forward on the message)
Red Ventures contact info: https://www.redventures.com/contact CNET's contact info: https://www.cnet.com/about/contact-us/ An additional contact form for CNET: https://cbsi.secure.force.com/CBSi/submitcase?template=templ...
OP should get on the phone to CNET and ask them who to direct DMCA takedown notices to, and mention that the legal contact info is still pointing to CBS Interactive. OP should send a physical copy of the DMCA takedown notice in the mail (certified mail) as well as e-mail, and follow up after a few weeks. They will probably take longer than normal as it seems they're still cleaning up from the acquisition.
Either way, I think your fundamental advice (call and ask where to send legal process) is probably right.
your answer is illogic masquerading advice. Why would you expect them to do nothing if you file a DMCA? yeah, that's right, all your analysis dodged the DMCA that you put a question mark next to for no reason.
I didn't say "expect", I said "be prepared for", and that advice is relevant regardless of whether the communication is a DMCA takedown or a regular one. Large companies routinely ignore complaints and legal requests of all kinds from smaller entities or individuals and get away with it.
See, for example, https://turbofuture.com/internet/how-to-combat-plagiarism-wh...
Here's one case where Twitter ignored a series of DMCAs until it was sued (and maybe even after, the article doesn't say): https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/01/14/twitter-sued-for...
There are hosting companies who make money by ignoring copyright violation notices: https://www.quora.com/What-is-DMCA-ignored-hosting https://www.reddit.com/r/webhosting/comments/jbwvin/blueange...
Shame. Download.cnet.com (and cnet itself) were pretty top-tier in the early public-Internet days (mid to late 90's). Guess it's a slum now
I wonder how many people are still in the original "all software should be free" mindset.
I suspect DMCA is for big companies with a legal department only.
How? If anything, the biggest complaint about the DMCA is that it has no penalties even against people acting in obviously unreasonable ways.
> I suspect DMCA is for big companies with a legal department only.
No? Looks like you just send a certified letter to the address listed at https://www.redventures.com/legal/cmg-terms-of-use.html under "Legal Complaints" and you're done.
(IANAL, of course, but nothing here seems special)
edit: ah sucks, seems on Windows this only gives you the network zone the file came from, not the URL. I think on OS X it is definitely the URL though https://superuser.com/questions/1513910/windows-extended-att...
~ from the superuser link above.
So what actual use is this small field? Wouldn't it be more useful for windows to provide the url and some function to determine if it was trusted?
It also freezes in place the network policy active at the time of download.
Would personally still prefer the URL!
But they do a lot of misrepresentation (apart from other slimy things) and you are well within your rights to object.
As another posted commented: this is what filling a dmca claim is for, and you can do it without paying a lawyer or anyone else. The only problem is whom to send it to. You’ll find that CNET’s download is actually download.com. You’ll have to start there.
AFICS, The issue is not that they downloaded it, but that they are hosting it.
Just the threat of legal action may be enough to get them to remove it.
Obviously your app cannot do this now.
Hope this could be useful to others in the future.
