Right, that’s fair enough - I was describing it as hosting pirated content, but it’s not, it’s “just” linking directly to it. Fair play. I still think the direct links and the communities specifically devoted to linking and education for an illegal activity is way beyond what any instance operator should be required to support on their instance.

Instance operators aren't required to do anything, there are just market forces compelling action in certain directions. For instance you're not required to federate with lemmy.world, but if you intend to be a large public instance supported by donations market forces will compel you to do so in order to attract a larger audience. Is that a distinction without a difference? I guess you'd have to tell me.

I would prefer to minimize it, and make that outcome less likely. Wouldn’t you? Or is that not important to you?

It doesn't really matter. The inevitable GDPR lawsuit that kills all Lemmy instances is fast approaching, and they need to be in a mad dash to prioritize compliance. But since these lawsuits are coming, any large instance hoping to survive needs a legal team right now, not tomorrow, not after they get sued, but now. With such a team in place, the resources needed to defend the claim that no law is being broken in these communities (which lemmy.world doesn't even host, making their exposure even smaller) would be minimal.

• You’re correct that I was wrong about lemmy.world’s servers directly hosting pirated content. That, they’re not doing I don’t think.
• Linking directly to pirated content in a forum specifically for piracy is a step down from that, and also morally and legally wrong. That, they are doing.
• Discussing piracy would be a step down from that, and arguably protected free speech, although also arguably dangerous morally and legally. That they are also doing.
  I would argue that an instance admin who doesn’t want any or all of those three things to happen on their instance shouldn’t have to, and no one should give them any shit about it.

This is the internet, everyone is given shit. You are giving me shit, I am giving you shit. The shit is eternal and infinite. You will give and be given shit for the rest of your time on the internet, and so will everyone else. There is no shitless internet as long as you participate.

Whether piracy is morally wrong is a philosophical question, one I doubt you would be willing to participate in in good faith, and one which would take a very long time to discuss. It's certainly not something that can be stated matter-of-factly and as an objective truth. The idea that it is "morally dangerous" to even discuss piracy is what I would call ethically dangerous. All subjects should be able to be discussed.

What is your source for this?

How would I be able to prove this in a way you wouldn't consider to be in violation of your "discussing piracy is morally and legally dangerous" stance?

Can you really not see the irony in saying how much time and difficulty it takes to do these things, and that it’s not sustainable without a model that makes sure that they get paid and they need to be paid because of the time and effort and skill involved to create these things… I tried to highlight the irony and you doubled down on explaining how critical it is for the people involved to get paid 🙂.

Nothing can happen in a capitalist society without a monetary incentive. People need money to live, and that includes the pirates. Whether you find that ironic seems to be incredibly beside the point. All that matters is that these pirates are paid in donations (and sometimes even subscriptions) to continue doing what they do.

In some situations, I can see some merit to this. What percentage of what’s going on on these forums is this? Versus people who e.g. just want a game and don’t want to pay for it? Would you say that an instance operator who doesn’t want to support the latter should have to, because the former exists?

There's that "have to" again. Instance operators don't have to do anything, but market forces compel them to do things or risk killing their instance. Reddit doesn't have to allow free access to their API or give 3rd party apps any means by which to survive, but not doing so has consequences for them ethically and financially. Twitter doesn't have to have a stable CEO who only posts responsible messages and doesn't say and do crazy shit on a regular basis, but there are market forces which compel them to, or face consequences.

As for what percentage of who does what, there's no third party research on that subject. You'll come to conclusions that support your biases, I'll come to the opposite conclusions that support mine, and we'll both give each other shit from the comfort of our custom tailored echo machines. You bring up people who "just want a game and don't want to pay for it," but even that scenario is full of lots of potentially extenuating circumstances. No, I don't want to pay for Mario 64 again because Nintendo thinks I need to pay $60 on their e-shop or whatever. No, I don't want to buy a second copy of a game I already own because I didn't bring it with me. No, I don't want to have to buy four copies of a game to play it once with my four friends in a LAN party. No, I don't want to pay $70 for a new game I can't be sure I'll like, so I'll pirate it first to try it, then make a purchasing decision. And so on and so on.

I mean, I could steal my neighbor’s electricity and that would be a killer service, way better than paying the electric company. Then, I could resell it for less, and it would be a great deal. I feel like you’re deliberately missing the core ironic element I’m trying to highlight here.

Maybe I'm just not interested in irony as an ethical principle by which instance operators should moderate? Your example isn't apples-to-apples, though. Stealing your neighbor's electricity costs your neighbor money, pirating media has no proven financial impact on any media producer. In fact all media industries have only skyrocketed in profitability since the advent of internet piracy.