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.
Would you let some 1000 people stash their stolen goods in your house? Do you think the police would give you a break? Think about it. If lemmy.world is forced to shut down because it hosted illegal materials where will the plus side be?
Analogies are generally terrible at convincing people, and even more so when it’s about legal situations.
The process would be that they get sent some notice that something they’re hosting violates copyright law, and that it needs to be taken down or a lawsuit will happen. Unless they ignore it, and they should definitely not do that, then nothing else happens. If they get a lot of them from a certain community or instance, then they discuss why those mods/admin can’t keep their community in order, and if it becomes enough of a hassle, defederation or blocking is prudent.
Copyright law can be pretty ridiculous, no argument there, but this is well trodden stuff here. lemmy.world is not the first social media website that has had this concern.
But it is alone in its unique capabilities as an all-volunteer free site. That’s not to say other free+volunteer sites don’t exist, but, rather, that we can’t lump it with others since they’ll have their own goals for providing their free instances. And it obviously can’t be compared to “social media sites”, as that carries implicit connotation of for-profit sites.
The process would be that they get sent some notice that something they’re hosting violates copyright law, and that it needs to be taken down or a lawsuit will happen. Unless they ignore it, and they should definitely not do that, then nothing else happens. I
Lemmy.world does not have the ability to moderate posts on other instances. If lemmy.world gets a notice about something federating from another instance, how would they be able to do anything about it?
Okay, I don’t agree here. These Lemmy servers are hosted largely by people, not organizations or LLCs, and individuals being legally liable is a problem.
This isn’t twenty years ago where the Internet was a wild West and most things actually ended up flying, the modern legal reality is so complicated and if you want it differently, you host a Lemmy instance and federate with as much illegal activity as you want.
Lemmy.world is aiming to be the mainstream and pallet able Lemmy instance for the masses, let it be that, it’s their choice
I seriously doubt after the Reddit fiasco last month that “pirating” is the reason the largest number of users are here. Considering the population went up by like a factor of 10 and about zero came because of pirating…
Lemme World doesn’t want a fight and resources lost to that fight that they can’t win. This is a smart logical decision.
There were huge legal battles against internet piracy 20 years ago, probably more than now, then it took a bit of a breather, maybe because of things like Steam, Netflix, iPod, Spotify.
The American nefarious laws remain though. Share an mp3 and get your whole life ruined, and that started already in the 90’s.
I think the best solution is for you to host your own instance and allow these pirate communities on your own server.
That would solve the problem and this is actually the strength of the fediverse. So go ahead , but be aware of the consequences of hosting it.
I am pro piracy but I 100 % understand that the admins here do not want to risk anything. They surely do not have the security set up for that. But as I wrote, anyone who wants and dares can do it. Just don’t accuse other people who do not want to take the risk.
For these communities on other instances, just get an account there. It takes a few minutes.
It’s unfortunate, but it was always coming. I was quite refreshed to see so much open piracy talk too, good indication it’s an “anything goes” kind of place.
But I guarantee they’ve received a copyright order by somebody, probably the mpaa, and failure to act would result in legal action.
The fediverse has no “top”. This is it the strength of the fediverse showing? You are completely free to join those subs through other servers, exactly because there is no “top”.
Or you can stay with an instance that tries to stay legal. If you want all the gray area / illegal stuff, you can even start your own server to facilitate that, and see how long it’s allowed to stay up, and how much it will cost you in legal bills.
