About Elastic’s DMCA move
Yesterday evening we noticed that some Search Guard repositories and artifacts on Sonatype’s and GitHub’s websites were removed. We have since learned that the removal was precipitated by takedown notices received by GitHub and Sonatype from Elasticseach, Inc. (“Elastic”) pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Elastic appears to claim that certain components of floragunn’s Search Guard product infringe Elastic’s copyrights. To be clear, floragunn fully and unconditionally rejects Elastic’s allegations of copyright infringement, and will vigorously defend Elastic’s unfounded claims in court, and hold Elastic accountable for damages that their actions have caused floragunn and its customers.
We understand that companies like GitHub and Sonatype must react to DMCA takedown notices to protect themselves from potential liability. However, it is important to understand that by taking down content under DMCA, GitHub and Sonatype are not taking sides in the dispute between Elastic and floragunn, but are simply seeking to protect themselves against potential infringement claims.
The DMCA process is important to ensuring that website hosts are protected from claims of infringement related to content that appears on their websites, but the process is also susceptible to abuse by those seeking to harm competitors based on dubious allegations -- which we believe is the case here. This is not the first time Elastic has sought to hurt floragunn.
Needless to say, by filing the DMCA takedown notices, Elastic has succeeded in crippling communication and release channels for Search Guard. As Search Guard is a security software, it is vital for our users to have reliable channels for reporting security problems and receiving software updates. We are proactively working on restoring access to our code.
We at floragunn take our customers’ security needs very seriously. Our mission was always to provide the best security solution for Elasticsearch available. That’s why we started to work on Search Guard in 2013, and that’s what we will continue to do. Floragunn will take all steps necessary to protect Search Guard, our company, and, most important, our loyal users and customers.
We thank our customers and users, and the Open Source community for the incredible support and positive feedback we have already received.
If you have any questions, please emails us at search-guard@floragunn.com. We will do our best to minimize any trouble this situation may cause you.
Published: 2019-09-12
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