UHC update (v. 2.7.2)

"Some assets are also available from a copy Homestuck made of the collection against our wishes." MOTHERFUCKER THE ASSETS ARE HOMESTUCK. THE PROPERTY CREATED BY ANDREW HUSSIE.

Huh oh well, i wonder what happens next. imo I think Gio expected a super big ending where everyone just up and leaves Homestuck forever or something lol. But then that just didn't happen, I suppose. I really would like to just know how this works because Idk anything about Copyright law or Fair use and this is a bit more complicated than just a creator taking down "fanworks". Some people say that Homestuck official "stole" the UHC by making Gio take it down and then keeping their own fork of the UHC up. However, is it really stealing if it's an app that is made to distribute content you own and have made and that you didn't license for this person to distribute in the first place?

I guess you can say the reader application was stolen, but there is nothing wrong with them DMCA'ing the Asset pack which contains...well, "Homestuck". And I do not think Gio should have to really expunge the articles he wrote that talked about the Hiveswap situation. It is a bit scummy of a company to do that. And the Hiveswap situation was important because it did show the company mismanaging funds.

But...everything aside from all of that? Ehhhh idk I can't really side with Gio lol. I guess I just don't really think this is legal abuse. It is negotiations for a person distributing someone else's work without a license, and I can disagree with the way Andrew Hussie handled it, but I don't know enough to say that he's some evil manipulative snake who only cares for themselves.

I also just do not like that Gio tried to drag in unrelated people into this for no real reason other than to rile a mob against smaller creators who have nothing to do with this issue at all. I think in the midst of all of this, a lot of people have just sort of glossed over the fact that he did indeed lie. I don't know why, but I've seen a lot of people rewrite the definition of dishonesty when saying Gio didn't "technically" lie about the whole Austin and Vast Error and Fraf forums thing.

If I were to make up some terrible assumptions about another person based solely off of a hunch and then published that opinion to millions of people and then tried really hard to connect that with some other horrible thing that had happened to me, I would be what the laymen call a "Shit Starter". Someone who starts shit for literally no reason at all lol. That is lying. Just full stop. It's called lying when you make up things about other people.

He should have fixed the music player, if anything. My copy of the collection is way out of date because of that.

Anyway yeah I still think Homestuck operated wrongfully but in hindsight it was always kind of silly for him to claim he was stopped from working on his own project by the DMCA claim. I believed it, too.

I think the main point of contention is gonna be what Homestuck does with the reader part which I think is still an open source thing, cause that's what isn't really limited by the copyright, the asset pack however is what is getting DMCA threats cause that is where the actual music and IP stuff is.

yeah I'm also not exactly sure of the legality of Homestuck making a fork of the UHC if it's open source but Gio clearly would not want them to do that lol.

> yeah I'm also not exactly sure of the legality of Homestuck making a fork of the UHC if it's open source but Gio clearly would not want them to do that lol.

Unless there's some weird technicality/loophole that has slipped by all of us, it's 100% legal for Homestuck to do what they want with their fork, so long as they meet certain conditions (which I'm 99% certain they do.)

You can read the whole license here:
https://github.com/GiovanH/unofficial-homestuck-collection/blob/main/LICENSE

To quote from the preamble:

> The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed

to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast,

the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to

share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free

software for all its users.

where is there nudity in homestuck that needs to be modded out????

If you go to page 6666 you can see a flash of dirks buttcheek which was added as fanservice to the woke mob after they threatened to assassinate Hussie

The nudity is from "[S] DD: Ascend more casually.", when DD is reading "The Gray Ladies".

If we're talking about mods one that I would LOVE is a mod that just translates all the alternian letters into normal letters bc I cannot for the life of me read any of it lol

can they make a mod that adds more nudity

it's so fun being correct at all times and laughing about it and going heehee and stuff

I gave the part of the blogpost where Gio talks about the DMCA a quick reread and it doesn't seem that he was ever asked to do anything to the reader, just remove the copyrighted material and references to it (which him and his lawyer objected to) from the reader and website. Nothing about the reader itself being taken down.

I also thought he was supposed to stop working on it as one of the terms but I guess the fandom uproar caused people to forget that wasn't a thing? Or am I just reading something wrong?

damn and i just updated the UHC the other day too...

i wonder if there will be a justification for this, if any, since the article made it clear he wasnt going to maintain it any longer...but then he goes and updates it. lol

@acelad, looking at the update, the bugfix is literally just someone else fixing an issue preventing a flash from loading and Gio changing the version number. It's admittedly a bit funny but the justification is already there, it's just fixing a bug.

Now for my general response. Gio has always said that the Reader itself is fine and wasn't taken down by the DMCAs against the UHC website and Assetpack (The DMCA'S are real, that would be an insane thing to lie about.) Because as the DMCA clarification on June 16th states "Second, [Legal Name] needs to remove any Homestuck assets or links to those assets from the UHC site. We do not have an issue with the reader itself, but the Homestuck assets, including the torrent links on the Carrd site, need to be removed. [Legal Name] may direct customers to the official channels for the assets, which Homestuck will provide on the same." Though it is silly for him to claim he can't maintain the reader considering the fact he directly contradicts that claim on the Github "There have currently been no legal attacks on this, the codebase for the reader. The question of whether this repository can remain up or maintained without the threat of retaliatory legal action is under active investigation." (Though the reader is still at risk, Since there's still the question on if using the name Homestuck to describe a reader for Homestuck is illegal, Since that's part of the reason the UHC website was taken down originally, because it has the word Homestuck on it alongside Homestucky branding. https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2025/08/08/uhc-end/#july )

Also, Gio can still write about his distaste for the whole thing, because that's just his opinion. (A company making a fork of some open source software while DMCAing the website of the old one is fucked up to be honest, that's an belief i hold firmly here. Can't blame Gio for seeing that as an attempt at a Hostile Takeover of UHC. The Assetpack is one thing as Gio doesn't have the rights to that, but not being able to display the reader in action? Seriously? pretty sure that's legal, like emulators can do that thanks to the Bleem cases back in the late 90s and early 2000's. Like just look at the Dolphin website https://dolphin-emu.org/ Nintendo can't sue them for showing Luigi's Mansion on the website as that's just showing what the emulator can do. Heck imagine if Dolphin couldn't describe itself as a Gamecube/ Wii emulator.)

As a sidenote, Gio recently pushed an update to the flatpack linux version of UHC which was stuck on 2.6.7 for a while which is nice.

Also as an extra sidenote: Even now i think Gio wants to continue working on the UHC despite everything. You can take the man out of the Homestuck, but you can't take the Homestuck out of the man.

3x Sidenote combo: As a funny note to end things off. Gio has jokingly confirmed the articles were rushed on Tumblr. (I wouldn't know what else they're talking about here if I'm wrong "Make it exist first" is generally good art advice.) Laughed a bit at this, thought y'all would find it funny too. (Though they really shouldn't have rushed the articles, Journalism is one of the things you shouldn't rush if you can get away with it. Like you wouldn't rush the construction of a building.)

see the impression im getting is that gio thought the article would cause such a huge uproar that the HS team would panic, and that everyone would be begging for the project to be saved, but then when the reaction ranged from "grr hussie" to "guys its still here" he kinda recognised he should just get back to work

me when i pick a hill to die on but it turns out the hill isnt as attention-grabbing and important as i thought it was so i give up after a week

the fake creepypasta page just took me out

re: spicyyeti

he fucking tokyo ghoul pfp'd the page lmao