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Russian Police Raid U.S.-Owned Web Server Nginx’s Moscow Office

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday December 14 2019, @06:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the follow-the-rubles dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/12/13/russia-nginx-fsb-raid-a68606

Russian police raided the Moscow offices of a popular U.S.-owned web server over a Russian search engine giant's ownership claim of its source code, Forbes Russia reported Thursday.

Authorities raided Nginx's Moscow office based on a copyright infingement claim by Russian oligarch Alexander Mamut's Cyprus-registered investment vehicle Lynwood, Forbes Russia cited an unnamed source at the web server as saying. Mamut became part owner of Russia's 1990s-era search giant Rambler with fellow oligarch Vladimir Potanin in 2013 and bought out Potanin's stake three years later.

"We found that Rambler Internet Holding's exclusive right to the Nginx web server has been violated by the actions of third parties," Rambler's spokesperson told Forbes.

"In this regard, Rambler Internet Holding ceded the rights to bring claims and lawsuits linked to rights violations toward Nginx to Lynwood Investments CY Ltd," it continued.

Authorities estimate Rambler's losses from the alleged copyright infringement at 51.4 million rubles ($820,000), according to a copy of a criminal case cited by Forbes and other news outlets.

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  • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by exaeta on Saturday December 14 2019, @08:07PM (1 child)

    by exaeta (6957) on Saturday December 14 2019, @08:07PM (#932145) Homepage Journal
    Black box reimplementation is possible. NGINX is not that complex a bit of software. A small team could redo it in a few months.
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    The Government is a Bird
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  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday December 15 2019, @08:05AM

    by Bot (3902) on Sunday December 15 2019, @08:05AM (#932328) Journal

    And in this case, if APIs are deemed copyrightable you are fucked. This means when I hear the phrase "copyright on API" I reach for my revolver.

    What this case would end up in IF the russian guy had a non competition clause and we were in a just world:

    Plutocrat sues the world for the use of nginx.
    The world awards X for the use of nginx and 2X for attempting a submarine use of nginx branded as open source. They should have known in advance, if they didn't they can sue only when they made it clear that nginx is not FOSS.
    The world rewrites all stuff from the time guy was employed or switched to another browser. Those with static sites smile. The others, less.

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    Account abandoned.