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

[GertV]

2 minutes ago, Squilliam said:

I love this response. I appreciate that you bought the license. I think you did the right thing, and I wholely agree with your original stance on adblockers.

 

Alternatively: My wife who works in corporate communications and does not watch LTT said "I don't like this guy. His response is too ""but you did this...""" She states you should have a PR person, and should have simply said "you're right. We should have paid for the license. We went ahead and bought one. Our intent and understanding were not ill. We're sorry."

From a PR standpoint that's probably the better idea.

On the other hand, I like how "personal" LTT can feel sometimes. The combination of chats on the WAN show and actual human responses like this. I personally prefer this over the often overly correct messages most companies put out that just feel disingenuous.

[LinusTech]

3 minutes ago, Squilliam said:

I love this response. I appreciate that you bought the license. I think you did the right thing, and I wholely agree with your original stance on adblockers.

 

Alternatively: My wife who works in corporate communications and does not watch LTT said "I don't like this guy. His response is too ""but you did this...""" She states you should have a PR person, and should have simply said "you're right. We should have paid for the license. We went ahead and bought one. Our intent and understanding were not ill. We're sorry."

Your wife is right. I wrote up a response that was more like what she said, then I decided I don't really care and pointed out how obviously stupid this whole situation is. 

 

We are a sizeable company at this point, but I'm still me so for better or worse we're gonna have a bit of that fire sometimes lol

[kherge]

2 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

All we did was demonstrate how to use it. We fired it up once and havent touched it since. It's very clearly a flawed parallel you're drawing. 

As someone is out of the loop but aware of this drama, I imagine that this is where most people are confused.

[LinusTech]

11 minutes ago, Annika said:

That doesn't make it okay, and you're not exactly an educational platform when your videos are filled with misinformation.

By that logic if a professor made a mistake in a lecture your course should be free. 

 

Like all humans we try our best and always strive to improve. We never claimed to be perfect. 

[Dillpickle23422]

1 minute ago, LinusTech said:

Your wife is right. I wrote up a response that was more like what she said, then I decided I don't really care and pointed out how obviously stupid this whole situation is. 

 

We are a sizeable company at this point, but I'm still me so for better or worse we're gonna have a bit of that fire sometimes lol

that's what makes you guys what you are  

 

however you may want an it person lmao

[IkeaGnome]

1 minute ago, LinusTech said:

Your wife is right. I wrote up a response that was more like what she said, then I decided I don't really care and pointed out how obviously stupid this whole situation is. 

 

We are a sizeable company at this point, but I'm still me so for better or worse we're gonna have a bit of that fire sometimes lol

Just remember, PR department would probably give you a hard time over things as simple as D Brand sponsor spots. 

[Lurick]

4 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

A - show me the reprimand. I'll wait. I stated a fact and said 'be aware of the impact'.

 

B - you are ignoring the common sense aspect of this. We make money by producing content and being paid through ads

He makes money through businesses validating their hardware. We never axtually used the software for its 'commercial use'. All we did was demonstrate how to use it. We fired it up once and havent touched it since. It's very clearly a flawed parallel you're drawing. 

I mean from a strict licensing standpoint it doesn't generally matter how many times it's used it's the setting it's used in and in this case it is a corporate/professional setting. Is there further nuance to it, I'm sure there is but I'm not a lawyer on the matter, all I know is the corporate overlords I work for don't like me installing software unless it's approved and licensed so they can stay as far away from lawyers as possible

[JackDaniel]

Although it's silly drama, it did make me sign up to the LTT forums to comment about it, so that's nice 

[ghoulish1]

58 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

You can disagree all you want, but it's pretty standard practice.

 

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. 

But surely you realize there's a vast chasm between use in an actual classroom and your own use, right? That there is some degree of educational intent in your use does not render them the same, in the same way that wheels on a plane lend it some limited functions found in a car, but don't make it one. Those things are mostly meant to fly, even if they roll around a bit, and your videos are mostly meant to sell water bottles, even if one "learns" about a new piece of software / a new corporate product. Your dominant intent is commercial. 

 

An 11th grade CS teacher's dominant intent is education. I don't remember mine ever showcasing something new accompanied by an affiliate link. 

 

As to the idea that this was less of a "commercial use" because it did not use the software for its intended purpose and instead "showcased" it--that's not how commercial use is determined. The question is whether use contributed to a commercial enterprise. And here, it did. The enterprise being a heavily monetized video intended to generate income. 

 

To analogize: Monetization of the listening experience is the primary means of making commercial use of music. If I were to make large prints of the lyrics to my favorite songs, place them in an aesthetically pleasing setting, and charge individuals for the opportunity to be exposed to what I believe to be fantastic lyricism, I've monetized that copyrighted work in a way that is different from the way in which the original artist chose to monetize. I haven't done what was intended--no playing, live or from the recording. My gallery-esque display is surely distinguishable.  But the fact that it contributes to my money making enterprise renders it commercial use, and I would be held accountable for that, regardless of how much I believe my audience "learned" about these great pieces of music. 

 

You're entitled to your opinion on how "commercial use" ought to be determined, and the terms of OCCT's licensing may bind you to a different or idiosyncratic notion of use that is in line with that. But in the US and Canada, the above is how commercial use is determined as a default matter. 

Edited February 13, 2022 by ghoulish1

[microtechton]

@LinusTech Although I understand your point of view from the adblocker scenario and obviously humans aren't perfect. A similar situation occurred like this in one of your videos from last year in the Home Theatre in a Storage Locker video where you were watching a pirated release of a movie ("Your Name") for which the UHD version of the bluray wasn't released in the US or Canada. I understand that, as you are the host and not the writer, you can't be held liable for someone else's actions. But isn't that directly hypocritical to your statement on adblockers. Obviously I'm not posting the screenshot where the pirated release filename was cuz I don't intend folks to pirate that media.

 

Moral or not, everyone can do whatever they want, if it means pirating something, I don't care. But I feel there must be some clarity when it comes to speaking publicly about something controversial like this topic.

 

Just my point of view and I intend no harm.

[reflex99]

OCCT site is poorly laid out if they're trying to sell commercial licenses. They even try to use permissive licensing model as a marketing point.

"Available for free...

...with a few limitations. Yes, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Badly. And it hurts ! But we count on you to support our work !"

 

and then proceed to explain the limitations halfway down the page, or buried in their support site under "FAQ".

 

I think that LMG should license it properly, 100% and it is good to see they have. 

 

If the dev is concerned about unlicensed commercial use, they should do some self-reflection and consider how many other commercial users might simply be unaware of the licensing model due to OCCT's own choices. If a firm like LMG that is well-funded and generally appears to try and do the right thing was able to miss this aspect of the OCCT licensing model, there are probably countless others that simply haven't published their violation on youtube.

 

[JackDaniel]

7 minutes ago, Lurick said:

I mean from a strict licensing standpoint it doesn't generally matter how many times it's used it's the setting it's used in and in this case it is a corporate/professional setting. Is there further nuance to it, I'm sure there is but I'm not a lawyer on the matter, all I know is the corporate overlords I work for don't like me installing software unless it's approved and licensed so they can stay as far away from lawyers as possible

I'd be curious how a court would rule about this, purely from an academic perspective.  My girlfriend specializes in Dutch IT Law (privacy mostly) and I'm often surprised at how counter-intuitive judgements can be. Especially if there is no precedent, it can be incredibly difficult to predict outcomes. I'd imagine there's plenty of US precedents about this sort of stuff though. 

[LinusTech]

2 minutes ago, microtechton said:

@LinusTech Although I understand your point of view from the adblocker scenario and obviously humans aren't perfect. A similar situation occurred like this in one of your videos from last year in the Home Theatre in a Storage Locker video where you were watching a pirated release of a movie ("Your Name") for which the UHD version of the bluray wasn't released in the US or Canada. I understand that, as you are the host and not the writer, you can't be held liable for someone else's actions. But isn't that directly hypocritical to your statement on adblockers. Obviously I'm not posting the screenshot where the pirated release filename was cuz I don't intend folks to pirate that media.

 

Moral or not, everyone can do whatever they want, if it means pirating something, I don't care. But I feel there must be some clarity when it comes to speaking publicly about something controversial like this topic.

 

Just my point of view and I intend no harm.

I gave 6 lashings to the responsible parties. Not much else I can do when milk is already spilt. I've never watched that movie and I didn't even know what the heck it was to be completely transparent here. 

[Not_A_Spider]

From the vibe I got from the OCCT dev in his reddit post, he seems like he's in way over his head with really limited experience in making software other than the coding. Cut the guy some slack.

[chocolatekarma]

1 hour ago, LinusTech said:

My response (copy pasted from reddit): 

 

Linus here.

 

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.

Ignorance doesn't excuse our sloppy approach to software licensing here, though. The simple fact is we pirated your software (which as some of you realize I never said we were perfect about, and in fact have pointed out times when my own ethics aren't bothered by it, but whatever) but hopefully our purchase of a paid license will allow us to put this behind us.

 

There are some other aspects of your post that I could probably type out a longer reply to - like the insinuation that (even if we wanted to) LTT could somehow destroy your OCCT business, or that we don't reply to outreach (I searched our public email and we only have two emails containing the characters OCCT, and neither of them are from you), and the fact that honestly I've got a little bit of whiplash right now from how abruptly this went from "thanks for the shout-out" to "I'm upset enough to write a novel on reddit about it".

 

https://twitter.com/OCCT_Ocbase/status/1396932156610469890?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1396932156610469890%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Flinustechtips.com%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fmobile.twitter.com%2FOCCT_Ocbase%2Fstatus%2F1396932156610469890

 

Most devs recognize that our use of their software is closer to educational use than it is to commercial use and don't mind us using their software for free if we are demonstrating how to use it and showcasing it to potential customers on the channel. Based on this Twitter post, I assumed you felt the same way. I guess you don't.

 

But assumptions lead to disasters, and we absolutely should have reached out. Hopefully you can understand how the error occurred and we can put this behind us.

Sorry, I don't speak pirate.

[JackDaniel]

4 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

I gave 6 lashings to the responsible parties. Not much else I can do when milk is already spilt. I've never watched that movie and I didn't even know what the heck it was to be completely transparent here. 

It's a really good movie, coincidentally I just watched it yesterday. You should watch it!

[nick name]

16 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

Just remember, PR department would probably give you a hard time over things as simple as D Brand sponsor spots. 

It's pronounced dbrand.  

[Middcore]

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? 

[Blademaster91]

33 minutes ago, SlidewaysZ said:

That's a pretty darn big assumption right there. That's called I'm an influencer and I think I can get away with not paying. Pretty crazy coming from a guy reprimanding people for using AdBlock. By that same assumption everyone can assume your videos are for educational purposes and so we don't need to pay for them or watch ads.

I agree, and i find it ironic Linus twists the definition of piracy to fit his complaint of people using ad blockers, even though there are LTT videos showing people how to block ads, and even filter them out of a network with a PiHole.

While I think the OCCT dev could make it more clear their software isn't free for pro use, downloading paid software without paying for it is actually piracy, and a business like LMG doesn't really have an excuse to not pay for it, the educational claim is nonsense IMO.

[Arika]

I'm not defending LMG at all, no point going over the same points others already have,

 

But the dev sounds super irresponsible. 

"I'm not making ends meat with occt, but I'll happily give away free perpetual licenses to youtubers"

[Jacquelynra]

In summary:

Someone at LTT found the program, read through the page and there was not obvious mention that the free download wasn't actually commercial usable.

LTT recorded the video. Main dev saw it and it was okay for them.

People in their community started to railed up, mainly because of Linus' previous statements about piracy.

LTT brought those Pro licenses and... well, now we are here.

[LinusTech]

5 minutes 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? 

basically lol

[Annika]

17 minutes ago, Lurick said:

I mean from a strict licensing standpoint it doesn't generally matter how many times it's used it's the setting it's used in and in this case it is a corporate/professional setting. Is there further nuance to it, I'm sure there is but I'm not a lawyer on the matter, all I know is the corporate overlords I work for don't like me installing software unless it's approved and licensed so they can stay as far away from lawyers as possible

Legally speaking, Linus is not in the right.  He's making excuses because that's what a criminal does.   "Well I didn't know!"  "I was just doing it for this!"-Is not going to hold up in court unless the judge and/or others are willing to take a bribe, not saying Linus would do that.  But, ignornace is not an excuse when it comes to a court of law.   Typically, they don't go after home users much anymore when it comes to piracy, but the fact that a business is doing it would make most developers/publishers target the business.  Now, just because Linus does things that are illegal, doesn't mean he'd automatically be sued.  1)  The company who makes the SW would have to decide if they wanted to sue him.  2)  Typically 1-2 jobs are assigned to decide if something would go to court, so even if Linus was in the wrong, if the court decided they have better things to do then it would never see the light of day.  3)  Licensing laws for SW is decided by the developer and/or publisher.   But, they're also decided by governments as they can't contradict laws.  So, it's kind of a complicated process that's both time and moneyu consuming.

[Jacquelynra]

@Annika you're kinda getting railed up, and it is kinda to be in "your side" if you keep getting more and more aggressive. 

[m6_is_me]

<deleted quote>

bro who hurt you? Linus is clearly in the right here, at no point was the software used commercially. 

 

This whole thing is people desperately trying to cling to frustration over a non-issue. (edit: i think the term is virtue signaling) The dev and his friend also approached the situation wildly immaturely. "we sent dozens of emails" but uhhh they actually didn't. 

Edited February 14, 2022 by Spotty