Hi, all! A lifter recently received a DMCA notice, asking that they take their package down. We reached out to offer support. Thankfully, our support was not needed. It did remind me, though, that it's been a long time since we mentioned to you that—just like we help you with security—we can also help if your package receives a legal question of some sort.

Why?

This is probably obvious, but part of why our customers pay us is to make sure your package stays available, and ensure that they can use it legally. Both Tidelift and our customers are happy to help if you get legally challenged!

Examples, including how we can help

Here are a few situations where we can help you out.

• Licensing: Don't understand how a copyleft dependency impacts you? Need to know how multiple permissive licenses work together? Or why GitHub's scanner isn't seeing your license information? Let us know and we can help you promptly.

• DMCA: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides a way for copyright owners to get infringing materials taken off hosting services, often called "takedown notices". It isn't common, but these notices can be directed at package hosting services like PyPi. If you get one of these, let us know—we may be able to help directly, or to put you in touch with other attorneys or with the package ecosystem's legal team.

• Patents: Claims of patent infringement by open source projects are thankfully quite rare, but are impactful when they do happen—for both you and customers who use your software. Please let us know when and if this happens to you. Among other things, we are a member of the Open Invention Network and can help you connect with them or other community resources.

If you get other legal questions about your package that don't fall into one of these buckets, reach out and we’ll do our best to assist you.

Limitations

Tidelift can't be your attorney, so that may sometimes limit how we can work with you. If we need, we can always help you match up with other attorneys, and we may be able to help support your costs in a legal defense as well.

How to reach out?

If you do find yourself in a legal situation, the best way to reach out is to simply tell lifter@tidelift.com that you’d like to check in with Tidelift about a legal question. (If the issue is public, like many licensing issues are, feel free to include a link!) The team will figure out the best way for you to talk to us, making sure we do our best to protect your confidentiality.