Normally a great deal of time and planning goes into posting front page notices, however this notice represents news which is currently breaking and as such we have had little time to review it. That being said we feel that making public our initial thoughts and intentions is far more beneficial than allowing speculation or other conclusions to be drawn. This is a brain dump of what has happened and what we intend to do, and is not indicative of anything else, nor should it be taken as gospel.
When I woke up just 30 minutes ago, I was alerted to the fact that downloads to CraftBukkit had been removed due to a DMCA request from former CraftBukkit developer Wesley Wolfe (Wolvereness). Upon scrolling through emails on my phone I found that approx 2:21AM (AEST) we received a similar DMCA report from the same user. It is attached below with personal information and contact details removed”
Obviously any surprise takedown of our software is no small matter, and we do intend to fight it to the best of our ability. Our primary goal at this point in time is to ensure that downloads of Spigot, and all previous Spigot builds remain available for public consumption. Our secondary goal is to ensure that we can continue distributing Spigot in its current form, and ensure that past versions will always be accessible. How we will do this is currently uncertain, however our first port of call is to get in contact with our legal team (which we are already doing) and attempting to issue a counter-notice to ensure that Spigot remains accessible for enough time in order to investigate and implement slightly more long term measures.
Since we opened to donations about 11 months ago, the Spigot Team has set aside all the remaining funds which were not spent during the Minecon period, as well as a portion of all donations into a savings account. This account has been reserved for emergencies and other big ticket items (Minecon 2014 was the idea), and insofar we have not had to make use of it. As lawyers are expensive (upwards of $200/hour), we will be making full use of these donations set aside in order to fight this to the best of our ability and ensure that Spigot remains accessible to all. We are also hoping to get in contact with some legal professionals who specialize in licensing disputes such as those to do with GPL.
I’ve got to leave for the day now, however I will do my best to update this post when I can with whatever developments we receive.
~Spigot Team
Edit: please read the takedown notice before responding, the takedown was filed by Wesley Wolf, however Mojang's chief operating officer Vu Bui has supported it on Mojang's behalf.
Edit 2: our legal team has begun work on a DMCA counter notice. Also thanks to all those who have made donations. They will be set aside from the normal pool.
Edit 3: We are currently in contact with Mojang on this matter, and also I'm going to bed.