Well, that's pretty creepy.
Are they required to do this, or just feeling really gung-ho about copyright all of a sudden?

My guess is somebody is putting the pressure on hard. But asking for our legal name is completely creepy. Still not sure what I should do.

I'm a lurker here but just wanted to say that Damien is not a "profoundly stupid person" and that judging his intelligence on the basis of a decision such as this isn't very wise.

Nobody here knows what he was threatened with, for one, and even if the law is on his side (as far as the Core decks go), that does not mean he wants to spend who knows how much money and time defending himself in court from iKnow (and anyone else they can get together whose copyrights they can claim were or are being violated).

Anybody having to sign off on the decks they made from books and shared, especially, should appreciate the position he's in. Whether those are legal or not is arguable and as a result I bet almost everyone will hesitate before signing their name off on them.

My own guess, for what it's worth, is that Damien is being very prudent here. And my hope is that he uses this as an opportunity to raise Anki up to the next level, not give up on it.

I think it's pretty clear this is Cerego's doing unless we get information to the contrary. I've always supported iKnow financially for the great material, even when they did their morally grey stuff like the stuff they did when transitioning from Smart.fm. They won't get another cent from me at this point. Disgraceful.

Wow... This is really frustrating, even with Nayr's deck to fall back on. Does anyone know where I might be able to obtain the files for the Core 6000 then? I just wanna be able to keep up my study schedule with new vocab, and right now, I'm kind of worried that I might not able to do that.

Whoever's behind this, it's absolutely pathetic. People have used the materials for years believing they were free (as in freedom) to use, loading the guns with legal threats at this point is a moral offense. And forcing heroes like Damien into a corner with this pseudo-legal crap is an order of magnitude worse. Leave the language learners in peace. We have enough to worry about already, thank you very much.

I will keep spreading Core materials to whoever wants to use them, Cerego be damned. Corporate actions like these *really* piss me off. I'm very sad to see that it's already struck a blow to AnkiWeb.

A 3rd party resource for decks wouldn't be bad then.

erlog Wrote:If Damien pulls the Core decks because of this then he's a profoundly stupid person. You can't revoke a CC license from released content. That isn't how copyright works.

That may be the way copyright works, but many smart people choose to pull content rather than spend time and money asserting their rights in court.

erlog Wrote:If Damien pulls the Core decks because of this then he's a profoundly stupid person. You can't revoke a CC license from released content. That isn't how copyright works.

Shared decks don't need to be on Damien's site. Anyone can set up a site for shared Anki decks, just like the one Damien has, and be "smart" about the copyright issues.

So go ahead. Do it. Show us how smart you are. Show us how a smart person deals with the threat of ending up in litigation that costs tens of thousands of dollars, even if you win.

I think Damien should contact the EFF and consult with them. I know that Damien is in Japan so the hoops he'll have to jump through will likely be in Japan, but there may be some pro-bono EFF lawyers in Japan that might help him with this.

Raulsen Wrote:Wow... This is really frustrating, even with Nayr's deck to fall back on. Does anyone know where I might be able to obtain the files for the Core 6000 then? I just wanna be able to keep up my study schedule with new vocab, and right now, I'm kind of worried that I might not able to do that.

ryuudou Wrote:A 3rd party resource for decks wouldn't be bad then.

Core 2k_6k_10K Further Optimized (does not contain pictures)
https://mega.co.nz/#!kV5wyRyD!9ZO17Pi68K...8j2LkYkVCc

Core 2k/6k Japanese Vocabulary (does not contain pictures)
https://mega.co.nz/#!QU5whQDT!g6wRM6KvDV...T_YDtQdgfU

Core 2k/6k 2-Step Japanese Vocabulary (Using japaneseruleof7's layout design - also does not contain pictures)
https://mega.co.nz/#!YMZ3zSQR!VkUQAJRB7Y...fGpyeXTm2w

These come from a google spreadsheet with a large collection of other resources including textbooks, manga, light novels, etc. If you would like the link to that I would have to send it to your email addresses as it contains direct download links to copyright content and as such cannot post the link on the forum.

Kurikuri, you're absolutely amazing. You have no idea how much of a relief this is. I'll message you right now for the list.

Just to make things clear: what is primarily under question here seems to be the possibility of sharing decks on the ankiweb site, in case the material they contain is subject to copyright.

Simply using the sync function privately on such existing decks to keep several devices synchronized is a distinct story, though copyright infringement may also be involved.

Is this also forbidden now according to Anki's new terms of contract?

If so, what are alternatives currently available to synchronize several devices (desktop - notebook - mobile phone) without relying on Ankiweb?

Could a new function be included in the Anki desktop program to make this synchronization more straightforward?

iKnow/ Cerego have responded to some of the points being raised here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/co...st/cp1mzix

Even if that guy was hired just to write up the post according to what the company told him to, this still reeks of corporate arrogance. If they'd truly wanted to put their product out there, they would've competed, promoted it, and tried to make a mark on the Japanese learning community. While the quality of the Core decks is undeniable, they made them and then abandoned them. No effort was made at maintaining relevancy (as some of the cards will indicate), and furthermore, no effort was made at keeping iKnow's model attractive to potential customers.

I'm not sure how much this will help you guys. There is a software project called Anki Sync Server that allows your Anki to sync to your own private server instead of to Ankiweb.net.

https://github.com/dsnopek/anki-sync-server

If there's a lot of panic about Ankiweb.net's new rules about registering your legal name and not uploading copyrighted things even under your private account (unshared), someone could set this up as an alternative. DigitalOcean Linux VPS costs $5/month and you could run this on one (and maybe share with your friends). The only caveat is it might be difficult to convince your mobile apps to sync to a personal server instead of Ankiweb.net. If there's enough of a buzz, I or someone on the forum can look into making a one-click install of Anki Sync Server.

We always knew the halcyon days of sharing copyrighted content via Ankiweb.net would someday come to an end. It's only surprising that the motivating factor was illegal corporate bullying on part of iKnow.

That's a nice option, but given the lack of support for this in Anki Mobile, it's a nonstarter. If Damien adds support for custom sync servers to Anki Mobile, I'll gladly go this route and take some load off of AnkiWeb.

Do I understand correctly that there is presently NO alternative to Anki Web syncing (including by making a physical connection between my iPhone and my Mac desktop)?

As for the anki-sync-server, looks like there might be support coming in AnkiDroid 2.5.
https://code.google.com/p/ankidroid/issu...ail?id=154
Scroll to the bottom, follow the GitHub link. Fingers crossed.

Also, people aren't really giving out their real names that easily, are they? o_O

Another solution: buy a $60 Windows tablet from MicroCenter, and use that as a portable study platform. Sync by cable or set up anki-sync-server and change your sync server to your own iron. (I wonder if I could just dyn.dns a personal server and stick it next to my router-- it's not like it would need to handle a ton of traffic if it's only handling my cards!)

rich_f Wrote:Another solution: buy a $60 Windows tablet from MicroCenter, and use that as a portable study platform. Sync by cable or set up anki-sync-server and change your sync server to your own iron. (I wonder if I could just dyn.dns a personal server and stick it next to my router-- it's not like it would need to handle a ton of traffic if it's only handling my cards!)

This is what Supermemo users do sometimes.

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:That's a nice option, but given the lack of support for this in Anki Mobile, it's a nonstarter. If Damien adds support for custom sync servers to Anki Mobile, I'll gladly go this route and take some load off of AnkiWeb.

That would be amazing; I'd much rather sync back and forth to my own tiny server than deal with the (recently) slow Anki servers.

This is the tablet I'm thinking about. It's gone up to $69, but it's not bad for $69, so long as you only run a few programs on it. (And don't expect to run high-end games on it.)

http://www.microcenter.com/product/43977...et_-_Black

I already have an iPad, so I'll likely just drop down to local syncing. It adds some extra steps, but I really only need to sync when I add new content, so I'll probably just preload a bunch of content and export a collection package back and forth. This will likely be much faster than using AnkiWeb anyhow.

Crap, I have no computer skills so synching is out of the question. Hopefully they come to their senses.....

>7) Because of the issues raised in this thread, I can now see that turning a blind eye to copyright violations has been a mistake. We wanted to maintain a grey zone, but grey zones create complications and potential for misunderstanding. Going forward I will reach out to Anki and politely ask them to delist any content that contains Cerego copyrighted material. This shouldn’t impact anyone already using the content, but we do not want to be seen as encouraging the copyright violation of material licensed from elsewhere.

Wow. They had every opportunity to at least explain their position, and they couldn't help including brazen corporate arrogance. That post went from seeming reasonable and at least an attempt at genuine outreach, to pissing me off completely in one paragraph.

Nukemarine's response made me happy, he did a great job at communicating what I think we're all feeling.