Skype Cracks-Down on Reverse-Engineering

With the acquisition final, Microsoft’s Skype Division has set its sites on reverse-engineers, issuing multiple DMCA takedowns to those publishing their own code. From the article:

Skype issued a second DMCA copyright notice after this researcher published more Skype related code. Those files have since moved to being hosted elsewhere. Skype is claiming copyright on the code even though the open-source code was written by the researcher. Another DMCA takedown attempt regarding the same work was issued again in early August when the researcher tried doing a DMCA counter-notice, and he ended up putting up links again to this “copyrighted” work.

If only there was a viable, open and multi-platform alternative to Skype. Maybe Skype’s latest actions will help spur an alternative sooner rather than later.