FabricStatement on the Yarn DMCA takedown
Update 24/6/2020
The Yarn repository has been restored! This wouldn’t have been possible without Dinnerbone and the staff at Mojang who have stepped up to help us quickly resolve the issue, as well as the community who supported us throughout the turmoil. Thank you - we owe so much to you.
The following information is no longer relevant to Fabric’s current operations, but preserved as part of the historical record.
The following announcement has been posted initially on our Discord yesterday. It has been updated with additional information.
Yesterday, we received a DMCA takedown request for the GitHub repository of Yarn from someone impersonating “Mojang AB” and the “Mod Coder Pack” project.
What does this mean?
This means that the Yarn repository has become unavailable effective June 23rd, and will remain so until the issue is resolved.
Note that this does not impact the Maven server, used for distributing Fabric to end users and mod developers. This involves only the development repository for Yarn.
Is there any truth to the claims?
In our understanding, they are false. We have asked all alleged claimants; they responded stating that no DMCA request on the Fabric project has been filed by them or on their behalf. As such, we believe on good authority that the notice is fraudulent in nature.
It was pointed out to me that there is a DMCA claim against a community project filed under https://t.co/htmFmpDZq6
— Searge (@SeargeDP) June 23, 2020
The only person who fits that description would be me, but I did not file the claim. I think DMCA does more harm than good, so I would not use it in the first place
Does this impact me?
If you’re a Fabric user or mod developer, it does not impact you in any way.
If you’re a contributor to Yarn, you may need to delay your contributions until the issue is resolved. Other Fabric projects and repositories are not affected.
What are your immediate plans?
Transparency has always been a strong value held by the Fabric project. In its spirit, we are letting the Fabric community know about the incident. We are also going to follow the legal procedures. Even then, the Yarn repository may remain unavailable for as long as 2-3 weeks. There is, unfortunately, nothing we can do to speed this process up.
Does this impact the upcoming 1.16 update?
It has not - Fabric is already out for 1.16.
We understand that this is a sudden and troublesome situation. We do not take fraudulent takedown notices lightly, and we’ll do everything we possibly can to ensure this incident has no impact on the project going forward.