Earlier, after review, we blocked and removed several communities that were providing assistance to access copyrighted/pirated material, which is currently not allowed per Rule #1 of our Code of Conduct. The communities that were removed due to this decision were:
We took this action to protect lemmy.world, lemmy.world’s users, and lemmy.world staff as the material posted in those communities could be problematic for us, because of potential legal issues around copyrighted material and services that provide access to or assistance in obtaining it.
This decision is about liability and does not mean we are otherwise hostile to any of these communities or their users. As the Lemmyverse grows and instances get big, precautions may happen. We will keep monitoring the situation closely, and if in the future we deem it safe, we would gladly reallow these communities.
The discussions that have happened in various threads on Lemmy make it very clear that removing the communites before we announced our intent to remove them is not the level of transparency the community expects, and that as stewards of this community we need to be extremely transparent before we do this again in the future as well as make sure that we get feedback around what the planned changes are, because lemmy.world is yours as much as it is ours.
I’m no fan of piracy - just seems like a pretty name for petty theft to me - but this decision seems problematic. I went and read some of the threads about this decision on some of the other communities, including dbzer0, and I looked around the blocked communities on an alt account.
I’m not seeing evidence of actual copyrighted material posted, just discussions about how to steal content, which itself isn’t illegal. And there’s a pretty fair amount of content - the communities are active - so if there was a violation I feel like it should be handled as the exception it appears to be. Those communities themselves don’t allow posting of copyrighted content, so it shouldn’t be a problem to get a violation removed. If someone posted an image that contained child pornography to one of the NSFW communities, would we block the whole community, or just get that post removed (and alert the authorities)? The latter, I hope.
They also make a good case that the action was taken in response to a troll on a newly-created account who didn’t provide any evidence of there being copyrighted material. That in itself seems like a problem, though maybe someone looked into it? I’m pretty supportive of the .World admins, I think you’re doing a good job in a difficult situation, but I believe these communities should be unblocked unless there is an actual problem.
Yarr harr, tis incorrect sez me
Theft be taking somefing, I has it and you don’t
You savu?
Copying be making another thing from a thing
Excuse me sir may I borrow a tomato seed? I’ll give you one back in a few months, promise!
Let’s say we live in a world where anyone is allowed to copy anything without issue or cost. Patents are now meaningless because people can copy an invention and make their own version, so there’s no incentive for anyone do the entrepreneur thing or invent new devices. There’s no reason for musicians to record anything other than maybe to drum up interest in their tours. No reason for digital artists to put things online. No writer is going to allow their work to be published as an ebook. Etc.
The costs to make things don’t change and the profit targets don’t change, so the people who do this are just causing higher prices for the prior who don’t, in exactly the same way as stores raise their prices to cover the costs of shoplifting.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that definition of theft. Hell, we call it “stolen valor” when someone purports to have served in the military when they haven’t. It’s" identity theft" if you pass yourself off as me, even though I’m still me. I think this is yet another rationalization for taking something that doesn’t belong to you without paying.
I’m no fan of piracy - just seems like a pretty name for petty theft to me …
I’m sorry you’re ignorant of the issue.
For starters, piracy is not theft in most legal jurisdictions. It is infringement. These are different words in laws for a reason. Saying it’s “theft” is falling for a PR campaign made by parties with a vested interest in that interpretation being in the public consciousness.
Next, a lot of piracy (I’m not going to comment on what proportion because I lack the numbers … and so does literally everybody else because of the underground nature of this!) is of material that is simply not available through any other means to the people doing said piracy. I, for example, freely admit to piracy … of things that I simply cannot buy where I am. There are literally zero avenues for me to purchase the things I pirate, so I pirate. There are, similarly, things which have been out of print, out of production, or otherwise unavailable anywhere in the world for ages that get pirated. (I don’t pirate enough of these to say this is a primary motivation for me.)
Finally, there is some piracy that is actually directly virtuous. For example the people who pirate secret docs that reveal the illegal, immoral, or otherwise despicable shenanigans of large entities like corporations and governments.
Wow, what a smug and condescending response that misses the point.
First of all, I was clearly not trying to capture a legal definition, I said it seemed like a pretty name for petty theft to me, and I stand by that. In other words, people generally say they’re pirating something instead of saying they’re taking something illegally that doesn’t belong to them because that doesn’t make what they’re doing sound as good.
I scanned through some of those communities, and I didn’t get a sense that trying to attain stuff that’s not available is anything approaching a majority of the discussion, but even so, it not being available where you are doesn’t make it okay to steal. And you’re being ridiculous if you’re trying to insinuate that (1) any meaningful percentage of the piracy communities are about whistleblowers uncovering unethical or illegal activity or (2) people in general use the word “piracy” to describe that activity. I mean, are there any mainstream articles about Manning, Assange, or Snowden that describe them as pirates?
Still seems like a lot of folks trying to justify not paying for stuff they want.
Say “I didn’t read the contents of the comment I’m responding to” without using those words.
