this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023

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Removal of piracy communities (self.lemmyworld)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by lwadmin to c/lemmyworld

1158 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] joe 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I can't help but point out that downloading isn't even illegal everywhere. Should they likewise ban communities around marijuana or, I dunno, loud cars?

And yes, that's exactly how it should work. Specific instances of rule violations should be dealt with, and if (and only if) it continues to be a problem because the piracy mods aren't doing their job, then blocking makes sense. The LW admins did this all backward.

[–] Cabrio -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's not how any of this works, you'd think someone so interested in piracy might be a bit more technically competent regarding how the fediverse runs.

Each instance pulls data from every federated instance and every unblocked community in those federated instances. This means that any data that is hosted in those communities ends up being hosted by every linked instance.

If an instance in run in the US for example, there's nothing stopping the media companies from going after the instance owner for spreading access pirated material even if they don't explicitly host it because the data is on their instance.

The piracy instances can get away with this because they are hosted and moderated in accordance to the laws of the country they are hosted in which may not be congruent with the laws where other instances are hosted.

No big government or corporation is likely to come after an American hosted site for weed, or cars, because those things are socially and legally accessible in that country, but pirated media isn't.

Not to mention that none of these instances have massive funding and even frivolous lawsuits could shut them down.

[–] joe 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What led you to believe I'm interested in piracy? Double check your assumptions. I'm interested in rational moderation and intellectual property laws.

The law is pretty much settled on this, there is no real danger of some surprise lawsuit; that's not how the copyright system has worked for decades, now. They'll get a notice first, for a specific instance of copyright infringement, and they'll take it down. If that really is their concern (and I do not believe it is really their concern) then it's unfounded and they can unblock these communities as they suggest they will do in the post.

And to be clear, there was no given example of these communities not adhering to their own rule of not linking to infringing material. So the "omg it's cached here" argument is weak even if copyright holder behaved as you are imagining, which they do not.

No big government or corporation is likely to come after an American hosted site for weed, or cars, because those things are socially and legally accessible in that country, but pirated media isn't.

I don't know what this means. Do you mind elaborating or rephrasing?

[–] Cabrio -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What makes you think any of these individual instance owners have the legal representation to provide them locally relevant legal information? Let alone the money to play fuck around and find out with the abusive media companies?

[–] joe 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Caching is an automatic function and very likely not considered infringement in this scenario, no more than the copy your computer makes for images on websites is copyright infringement.

I can't help notice that you ignored the point about how there hasn't actually been any evidence of linking infringing content from those communities. Without that, the ins and outs of whether caching would be considered copyright infringement is putting the cart before the horse.

Additionally, a simple takedown request would be the first step, so even if all your incorrect assumptions were true, it still wouldn't result in any negative outcome for LW or its admin staff.

Edit: I do appreciate the edit, but I'm leaving my comment as is.