NGNIX Offices Raided - Copyright Claim

bigredseo

bigredseo

HD Community Advisor
Staff member
This is a big one. The offices of Ngnix were raided today, and several people arrested. The issue was all about copyright.

The claim is that one of the founders of Ngnix created the software while working for another company, as as such, that company owns the software that was illegally distributed for free.

Their statement has reference to (paraphrased) "anyone using Ngnix is in violation of the exclusive right".

This could, if the company filing the claim is granted the copyright for the software, potentially mean web hosts will have a new fee to pay to use the software.

Ngnix is the 2nd most popular web server software and operates on more than 30% of all websites.

This story is still unfolding.
 
Very Intresting, thanks for letting me know.

This could be massive disruption to the web and as we know it and how web server companies conduct themselfs.
 
This flew under my radar. Very interesting how this plays out. You are right, this might have an incredibly big impact.
 
bigredseo said:
This could, if the company filing the claim is granted the copyright for the software, potentially mean web hosts will have a new fee to pay to use the software.
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It could go four ways if the company filing the claim is granted the copyright for the software.

1) Anyone using the software gets invoiced a heavy fee that could be backdated.

2) Anyone using the software gets told to stop using it with immediate effect.

3) Anyone using the software gets reported and charged with illegal use of copyrighted software.

4) Copyright could be granted from the immediate date, so anyone using the software before that date is free to continuing to use it, but may end up having to pay an annual licence fee
 
They wont win it.

If they do its just ridiculous.

Imagine if you designed anything in your free time, the courts will be basically saying that the employer owns you, your life and everything you say, do, make, crap out etc.
 
DigitalBS said:
They wont win it.

If they do its just ridiculous.

Imagine if you designed anything in your free time, the courts will be basically saying that the employer owns you, your life and everything you say, do, make, crap out etc.
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depends, if they employee has a employment contract that states anything they design or create belongs to employer then they will win.
also if it was created on the companies hardware then it is company property.
copyright laws are very complicated
 
Party time for LiteSpeed Web Server but bad for Hosting providers. If NGNIX will start charging money then I think Apache will be also do similar since there will be almost no competitor will be left.
 
DigitalBS said:
They wont win it.

If they do its just ridiculous.
Click to expand...

depends, if they employee has a employment contract that states anything they design or create belongs to employer then they will win.
Click to expand...

As easyhostmedia pointed out, it's not just a clear cut of "they won't win".

I've worked for a large enterprise company, and I did have to sign a waiver regarding the creation of material, even outside of company time. Their document went even further that the "thought" of something was their property.

My own company today (Big Red SEO), we had a clause in our employee hiring packet that stated that work created by the employee was owned and copyright by the company - this also included work created outside of company time. This was required in order to protect the copyright of web design work for clients, and for SEO strategies. As a company, we couldn't have our employees "freelancing" for other places using our resources (company computer & software) or training and methods.

And guess what? That DOES stand up in court :)
 
kunnusingh said:
Party time for LiteSpeed Web Server but bad for Hosting providers. If NGNIX will start charging money then I think Apache will be also do similar since there will be almost no competitor will be left.
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It wont be NGNIX that will charge anyone, it will the copyright owner that will charge and NGNIX will have to stop using the copyright material.
 
easyhostmedia said:
It wont be NGNIX that will charge anyone, it will the copyright owner that will charge and NGNIX will have to stop using the copyright material.
Click to expand...

Really complicated case.


Igor Sysoev sold NGINX at $670 million to "F5 Networks"(American company), If Rambler won this case then Igor Sysoev will return $670 million to F5 Networks and Rambler will be owner of NGINX. :confused:
 
kunnusingh said:
Really complicated case.


Igor Sysoev sold NGINX at $670 million to "F5 Networks"(American company), If Rambler won this case then Igor Sysoev will return $670 million to F5 Networks and Rambler will be owner of NGINX. :confused:
Click to expand...

No
If Rambler won its case then

1) Igor Sysoev will be charged and fined with copyright infringment.
2) F5 Networks will have to stop using the software with immediate effect.

It will be then upto F5 Networks to sue Igor Sysoev to recover the $670 million for selling them copyritten material.

F5 Networks could come to some sort of arrangement with Rambler to allow them to continue using the software
 
My only question now is why wait 15 years before acting on copyright infringement claims? Why act the year the company was acquired by F5, a publicly traded company, who I assume does an extensive research before acquisitions.

In my books, if you do not act on copyright or IP violations immediately, you lose your chance to do so later. They can't really claim that they just discovered the issue ⏤ NGNIX is too big not to notice.
 
Artashes said:
My only question now is why wait 15 years before acting on copyright infringement claims? Why act the year the company was acquired by F5, a publicly traded company, who I assume does an extensive research before acquisitions.

In my books, if you do not act on copyright or IP violations immediately, you lose your chance to do so later. They can't really claim that they just discovered the issue ⏤ NGNIX is too big not to notice.
Click to expand...

It can and does happen sometimes when companies are large copyright infringements go unnoticed.
It could of been research by F5 that triggered an alert
 
tuxandrew said:
Nginx is opensource and is under BSD licensed and how strongly they claim to make it a paid software?
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It may be opensource and under a BSD licence, but that is not what this is about.

The software structure itself does not belong to them and they have no legal right to use it as its copywritten to someone else, so if this is proven to be correct then Nginx could be taken down
 
easyhostmedia said:
It may be opensource and under a BSD licence, but that is not what this is about.

The software structure itself does not belong to them and they have no legal right to use it as its copywritten to someone else, so if this is proven to be correct then Nginx could be taken down
Click to expand...

Interesting, so if it is proven then the world's second largest webserver will no longer be an opersource product further, Thats it.
 
tuxandrew said:
Interesting, so if it is proven then the world's second largest webserver will no longer be an opersource product further, Thats it.
Click to expand...

no regardless how big a company is if they are found to be illegally using copywritten material then they can be forced to stop using it as they dont have permission to use it.

even opensource they have to have a core script and if this was stolen ( used without the developers permission) then they can be forced to stop using it
 
easyhostmedia said:
no regardless how big a company is if they are found to be illegally using copywritten material then they can be forced to stop using it as they dont have permission to use it.

even opensource they have to have a core script and if this was stolen ( used without the developers permission) then they can be forced to stop using it
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's true. They should be pretty evidential enough to prove it since after long 15 years.

The point is, if that happens it will impact on new comers,small business providers and lot of customers, which leads to a massive software changes in industry.
 
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