Removal of piracy communities

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.

ZagamTheVile,

I don’t get all the hate. LW is run by some volunteers. They can ban or censor whatever they want for why-ever they want. They don’t owe anyone here anything. They don’t really have to even say why, or when, or what communities they ban. Hell, they could ban all communities that start with the letter H if they wanted just to do it.

The people frothing at the mouth screaming about this is why I left reddit are a riot. Go back. Go to another instance. Fucking sack up and host your own instance, with hookers and blackjack. But stop demanding people you don’t employ do your bidding. Would you even work for a boss acting like that?

loom_in_essence,

Now I won’t sympathize with Lemmy.world during their next DDOS attack. Solidarity has been destroyed.

Aurix,

I am strongly opposed to the way this is handled. Discussing piracy may not be censored in any way and being afraid of shady lawsuits is not good, this is one of the main responsibilities of a server admin of such a grand operation. Especially so for what is effectively an image board which is grey zoning on copyright all the time. It is fine to ban communities who direct link to well known piracy sites, both because of the legal and perhaps ethical complications this brings.

We need now more than ever platforms where we defend basic freedoms as discussion of hot topics. I view the negative impact of this as banning discussion on drugs. Disclaimers about dangers and help lines for addiction should be forced, as the banning of purchase options, however please stay out of experiences, discussions and warnings on them.

rich8n,

Then make and host your own instance and take those risks yourself. That’s the power of the Fediverse.

Aurix,

I don’t wish to have the burden and work of hosting. Same reason I use products from the supermarket and not live a survival like life in the woods. It’s a bit too much.

grayhaze,
@grayhaze@lemmy.world avatar

Sooo… you’d rather someone else do all the work and take on the burdens, but do it the way you want them to do it without contributing in any way?

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

“Can’t someone else do it?”

Cabrio,

Then stop bitching about what toys someone else has in their playground, you’re a guest, fucking act like it.

suckmyspez,

Probably enough for me to jump ship. The performance on this instance is a sack of shit anyways 👋

doyadig,

Don’t know why you are getting downvoted. Lemmy.world is down more than its up.

GONADS125,

While I’m not ethically opposed pirating, I understand and would probably do the same for a server I was hosting. Anybody remember Kim Dotcom’s mansion raid?

What I do not understand is blocking a community surrounding magic mushrooms… No one is going to prosecute the L.W admins for people discussing shrooms/their use…

Substances are legal/illegal depending on where one lives, just like weed which is apparently perfectly fine to post here, even tho possession is a death sentence in some countries.

It simply doesn’t logically follow that weed, or even alcohol communities are permissible while a shroom community is not.

Banning any content deemed illegal in any country in the world establishes a very dangerous precedence (if that’s the justification here). Free speech/dissenting from the government is illegal in many places in the world.

One thing the community must remember tho, is that you have to operate your server in accordance with the law in which country you’re hosting it (in this case Germany).

I’ll gladly admit I’m not too familiar with German law, but it seems unreasonable to expect government persecution for hosting servers which hosts a shroom discussion community.

samus12345, (edited )
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

Where did this idea that Lemmy.world is hosted in Germany come from? It’s hosted in Finland.

EDIT: Ah, I see why, it’s a German company that operates in multiple countries, including Finland. I dunno which laws would apply in this case.

ScaNtuRd,

Honestly, I don’t care much about whether it’s ethical or not. The big corporations that produce a lot of this content is billion-dollar corporations that are trying to shove woke leftist ideologies down our throats (For example Disney). I take pleasure in making them miss out on revenue.

CaptainEffort,

Whoa wait wtf, they blocked a mushroom community? I didn’t hear about that

Indicah,

!shrooms

Our new home.

Jase,

deleted_by_author

    •
    Candelestine,

    This argument keeps showing up again and again. “The point of the Fediverse is to stay connected.”

    Someone want to point out the logic that is supposed to underlie this? Because I think a small subset of people has just completely made it up themselves.

    As far as I can see, we were given tools for things like defederation and blocking for a reason. Those tools did not need to get made, that took someone’s time and investment, so it must’ve been pretty important if they already got around to it.

    loom_in_essence,

    You’re right, the existence of a tool justifies any abusive use of the tool. Every instance should block every community and we should all get our own private instances and block each other.

    Candelestine,

    Ah, a slippery slope/exaggeration argument.

    Still doesn’t answer my question though.

    loom_in_essence,

    It’s not slippery slope because we have already been instance-hopping as every instance defederates and bans and defederates and bans, all the while we are ridiculed for expressing a desire to be connected, told to get lost.

    Cabrio,

    Then host your own instance with all the blackjack, hookers, and liability you want; instead of bitching about what toys someone else has in their sandbox.

    loom_in_essence,

    Instead, you can host your own instance and block everybody, and stop telling your fellow lemurians to fuck off, and stop pretending that sharing a very common opinion is “bItcHinG”

    You are just a troll.

    Cabrio,

    Do you practice being this stupid or does it come naturally? Your opinion has no bearing on reality.

    Candelestine,

    Sure, whatever. Still hoping someone can answer my question.

    AngryCommieKender,

    I believe the answer is the fact that the corporations are upset that they can’t control the free flow of information on the web, due to the way that it was designed. The free flow people seem to be worried that by de-federating and blocking communities we are effectively silencing them due to pressure from corporations that many people seem to feel shouldn’t have the ability to silence us.

    samus12345,
    @samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

    And they’re right! Which means their anger is directed at the wrong thing if they’re mad at Lemmy.world. Be mad that the corporations have been given the power to crush the common people just by making them have to defend themselves in court.

    Candelestine,

    So you’re saying people have been sensitized due to being banned/blocked/shadowbanned/whatever on the major services, and are thus having some kind of knee-jerk reaction to any and all blocks to participation here? Because we are certainly not a corporation. We’re just individuals, who have individual freedom.

    Including the freedom to block people from our hardware.

    AngryCommieKender,

    Essentially, yeah. The masses are having a kneejerk reaction. I believe the lemmings that were here before the major Sync/Reddit migration may have more of a point.

    I don’t believe the second group is reacting just because [specific instance] is getting banned. I believe that group is reacting because of the implications of groups getting banned, as those lemmings are more concerned with maintenance than the corporations.

    ZombieZookeeper,

    Are you going to pay the Lemmy admins legal fees when Hollywood comes after them? In no part of your complaint did I see you volunteering to do so.

    panja,
    @panja@lemmy.world avatar

    Merely blocking the instance in its entirety

    Did that actually happen? It looks like they just blocked those specific communities… Which seems completely fair

    Feathercrown,

    This is misinformation, straight up. They did not block an instance, they blocked communities; and Lemmy replicates all content to the server it’s being viewed from, so they would likely be liable.

    mysoulishome,
    @mysoulishome@lemmy.world avatar

    I’m happy to see that’s a lawyer had stepped in to let us know there could never ever be any legal consequences whatsoever for federating with any other instance regardless of what they post. You are a lawyer right? And your E&O insurance will protect you if you’re wrong and give advice that gets us sued or jailed?

    pozbo,
    @pozbo@lemmy.world avatar

    Because you’re so scared of corporate lawsuits you may as well defederate from any union-positive instances as well.

    Just to mitigate risk of corporations that wouldn’t appreciate it at all. Never know when you might get sued.

    Acid2688,

    I wasn’t aware that unions were illegal.

    pozbo,
    @pozbo@lemmy.world avatar

    Oh, they aren’t. But they are a stick in the side of the corpos and for that reason it is unwise to host any of those discussions.

    Also, not every lawsuit is backed by an actual law. You don’t need to be the victim of a broken law to sue anyone, not in this jurisdiction anyhow.

    Weslee,

    And trans communities giving help and advice to trans kids, We’ve seen those spaces and organisations being attacked in the USA… How long until L.W is too afraid of legal action from those?

    Or gay rights, or women’s rights, when does it end?

    pozbo,
    @pozbo@lemmy.world avatar

    Slippery slope.

    HexesofVexes,

    The copyblight strikes again.

    This decision was the logical one, however, it was only rendered logical because of the awful state of copyright law.

    razrabotka,
    @razrabotka@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Time to consider the other direction, then. What’s the opposite of ‘right’? Besides ‘wrong’, I mean

    Pitchfork,

    Copyleft.

    HexesofVexes,

    That’s the tricky part - if I write a book I might need the money from selling it to survive (and a lot of shop workers may rely on it too).

    However, I think the copyright most people resent is the kind that stops you building on top of something without having a legal department handy. The overlong nature of copyright is also extremely problematic.

    Copyblight is this in action - it’s a video strike by a legal department for showing 0.1 seconds too much audio, the killing of a free fan game, and the gating of knowledge a century old behind a journal paywall.

    I think removing those claws, and reducing copyright duration somewhat would be the route forward.

    madcaesar,

    Even if we look past the issue that all of this was in response to a 10h troll account, there was no cease and desist, no threat of a lawsuit, nothing credible AT ALL.

    Let’s ignore all of that and say there was, it still means this instance is completely ill equipped to provide any sort of resistance, to something trivial.

    It’s like it’s hosted in the middle of Illinois, by John Frank, at 3125 maple lane… Zero layers of protection.

    That is awful and means no meaningful discussion can ever happen here. Nevermind piracy, what if people want to criticize the government? Or public figures?

    If this instance can’t fight a fake troll it can’t fight and protect anything.

    Which means we need to pool resources and fund instances that can and will fight back.

    And yes that means fundraising to build up a defense fund and hosting outside the US etc.

    mysoulishome,
    @mysoulishome@lemmy.world avatar

    Seems like a waste of money, I’m not donating to that. Instead let’s build a massive, diverse and scattered federated ecosystem that is protected by being independent…more like a shared language than a single entity you protect.

    ProffessionalAmateur,

    Yep. Essesntially it boils down to the entire internet user community banding together against MAMAA FAANG to fight for this protocol. Only thing is, what does a geriatric judge decide when all these massive coglomrates take a side vs a (lifts glasses) Lemmy

    dopwop,

    goodbye

    Lummy,

    Goodbye y’all I’m out

    vinyl,

    Adios 👋😁

    Obstagoon,

    Oh nooo, Lummy ):

    TheObserver,

    Aight peace ✌️ you do you. Gonna go sail my ship over to another instance.

    Nytelock,

    Ok Karen

    pozbo,
    @pozbo@lemmy.world avatar

    You sound like such a prick haha

    _wintermute,

    Karens ask to speak with the manager. They don’t walk out in a non-confrontational manner. Don’t be stupid on purpose to look clever.

    Cabrio,

    Then why comment? Sounds like they needed everyone to know they had made a decision and everyone else needed to hear it before they left. Sounds like a Karen to me considering that’s exactly how the fediverse works.

    If you don’t like it then host your own instance with all the blackjack, hookers, and liability you want; instead of bitching about what toys someone else has in their sandbox.

    _wintermute,

    Lmao you assume I have some horse in this other than pointing out your dumb comment.

    Cabrio,

    Wasn’t even my comment, do you practice being this stupid or does it come naturally?

    _wintermute,

    So you’re just here to make up strawman arguments even though you weren’t even the original commenter? Lmfao and I’m the stupid one. You spend your time in some weird ways guy.

    Cabrio,

    No, I’m here to point out your stupidity and add to the conversation as a whole, and I think I did a bang up job.

    LakesLem, (edited )

    Interesting the level of outrage. I guess if Lemmy’s userbase is heavily “Reddit users who were outraged enough to leave a private platform over entitlement towards free API access and come here” then it’s going to skew heavily “easily outraged”.

    I don’t see a huge issue really - the whole point of the fediverse is there are other instances to go to. Some of them will lean more towards covering their asses, some will pop up (and get c&d and taken down and repeat) for the illegal stuff. Some will tell bigots to go fuck themselves and outrage racists, "gender critical"s, etc about free speech (this instance literally says it’s not a free speech zone so what are you doing here?). Others will happily accommodate it. Pick your poison.

    Okay, downvote away, but when you get bored of clicking down arrows on everyone who doesn’t 100% agree with you, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out. You’re more than welcome to take your toxicity elsewhere.

    pineapplehunter,

    Wow, so meny downvotes… Don’t people know you can just create your instance of lemmy if they don’t like this decision?

    Obstagoon,

    OK then buster, show me how or do it for me and I’ll be fixin’ to use it

    CaptainEffort,

    Just make an account on a different instance. That’s a lot easier than making one of your own.

    I’d recommend either Sh.itjust.works, sopuli.xyz, Lemmy.ca, or Lemmy.dbzer0.com.

    Sopuli is primarily Finnish, and Lemmy.ca Canadian, but both state that they’re open and welcoming to all.

    I’m on sh.itjust.works and it’s been great.

    Zatso,

    Besides the downvoting, there is not much blind disagreement comments here, nor agreement ones. Definitely a comment section worth reading. Fair points of views on both sides.

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