Linus tech tips "pirating" OCCT - answer from the dev [Reddit thread]

[Lightwreather]

9 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

-snip-

I'd also like to add:

Please keep this stuff in their respective threads. People posting about this and constantly bringing it up in other threads, it makes the forum less enjoyable for people like me who don't want to take part in the drama.

[dbrlong]

I'm quite surprised at the response that Linus is getting here.

To be frank, I barely watch LTT simply because I like a calmer, more objective style from other creators. That said, the post on reddit sounds as if the OCCT dev is trying hard to play the "persecuted christ" role here. He comes across as too nice that it is almost disingenuous. If he was so upset about the whole thing, I would have expected a lot more aggression from the dev if he truly feels mistreated.

 

If he is truly afraid of Linus's retaliation, there is always the option of running to reddit or twitter with the email exchange. Instead, him going straight to reddit after a weak attempt to contact LTT for correction of the issue makes it seems like sympathy from the public was his original goal.

 

If you read the reddit post, the whole thing is a masterful application of pathos. He went from lamenting about how "small and insect-like" he is in the face of "Linus the giant" to directing our attention to his home situation. While I don't doubt what he says, there is no reason to publicize your life other than trying to garner sympathy. But perhaps that is a decent business strategy.

[Dracarris]

12 hours ago, LinusTech said:

We allow the use of our (unedited) videos in schools - even if they are for-profit and consider it to be just basic common sense. 

Wow, that's some brain gymnastics right there. So you allow schools to play your Youtube videos which are publicly available. That's true for every video on YT. That's not common sense, that goes by itself.

 

And schools for profit? Come on. I know it sadly is a rather common thing in NA bcs apparently public schools can't be trusted.

[ClassicGOD]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I just looked at this video to confirm that Linus watched the UHD version of Your Name and it seems like that part of the video is blurred now. Was it blurred when you looked at it?

If it wasn't then LMG might not only have committed piracy, but they are also destroying evidence of them doing so. 

 

Not a good look Linus.

Doesn't matter. Importing movies is not illegal so the entire "wasn't released in the US or Canada" point is moot. 

[Stahlmann]

30 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

Wow, that's some brain gymnastics right there. So you allow schools to play your Youtube videos which are publicly available. That's true for every video on YT. That's not common sense, that goes by itself.

 

And schools for profit? Come on. I know it sadly is a rather common thing in NA bcs apparently public schools can't be trusted.

You missed the term "unedited". So no, not the same videos that are available to the public.

[LAwLz]

14 minutes ago, ClassicGOD said:

Doesn't matter. Importing movies is not illegal so the entire "wasn't released in the US or Canada" point is moot. 

That's true. Although there is a very high likelihood that it was pirated. 

For a movie like that, I think it's pretty far fetched to assume that they:

1) Imported the movie. 

2) Had the equipment to rip it. It's an Ultra 4K video so a regular Blu-ray player is not enough. 

3) Ripped it themselves in a legal way (removing DRM is illegal in some parts of the world, not sure about Canada).

4) Named the file something fairly long judging by the video (kind of like how sub groups names their files). 

 

Not saying it's evidence of them pirating the movie, but it seems to be the most likely explanation if you ask me. 

[Rex Hite]

It's all great stuff. Drama and outrage injects some life and maybe gets algorized  in some useful way. It doesn't matter what the drama and outrage is about and even a low effort complaint like " Abner, Abner, look at that tiny watermark Abner! I see you now you pirate!!!!" helps.

More of this and I might even watch the ads.

[Egg-Roll]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I just looked at this video to confirm that Linus watched the UHD version of Your Name and it seems like that part of the video is blurred now. Was it blurred when you looked at it?

If it wasn't then LMG might not only have committed piracy, but they are also destroying evidence of them doing so. 

 

Not a good look Linus.

I can confirm it was done in post before YouTube, YouTubes blue is basically a nasty smudge preventing visible view.

The laws for copyright are weird, mostly for personal use however. LMG has likely broken ToS's and purchase agreements of movies and streaming services unless they contacted everyone they have used to get their permission to use their videos for commercial use.

 

Assuming LMG did everything right in obtaining permissions to use the video etc (why you don't see major retailers playing movies anymore outside of specific situations), making a digital copy isn't illegal here, however that is only for personal use and not sure about commercial. Per your new post not sure if removing DRM is legal or not here (I'm assuming it's a no but you shouldn't do it as it's technically circumventing software) but I do know downloading isn't legal but it's equally not illegal lol... So you could technically download a movie you own in the format you own (like on dvd) and likely win at court here, not saying I would do it to test it but... However once again that's personal. Even if LMG bought the movie imported the movie the right owners here in Canada likely have something stating for personal use only and not commercial, since ownership is country based and not where the product came from even if imported you still have to respect those decisions, it's why the new Macross content can be imported but you will never see another English Dub, or them being sold here.

 

FYI to find out if they pirated or not one could technically ask said groups to see if they used their file in their video. Considering how popular that movie was tho it would be a massive time sink and groups vanish as fast as they pop up lol...

 

TBH I'm not sure what they do in these videos with said movies/shows fall under fair use or not, I'm leaning towards not.

[DildorTheDecent]

9 hours ago, LtBeefy said:

First off, Linus used version 5.5.7 of OCCT. Does anyone know if back then if the software had commercial licenses available? Truly asking, as while I see that today, OCCT does have paid versions, it is also on version 11. Just curious if 5.5.7 was free and then later version introduced the commercial license options. Remember, can't go by what there is today, but by what version he was using.
 

V5 was around the time that the "lifetime" license was introduced. 4.5.1 portable was the last freeware version IIRC and as a result everybody has it sitting on a drive somewhere.

 

I'm not too surprised that a "holier than thou" redditor got their knickers in a twist. "friend of the dev" is a nutter.

[ClassicGOD]

29 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

That's true. Although there is a very high likelihood that it was pirated. 

For a movie like that, I think it's pretty far fetched to assume that they:

1) Imported the movie. 

2) Had the equipment to rip it. It's an Ultra 4K video so a regular Blu-ray player is not enough. 

3) Ripped it themselves in a legal way (removing DRM is illegal in some parts of the world, not sure about Canada).

4) Named the file something fairly long judging by the video (kind of like how sub groups names their files). 

 

Not saying it's evidence of them pirating the movie, but it seems to be the most likely explanation if you ask me. 

1) I import most of my physical copies as my country (Poland) is often way behind on release schedules so It's a normal thing for me

2) We know Linus has equipment to rip 4K blu-rays as he mentioned that he rips his own movies many times. The equipment to do this is cheap as it just requires any PC and compatible drive that you can get for like $100. 

3) That is a grey area and is wildly considered to be OK for personal use. I believe that Linus also mentioned that he considers ripping your own movies to be ok despite of what US law might say. And I fully agree with that - if you bought the movie you should be able to watch it however you want. 

4) Depending on software he uses the name can be pretty long by default. And if you are a serious "pirate" there is a library management software that will rename movies for you so they will not contain the group name anyway. Also some people prefer to download the movie from torrent instead of ripping it themselves as it's simply faster.

 

I'm not saying of course that I know for a fact that the movie was not pirated. Just stating the fact that it not being released in US or Canada is not an evidence that it was as it was released in 4k in Europe a year before the video was released. 

 

11 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

TBH I'm not sure what they do in these videos with said movies/shows fall under fair use or not, I'm leaning towards not.

Well they discuss the movie animation, use only few seconds, the purpose of the video is not to present the entire movie and it does not in any way infringe on the market for the movie. I say they have all Fair Use factors covered but I'm not an attorney and I don't even live in US

[Gol_D_Chris]

16 hours ago, Lurick said:

 

And he's also explained at great length how that was a poor choice of words but people will get outraged and angry at whatever is in the moment and ignore anything else that corrects a mistake because logic dictates it?  

 

Does LTT need to be on top of their licenses? Hell yes
Did LTT screw up by not buying a license for commercial use? Yes

Is/was LTT acting with malice in this instance? No, and until people can show otherwise or someone at LTT comes out and clearly shows otherwise, don't just hop on the easy bandwagon.

 

I also have no reason to believe the developer reached out to LTT either in any meaningful manner either. I mean this is a person who, at least on reddit, said they gave PC Building Simulator a (permanent?) license to use OCCT in the game with the only payment being a single key of PC Building Simulator.....

 

Again, I will NOT argue they aren't owed at minimum a purchase of the license from LTT but just note I'm not going to throw any of my energy to the developers defense either when they seem to be so quick to "get paid in exposure" in essence. Both parties are idiots for different reasons.

 

I chatted with someone about this and they mentioned, which I missed, you can also download this software from third party sites and upon launching it on a non-AD connected machine you are prompted with ZERO license information upon or following the install. Techspot for example lets you download OCCT directly but makes no mention of these licensing terms, if someone downloaded from there they would have never even seen the pro version exists without going to the site directly. Is that an excuse? No but it IS something else to consider. Hell the software itself doesn't even mention there is a paid version or any license terms inside:

 

 

Edit: I see a prompt now for support and terms upon launching a benchmark but it's been mentioned in the original post that this wasn't always a thing so I'm curious what version was used and if I missed that please correct me

I'm assuming here, since I don't know the exact situation.

 

LTT used OCCT a year ago and the dev thanked LTT for using it and mentioned that LTT used an old version.

 

I assume that LTT actually downloaded OCCT from a mirror.

 

The dev wrote that he would have given LTT a free license, since he got a lot of exposure (+15% site visits after the video).

 

Imo both made mistakes, but none were malice.

 

LTT should have informed themselves about the licensing of a product they're using. OCCT should make that information more accessible.

 

The dev stated he fears a bad LTT reaction resulting in the end of OCCT.

LTTs "piracy"-statement hurt the dev, but in the end his community pushed him to say something public.

[Dracarris]

1 hour ago, Stahlmann said:

You missed the term "unedited". So no, not the same videos that are available to the public.

I'm not sure "unedited" here refers to different versions than the public ones that are specifically created for educational purposes, but I may be wrong.

[Blobik]

Holy shit, what the hell is going on here. All of this is so unneeded. Guess that people really like drama.
For dev: that Twitter message was good, reddit one terrible. You could do that way better or don't write anything else at all and just solve it privately or not, if you were willing to give a free license. So at the end, it wouldn't hurt you (financially) this or the other way, right?
Fo Linus: You have to check things like that yourself, for you and your company. You see what happens. Also, that recommended response from someone's wife would be more than sufficient and very elegant.

[Egg-Roll]

51 minutes ago, ClassicGOD said:

Well they discuss the movie animation, use only few seconds, the purpose of the video is not to present the entire movie and it does not in any way infringe on the market for the movie. I say they have all Fair Use factors covered but I'm not an attorney and I don't even live in US

That section falls under fair use 100% the rest on the other hand, I'm not sure I don't think so but I don't do things that fall under fair use, however I should point out it's typically common to see something along the lines of "this product is for personal/home use only" usually on the back of the case and at the end/opening credits here. I think lmg has permission to use the how to train your dragon movie based on the sheer number of times they've used it.

 

Should mention the anime community is more lax on situations like what's displayed in that video, but equally they (companies) are also more than happy to go after a company for unlawful use of their content too, but that's typically illegally distributing for profit and not displaying a ripped version for 30 seconds.

 

The best part of all this is Funimation is actually owed by a subsidiary of Sony who sponsored said video

[Kisai]

15 hours ago, LinusTech said:

 

First and foremost, I'm sorry for any upset we caused by using OCCT without paying for a professional license. I've gone ahead and picked up a pro license to cover our use. https://imgur.com/HlDn2Ic

 

The truth is I had no idea OCCT was a paid software. There is a donation prompt in the application, but otherwise no indication that I should have been using a paid version.

 

 

I think it has to be said, that there is quite a bit of software out there that is "freeware" in name only. I can name off half a dozen programs that I use once in a while, that went from being "freeware" to "nagware" or "dancing around the grave of shareware". 

 

A program is freeware if:

1) I can download it from anywhere

2) I can put it on a USB drive and run it right from the drive without an installer

3) It is not married to the drive or the computer at any point.

 

If it fails any of those, then it's something other than freeware. Commercial software licenses for otherwise "Free to download/free for personal use", people routinely avoid buying, even in commercial scenarios because it's pain in the ass to do the entire "marry it to the pc" steps, and sometimes the license system is too much of a PITA (eg Windows) for when only need the program for a few hours to demonstrate it. Like there are programs out there that the commercial license can only be activated by email and it can take days to get a response.

 

The mistake the OCCT developer made, was point 1. They also could have gone the extra mile and had the program check for an update and show it's out of date, because these file repository sites are never going to do that.

 

And I mean freeware in a broad sense, like MIT/BSD/GPL software is also freeware, it just often fails the second point. That doesn't make it not free to use or download, but it does mean that I can't easily use it as benchmark tool.

 

14 hours ago, Middcore said:

How many threads of people who engage in piracy without a second thought being performatively indignant about someone saying "This other thing you do is also functionally equivalent to piracy" do we need? 

It will keep happening as long as pirates feel they're in the right about something.

People often point to this comic and misunderstand what is being said. This is advocating that software not be married to the computer/playback device or the storage device the media/software (point 2 and 3), because it makes things difficult, and illegal to continue using. 

 

Many benchmark/tech tools are deliberately designed like freeware, but are in fact, not. This is because of the needs of doing tests and benchmarks. Pretty much every technician out there, without exception, has probably has a dozen improperly licensed tools in their software toolbox, and because those tools are often unable-to/do-not phone home, the technician may never be aware of it. Tech's only update their tools when the tool no longer works. There is nobody out there checking that all the tools are updated every day.

 

If it's on this list https://portableapps.com/apps , then it might be on a million flash drives out there without ever being updated.

 

I've also dropped many tools that require being "installed" from my diagnostics tools drives, because I don't want to leave these tools on clients machines. Especially if they are licensed to me.

[Ydfhlx]

22 hours ago, LinusTech said:

Most devs recognize that our use of their software is closer to educational use than it is to commercial use

I agree with everything except for this. If the videos are closer to educational than commercial, why are there ads and sponsors in them? Because clearly the ads aren't just to sustain the business, judging by the fact that you bought a new house...

[MindArlekin]

As a proud "privateer" I agree with a underlying base of Linuses take on "Watching Youtube with Adblock = piracy". And I don't see LTT using free version of OSST as a deceitfulness or something.

All this drama makes OCCT developers look bad because: 1) because of the difference between responses on Twitter and Reddit 2) because of the way they set up their site where I have to go to a separate page to find out that this software has a paid subscription. They created all the conditions for some employee of a random company to make a mistake. Whining posts on Reddit are not a professional way to solve problems. Better way to resolve such things is to contact company via email, it's more professional, especially if we talking about commertial\corporate relations.

LTT, on the other hand, did not suffer nearly as much from all of this. Is LTT in wrong in this situation? Yes. Was there any malicious intent from LTT to pirate this software?  No. Did LTT corrected their mistake? Yes. Dose majority of their audience care about all of this crap? No. This drama will be used as a topic on the WAN show and that's as far as it will go.

Linus idea "AdBlock + Youtube = video piracy" is his crappy way of explaining his idea that if you don't pay for a content the way it was intended, you kind of pirating it and it's up to you to decide for yourself whether to continue or not . This idea doesn't work very well in the context of Youtube video as a product and advertising as a payment, but I understand and made a conscious decision to continue "privateering" video and other software/content that I deem not worth to be bought for one reason, or another. This idea does not fit at all to OCCT situation here. But haters still will try to connect this things. And, because this is wrong connection, people who can think for at least 2 seconds will move on and forget about it.

Yarrrrrrr!

[Lurick]

1 hour ago, Gol_D_Chris said:

I'm assuming here, since I don't know the exact situation.

 

LTT used OCCT a year ago and the dev thanked LTT for using it and mentioned that LTT used an old version.

 

I assume that LTT actually downloaded OCCT from a mirror.

 

The dev wrote that he would have given LTT a free license, since he got a lot of exposure (+15% site visits after the video).

 

Imo both made mistakes, but none were malice.

 

LTT should have informed themselves about the licensing of a product they're using. OCCT should make that information more accessible.

 

The dev stated he fears a bad LTT reaction resulting in the end of OCCT.

LTTs "piracy"-statement hurt the dev, but in the end his community pushed him to say something public.

That's about the gist of it all, yes and I agree 100%

[Lightwreather]

1 hour ago, Blobik said:

Guess that people really like drama.

Yes, yes they do. I mean, twitter would be a perfect example.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Louis made a video about this 
 

 

[Tan3l6]

17 minutes ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

Louis made a video about this 
 

 

_This affair seems to be overblown_

[Dillpickle23422]

16 hours ago, Middcore said:

How many threads of people who engage in piracy without a second thought being performatively indignant about someone saying "This other thing you do is also functionally equivalent to piracy" do we need? 

all of them. i guess 

[Dillpickle23422]

26 minutes ago, MindArlekin said:

As a proud "privateer" I agree with a underlying base of Linuses take on "Watching Youtube with Adblock = piracy". And I don't see LTT using free version of OSST as a deceitfulness or something.

All this drama makes OCCT developers look bad because: 1) because of the difference between responses on Twitter and Reddit 2) because of the way they set up their site where I have to go to a separate page to find out that this software has a paid subscription. They created all the conditions for some employee of a random company to make a mistake. Whining posts on Reddit are not a professional way to solve problems. Better way to resolve such things is to contact company via email, it's more professional, especially if we talking about commertial\corporate relations.

LTT, on the other hand, did not suffer nearly as much from all of this. Is LTT in wrong in this situation? Yes. Was there any malicious intent from LTT to pirate this software?  No. Did LTT corrected their mistake? Yes. Dose majority of their audience care about all of this crap? No. This drama will be used as a topic on the WAN show and that's as far as it will go.

Linus idea "AdBlock + Youtube = video piracy" is his crappy way of explaining his idea that if you don't pay for a content the way it was intended, you kind of pirating it and it's up to you to decide for yourself whether to continue or not . This idea doesn't work very well in the context of Youtube video as a product and advertising as a payment, but I understand and made a conscious decision to continue "privateering" video and other software/content that I deem not worth to be bought for one reason, or another. This idea does not fit at all to OCCT situation here. But haters still will try to connect this things. And, because this is wrong connection, people who can think for at least 2 seconds will move on and forget about it.

Yarrrrrrr!

ah yes a fellow privateer !! Agreed fully. 

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Egg-Roll said:

That section falls under fair use 100% the rest on the other hand, I'm not sure I don't think so but I don't do things that fall under fair use, however I should point out it's typically common to see something along the lines of "this product is for personal/home use only" usually on the back of the case and at the end/opening credits here. I think lmg has permission to use the how to train your dragon movie based on the sheer number of times they've used it.

 

Should mention the anime community is more lax on situations like what's displayed in that video, but equally they (companies) are also more than happy to go after a company for unlawful use of their content too, but that's typically illegally distributing for profit and not displaying a ripped version for 30 seconds.

 

The best part of all this is Funimation is actually owed by a subsidiary of Sony who sponsored said video

Yeah, I don't think there is much of a case with the whole "Your Name was a pirated copy!".

I didn't watch the video but my impression is that it wasn't even Linus' TV or setup (please correct me if I am wrong). Using like a couple of seconds of a movie in the background of a video, even if it is pirated, shouldn't really matter. Linus has done far more blatantly illegal things in the past that play a potentially pirated movie in the background of a video for a couple of seconds.

 

I am fairly sure Linus talked about Luke having access to his Plex server on the WAN show before. That would be just straight up piracy if that's the case, because Linus buys the movies, rips them and then distributes them to people who don't have the rights to them (such as Luke). That's the type of thing that people have been found guilty and sentenced for.

I am fairly sure he also shares some accounts such as YouTube Premium with Luke even though that's probably against the ToS.

 

I think we should drop the "Your Name" thing and if people feel like they want to grill Linus more they should probably go after him for those things instead. They are far more cut and dry, and also more serious.

[crazzp]

5 hours ago, Dr_ick said:

For additional fun... here is my take on Adblock.

Fuck you, it's my bandwidth.  I'll filter whatever the fuck on want on my Internet connection I am paying for.
I'm an not legally obliged to allow ad traffic into my network to watch videos, or view webpages, so I don't.

Fuck you for trying to steal my bandwidth ad pirates.

Would you say F U to the content creators who spent hours creating videos for you to watch? You are not paying your share because you adblock them. At this point you are indeed F-ing them real hard right now. 

And that's the point Linus was trying to make. If everyone adblocks, then creators will eat shyt from adsense.