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.

BobbyBandwidth,
@BobbyBandwidth@lemmy.world avatar

I have an idea. How about all of the complainers go and start your own instance and allow whatever you want. When you have 100k users good luck sleeping.

CaptainEffort,

…you realize there are dozens of other instances right? Nobody has to make another one lol, you can just join one of the others.

BobbyBandwidth,
@BobbyBandwidth@lemmy.world avatar

Your comment is low effort, captain, and you missed the point.

FoxyZac64,

You kidding me? Lame.

morgan_423,
@morgan_423@lemmy.world avatar

Easy for you to say that, not being the one footing potential legal bills.

FoxyZac64,

Files not actually hosted here but ok.

I’ll just sail my pirate ass to a different island. Not the end of the world. Their instance so I get it’s their choice but I can still think it’s lame though. Lol.

assassin_aragorn,

I don’t begrudge your decision. To me this comes down to a question of if you’re willing to be on the hook for a multi million dollar lawsuit, even if you’d definitely win in the end. It’s still an expensive process.

I sure as hell am not willing to do that, so I’m not going judge other people who aren’t willing either. I wish more people would look at it from this perspective.

By design, this isn’t Reddit. We didn’t want to be at the whims of their bullshit CEO and corporation. Unfortunately, that’s also exactly who can afford to have legal squabbles and not go bankrupt. This is just a natural consequence of having a community run space vs a corporate one.

sused,

deleted_by_moderator

    •
    TheSpookiestUser,
    @TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world avatar

    There is a local piracy-focused community at !piracy. It’s pretty dead, of course, only 4 posts ever, but still. How does this square with those others being blocked?

    You have won my goodwill with your track record of decisions so far. I don’t agree with this one, but it is not a dealbreaker for me. Thank you for getting around to announcing this in a public space, but as you say, please make sure to do this first next time something of this caliber is put through.

    TurnItOff_OnAgain,

    The issue seems to stem from the fact that the blocked communities posted direct links to copyrighted content. Duentonhave federation works those links get cached onto this instances server possibly making them liable for them.

    brickfrog,

    The issue seems to stem from the fact that the blocked communities posted direct links to copyrighted content

    Incorrect, !piracy has a rule forbidding direct links to content. If those posts/comments exist mods there would simply remove them for breaking rules. Sort of seems like you’re making random assumptions.

    AllukaTheCutie7725,
    @AllukaTheCutie7725@lemmy.world avatar

    Seems to be a lot of people making assumptions in the comments here ☹️

    postmeridiem,

    Pre-emptively hitting my last resort button

    ilfi,

    Literally 1984

    yote_zip,
    @yote_zip@pawb.social avatar

    I don’t think this is a lemmy.world problem as much as it’s a Fediverse problem. Assuming that the only reason to block these communities is legal safety, we should figure out what is legally unsafe and see if that can be enforced on the piracy communities, or everyone in the Fediverse could also be at risk and should block these communities.

    I know that the piracy communities themselves are already taking these kinds of measures to make sure they are not unsafe, so if anything is found we should solve it together. If push comes to shove, I suspect that piracy communities would rather restrict themselves than risk taking a stand and endangering others. It’s not that big of a deal to skirt legal concerns while still being a useful piracy resource - /r/piracy existed in much the same state.

    Luci,
    @Luci@lemmy.ca avatar

    I think you need to make rule 1 more specific or create a rule for this specific issue. When I read rule 1 it seems vague but I might have a bias.

    Speaking of having a bias, I don’t think the liability is that big of an issue but I also understand that it is your instance to do what you want.

    Thank you for being transparent and understanding that you made a mistake in not engaging the community first.

    gabe,

    Please make announcements on lemmy instead of exclusively on discord moving forward. That is the biggest issue here, the lack of public transparency. Such a decision affects all instances, not just lemmy.world and making it publicly known is important

    lwadmin,
    @lwadmin@lemmy.world avatar

    This was a misunderstanding from one of the team members. It has since been discussed and will not happen again. Lemmy.World and this announcement community is our primary platform,

    Blaze,
    @Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    Thank you for this

    remotelove,

    Speaking of removed communities, can an admin respond to this please: lemmy.world/post/3165787

    Zuberi,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    M0oP0o,

    Why are the thank you posts getting upthings when they provide no substance? I mean the tone above is not very nice but at least it highlights the need for migration tools.

    Dio,

    Haha, damn.

    gabe,

    Thank you. It is appreciated.

    TrickDacy,

    Misunderstanding eh?

    Kbobabob,

    Yeah. You misunderstood that they are liars.

    Martineski,
    @Martineski@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Aged like milk.

    Nobilmantis,
    @Nobilmantis@feddit.it avatar

    Just another misunderstanding bro

    FlihpFlorp,

    Are we raising posts from the dead?

    Blaze,
    @Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    Thank you for this update and your work!

    It was sad to see the level of hostility displayed in some of the threads yesterday.

    You are still doing a great job as the most public facing instance, and it’s good to hear you noticed the request for more transparency.

    Take care!

    PugJesus,

    Unfortunate, but I understand the necessity of avoiding legal troubles as a volunteer group.

    BeardedGingerWonder,

    By that logic shouldn’t they just shut down the instance? There’s nothing to stop anyone posting direct links to piracy in any comm

    ttmrichter,
    @ttmrichter@lemmy.world avatar

    Ah, yes. Slippery slope. My old friend.

    orangeNgreen,
    @orangeNgreen@lemmy.world avatar

    Thank you for the update!

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