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.

  • pankuleczkapl@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    These communities are not even hosted on lemmy.world, this is an absurdly overreacted response. There were no signs of any legal trouble and I can’t understand how lemmy.world specifically would be the target of such legal action. If you want to host an instance, you should do everything in your power to allow discussions on any topic, while in necessary cases disallowing direct posting/linking of illegal content. Instead, you chose to block a community that has long been known to avoid having any trouble with the moderators.

    • TurboLag@lemmings.world
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      1 year ago

      And on top of this, the removals were done following the request from a troll account, by a user involved in far more questionable discussions than the legal discussions currently going on in the now-removed communities. Should no attempt be made to differentiate between a legit legal concern and trolling?

      • OverfedRaccoon 🦝@lemm.ee
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        Good ol’ Bungiefan_ak, creating troll accounts on any instance that’ll have them to troll all things piracy and post transphobic and hateful shit wherever they go.

          • TurboLag@lemmings.world
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            1 year ago

            They only do it because it works. Had they been given the level of attention—and interaction—that trolls deserve, they would quickly move on to doing other things with their life. But as long as one single well-placed comment can result in so many people getting annoyed from so many different perspectives, it’s easy to see the appeal that these trolls see…

      • stown@sedd.it
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        1 year ago

        If you post to a community that isn’t local, the content of the post is stored on your local server and the remote server just makes a copy. The posters home server is where the illegal content is hosted.

        • silentdon@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yes, so illegal content will end up being stored on both servers. The thing is that the piracy communities don’t allow illegal content to be stored or linked to for the same liability reasons.

          • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Which has me wondering why these moves make sense at all. So many people are jumping to the defense of a knee-jerk reaction to a 10h old troll account. Why was that the admins’ solution to a random post from a new account? Plus, pirate communities shared vast amounts of information and a lot of it is not directly related to piracy itself.

          • obosob@feddit.uk
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            1 year ago

            Any specific infringement material (by which I mean media) would only be on the user’s home server. Links to content aren’t what is actionable for a DMCA notice as far as I’m aware. And the DMCA does not require platforms to actively monitor or remove potentially infringing content, only to follow the takedown procedure when sent an appropriate notification. If they follow that then they are protected from liability. That’s US law but IIRC the implementations in most of the rest of the world are similar if not the same. And here’s the rub: even without those communities, LW will still need to have a DMCA agent and take action against content when notified because people can and will upload infringing media here on other communities.

            They’re not exposing themselves to additional risk by having the piracy communities unblocked. People can and will discuss piracy, in abstract terms at the very least, all over the place. And discussion of copyright infringement is not copyright infringement anyway. Any liability and risk they do hold they will still have to worry about now regardless.

          • Can you even upload things other than images to a Lemmy instance? I don’t see the point in worrying about illegal files being shared on the system if the system doesn’t support that kind of file sharing in the first place.

        • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          First of all so far as I know lemmy doesn’t actually host anything. A post which links to the actual host probably isn’t illegal most places.

      • mcherm@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The ad hominem criticism is irrelevant. The communities should be removed or not removed based on the server’s policies regardless of who first raised the question.

    • lwadmin@lemmy.worldOPM
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      Doesn’t matter if they are hosted here or not. The way federation works is that threads on different instances are cached locally.

      We have NO issues with the people at db0 - we are just looking out for ourselves in a ‘better safe than sorry’ fashion while we find out more. As mentioned in the OP we would like to unblock as soon as we know we can not get in any legal trouble.

      • comfortablyglum@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        “we are just looking out for ourselves in a ‘better safe than sorry’ fashion while we find out more.”

        This is an unfortunate aspect of individuals/small groups housing the fediverse vs big companies. Big companies have lawyers and the capital to back them, individuals do not.

        If I was in your shoes, I’d do the same thing. I appreciate your wish for thus to be temporary. I hope you will share your findings once you come to a final decision; information like this is relevant to all those managing servers.

      • nfh@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        What needs to happen for you to be confident you won’t get in legal trouble, and thus unblock them? Change on the db0 side? Lemmy.world admins getting legal representation/advice? Something else? I’m curious how you all see this playing it out in the future.

        • Dojan@lemmy.world
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          Highly doubt there’s anything db0 can do. lemmy.world is in Europe, piracy has hefty legal ramifications.

          Like you could argue that it isn’t piracy all you want, but if faced with the possibility of your hobby landing you decades in prison and millions in debt, would you do it?

          Just create an account at db0, this really isn’t the big deal people make it out to be.

          • pankuleczkapl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            Not all of Europe. In most parts (especially Eastern Europe) the most you will get is a slap on the wrist if you are really really unlucky. And decades in prison aren’t a thing anywhere for simply sharing links to pirated content.

            • Dojan@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              No one thinks of Eastern Europe as European beyond geography, excepting perhaps Eastern Europeans themselves.

              Prison notwithstanding, financial ruin is a definite possibility.

              People are making a mountain out of a molehill over this. The instance owner doesn’t want to risk any legal issues over hosting this instance, and I get that. Just create an account on db0 and use that. It’s not a big deal.

              Instance admin isn’t some big corporation trying to silence your free speech. He’s just a dude that doesn’t want his hobby to bite him in the arse.

              • nitefox@lemmy.world
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                I don’t think I ever heard of a case where somebody has been condemned for piracy in Italy; I also know plenty of people who torrents/stream, yet none who uses a VPN to do so.

                In Germany though, afaik, they are quite insane with their anti-piracy laws.

          • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            It would be preferable if you would lie less. Evil pirate uploads potentially_infringing.mp3 to to filehost. Filehost actually serves potentially_infringing.mp3, a community on db0 hosts a link to potentially_infringing.mp3, lemmy.world caches locally a copy of data from db0. Of those the one guy directly uploading the information is at risk of an extremely unlikely single digit thousands of dollars.

            Nobody not even evil pirate himself is at risk of decades in prison or millions in debt. Companies responsibility basically ends at taking stuff down when specifically notified of infringing content.

      • CaptainEffort@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Discussing piracy isn’t illegal. It would be one thing if they were hosting pirated content, but they don’t even link to anything.

        If that were to change I’d understand the decision, but this just seems silly to me.

      • pankuleczkapl@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Well, caching content is not the same as copying it. The major difference in the court would be that caching is automatic - and as such you are not in complete responsibility of what it is you copied. If you do everything in your power to comply with any DMCA notices, then I couldn’t realistically see lemmy.world being targeted. This is an analogous situation to eg. accidentally opening a website containing illegal content. Sure, your computer did download the contents to the RAM, but what matters is that you acted in good faith and did not attempt to get the contents, it just happened in the process of browsing the web and as such you could not reasonably expect to receive such content.

        • nan
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          deleted by creator

        • Shadesto@lemmy.world
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          Complacency isn’t a legitimate defense against criminal activity and corporations are extremely litigious over piracy. Would you rather lemmy.world spend all their money on fighting lawsuits, or building a better instance?

          Any community that is creating questionable content should create their own instance and not seek open federation with the entire fediverse. That kind of behavior is reckless and counterproductive to what we’re trying to do here.

          • pankuleczkapl@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I am not suggesting lemmy.world should be “complacent” in this activity and keep the content after receiving any type of notice. If you host any website with content coming from users, you are not responsible for what they post, as long as you try to comply with the law and remove any offending content. In this case, complacency would be specifically allowing such content, and not merely not moderating harshly everything in they grey area.

        • Shazbot@lemmy.world
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          Something that’s getting lost in this conversation is the nature of the infringement and what that means to the copyright holder. Memes could be considered a form of infringement, however in practice they often serve as free publicity. The intent is not to deprive the copyright holder of revenue, but use the medium to express themselves. Exposure increases, and so does the likelihood of revenue from the conversion of new fans.

          This changes with public conversations of piracy, because the nature of those conversations drift into how to deprive and evade the copyright holder by providing users just enough information to find pirated content. From a legal standpoint this can be used to prove aiding and abetting, a crime that be considered equal or an accessory to depending on the jurisdiction.

          The admins are aware of how Lemmy’s content caching works, and now publicly acknowledge the existence of their federation with dbzer0; whose piracy communities are its strongest asset. Any defense of ignorance is out the door. Without banning the communities LW becomes an accessory if dbzer0 becomes liable, as would any other instance who caches dbzer0’s c/piracy.

          To those who still disagree, that’s fine. Open your password manager, make some new accounts on other instances, enjoy the lemmyverse. But you have to agree that it is unreasonable to demand you hold the evidence of my crimes because it would inconvenience me otherwise.

            • Dialectic Cake@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Better to create your own instance then.

              It’s about reducing risk not eradicating it and there’s a huge difference in risk in being targeted for legal action due to hosting c/piracy (via caching/mirroring) than from a single piracy post in c/hellokitty.

            • Shazbot@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I am aware. My point is more to do with how the copyright holder perceives the actions of the individual(s). If the copyright holder feels the work brings more attention to their IP in a way can be converted into sales then they are less inclined to take legal action; even if some in the community may be openly pirating. Some however miss these opportunities thinking its just another instance of unlicensed usage.

        • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
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          Well, caching content is not the same as copying it.

          A cache is literally a local copy.

          Fighting legal challenges requires lawyers, even if you are in the right. Lawyers are crazy expensive.

          • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Unless I’m missing something, you don’t need a lawyer to take down a post that you’ve received a DMCA removal request on.

            • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              You do if you get sued because you missed something. It’s not like lemmy world can moderate every post from every server. Any single user can get any federated community’s content pulled locally just by subscribing.

              • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                The law in the US is that you aren’t responsible for what your users post unless you are specifically legally notified and furthermore the communities at issue don’t host links to infringing content they host discussions on the topic

      • 💡dim@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        as far as i have seen (as a subscriber to c/piracy) there is no links to pirated content and they are very clear that that is not allowed

        the vast majority of the discussion is on morals of piracy, anti piracy measures, etc etc

      • Maalus@lemmy.world
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        Soo ultimately you personally will be the only person determining what people can and can’t see, based on your perception alone. You don’t like something, you’ll ban it. You worry about something, you’ll ban it. And there won’t be a trace without you saying “we banned something”. Which means there are no checks at all to you powertripping in the future. How is this supposed to be free, open and general then? This is even worse than reddit was.

        • MothBookkeeper@lemmy.world
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          You fucking donkey, did you read their comment before you replied to it? They aren’t doing it just because they want to; there are legal implications.

          • Maalus@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There really aren’t. Talking about piracy is allowed in Europe. Sharing stuff isn’t. This is a kneejerk reaction. Also, please don’t talk to people that way.

              • GodzillaFanboy129@lemmy.world
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                Well by your logic maybe you should go kiss Reddit’s ass then if you feel that way, they’re hosting a free service and people criticize their decisions and reactivity.

                The fact that we fund this place with donations gives us all the more right to criticize them for it. Are you also going to attack people for ceasing their donations because after this I’ll never donate another cent to them ever again, and I encourage anyone else reading this to do the same.

          • Maalus@lemmy.world
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            There won’t be any legal fees since the communities being talked about are allowed in the EU. Other people have made the same point already, but if you are scared of litigation, then you can’t host a forum at all. There is always a place where your forum breaks rules. I.e. no disparaging Putin in Russia. Making fun of the twitter CEO is more likely to get you a lawsuit than any of the communities mentioned, yet it is allowed. Also, it never is a straight up instantenous lawsuit. It always starts with communication saying “don’t do that anymore please”. Once you reject, then a lawsuit is viable and not frivolous. So you can wait till that happens and then block those communities, once a company actually complains. Not when you think that maybe somewhere in the future something might happen or maybe not.

            Truth is, lemmy is small fries. It will be that for a long time with the issues it has. Nobody cares about a tiny community hidden way deep inside.

            • mysoulishome@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              It’s so nice to see so many lawyers in this thread offering their legal counsel…it makes me feel very safe when I start hosting piracychat.doodad next week. I’m assuming they will all be willing to defend me if I do get sued since they are so sure I won’t. 😃

        • mysoulishome@lemmy.world
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          Beehaw doesn’t have downvotes. DOESNT. HAVE. DOWNVOTES!!! HOW CAN THEY GET AWAY WITH TAKING AWAY DOWNVOTES FROM ME… WHAT RIGHT DO THEY HAVE???

          It doesn’t affect me at all because I don’t have an account there. But I’m real mad, see…

      • tcj@lemmy.world
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        I feel like there should be a major distinction between caching remote content and hosting that content yourself. Does Cloudflare get in trouble every time the FBI seizes a site that used Cloudflare routing, CDN, or caching? Not as far as I’m aware.

      • Venia Silente@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        We have NO issues with the people at db0 - we are just looking out for ourselves in a ‘better safe than sorry’ fashion while we find out more. As mentioned in the OP we would like to unblock as soon as we know we can not get in any legal trouble.

        Words are empty, offers are void in Nebraska. You already took steps against people who simply mostly discuss piracy. What concrete steps can you take now to show that you’d actually unblock “as soon as we know”?

      • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Your argument is that user hosts infringing_song.mp3 on file_host, a community on lemmy.ml has a link to filehost and lemmy.world has a cached copy of the text containing the link to lemmy.ml which has a link to filehost and you think lemmy.world has legal exposure?

    • majere@lemmy.world
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      The great thing is, now you’re 100% empowered to move forward and host the responsibility yourself. Demanding volunteers shoulder potential liability (when you yourself admit you can’t understand how there’s any in the first place) is juvenile.

      The moment a volunteer is hit with a DMCA notice or any threat of legal action, you think they have any interest in going through the court system? You can do it first.

      • pankuleczkapl@lemmy.world
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        I think you don’t understand what a DMCA notice actually is. The whole point of it is to give you a chance to remove offending content. The “threat” of legal action won’t actually result in anything, provided you comply, and that is exactly why I do not understand the preemptive actions, when there is basically no such thing as immediate legal threat in case of DMCA notices. The copyright holders often do not want to go through the court system either and will gladly accept pre-legal-action compliance.

      • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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        I agree with the point, but US-wise, especially if you aren’t even the site actually as the source of truth for the community, you almost definitely don’t go to court unless you counterclaim. If you get a claim and nuke the offending communities in response (assuming you don’t have tools to block specific posts in the communities, but that would also work), you have protections built in.

    • kiwifoxtrot@lemmy.world
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      The content is hosted on lemmy.world - that’s how the fediverse works. Each instance pushes updates to other instances and they host it locally for their users. The issue is that the admins here can’t moderate a community not on their instance. So if an instance is located somewhere it is legal, it might not be legal at the location of another instance.

    • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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      Lemmy.world maintains a local copy of every external community. This is how federation works. Any piracy related posts on those subs will be copied in their entirety to lemmy.world servers, so lemmy.world could potentially be sued for hosting that content. Being the largest instance makes it a target.

      It is rare to get advanced notice of legal problems. Usually the first you hear about it is a cease and desist, or a lawsuit. Lawsuits are costly to defend even if you’re doing nothing wrong.

      I don’t like this decision. But it is a sensible one to protect the instance. If you care about piracy discussions you can visit those communities directly or on a different instance that made a different decision.

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      I enjoyed helping this place grow and doing my part to discuss here but I disagree with this decision and I’m going to evaluate looking for a different home instance.

    • samus12345@lemmy.world
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      I can’t understand how lemmy.world specifically would be the target of such legal action.

      Because they’re the largest instance and therefore the biggest target.

    • AllukaTheCutie7725@lemmy.world
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      Let’s also not ignore the fact that these communities literally prohibit Links or content from being posted to them. So even if people make the Federation argument about cross-hosting it’s all moot in the end because the community doesn’t allow it in the first place.

      Here is a link to the rules of the Piracy community you will notice if you have any form of reading comprehension (or if you actually read it and aren’t just trolling, like many people here) that rule 3 specifically prohibits linking to or hosting files, which many people making the federated hosting argument seem to leave out of the equation, likely because it destroys their argument altogether since their argument is about illegal content being hosted, but no illegal content is hosted in the first place (and any that is usually is removed by the mods for breaking the rules, just like it is here on Lemmy.world).

    • focusforte@lemmy.world
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      I think the problem is that because of the way that the fediverse, they ARE hosting the content. They effectively copy the content from that community onto their server to distribute it to all the users of their lemmy instance. So from a legal perspective they are hosting the content and they would be held liable for a distributing it.

  • gabe [he/him]@literature.cafe
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    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

  • joe@lemmy.world
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    Uh, @lwadmin@lemmy.world … what’s up with the banning going on in this thread? I noticed on a.lemmy.org that someone was labeled “banned” and their comment was simply “Ight, I’m out”

    The mod note was “Let us help you”.

    There are more similarly weak (spiteful?) bans that certainly don’t seem to be at a standard for a ban. “Litterally 1984” was another one. Is that all it takes to be banned here?

    Edit: Many (all?) the users I referenced as banned are now unbanned from the site, but now banned from this community.

  • DharkStare@lemmy.world
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    Reading all these comments it’s clear that a lot of people have unrealistic ideas regarding what Lemmy and the Fediverse are supposed to be (or maybe it’s me with weird ideas).

    The Fediverse is just a bunch of apps that can all communicate with each other through a shared protocol. There is no requirement for them to be free speech platforms or host everything. The whole purpose of defederation supports the idea that instances are free to associate or disassociate with whichever instances they want. Furthermore, nearly every guide I read on joining Lemmy state that you should choose instances to join based on shared ideals/beliefs.

    For everyone saying “I’m leaving lemmy.world” I say “Good. That’s what you’re supposed to do.” When the instance you join no longer aligns with what you want, you go to another instance and then you’ll be back to viewing all the communities you want to see. That is what the Fediverse is all about and how it’s designed.

  • zikk_transport2@lemmy.world
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    What part is illegal? Are they sharing files on that instance and your instance re-hosts it?

    From my understanding, discussions are legal, guides are legal, tips are legal, but actual files (aka “copyrighted content”) is illegal. There are no files shared there, links at maximum, but institutions should be after those content-sharing websites, not forums.

    I am against this decision and I am happy that I am not part of admins team.

  • crag@lemmy.world
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    Oh no. Wtf. Do you know what’s funny? I actually joined this instance from piracy subreddit.

    I guess it’s time to leave.

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    I don’t understand why people are upset even a little about this. This is a prefect advert for the fediverse. If you are not completely happy with an instance(which can never realistically happen) then you just host your own or have multiple accounts. Apps have this built in and easily accessible. Why do people want to concentrate everything they want into one instance? What if that instance goes down? This should not be hated or applauded… just ignored as the way the fediverse should work. Don’t get too attached to any single instance.

  • Hal-5700X@lemmy.world
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    Oh no! Users are complaining and downvoting. They just need to get inline and do what they’re told. Okay for real, you people are worst type of people. Lemmy users are just showing their disapproval of the action. They have the right to do.

    Do those communities house copyright content? The answer is no. Having discussions, giving guides & tips are are legal. So I don’t see the problem. If someone going to get sued for it. It will be dbzer0.com and lemmy.ml due to said communities being part of the instances not LW.

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      Especially because discussing copies of your own data also happens in such communities. There must be clear guidelines what can and cannot be discussed. Also, it would have been nice to have those communities selfregulate. For example, giving them 30 days to comply, e.g. removing any content that breaks the law.

      Because the fediverse i about democracy. If laws stand in the way of democracy since they have been brought up by governments influenced by global corporations (which are by definition autocratic) then they must be ignored.

      So, striking a balance to not get anyone in trouble while not working for IP holders is the way.

      • TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Because the fediverse i about democracy.

        Isn’t it, like, the opposite? With the main assumption being that you should find an instance that aligns with your interests and values, not find an instance and try to vote for it to become something you like? That is technically “voting with your feet” but instances don’t actually need a large population to stay running.

        • M0oP0o@lemmy.world
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          But we have no tools to migrate users or communities. We can not vote with our feet so much as start over and over and over.

          • GodzillaFanboy129@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I highly recommend people go to the issue relating to account migration on the lemmy software github and explain why account Migration is as important as it is and should not be considered as a second thought. Not being able to migrate ties you to an instance if you’ve been there long or participated a lot, it makes you dependent on them, this is not a good dynamic to have in the Fediverse, it’s why other platforms like Mastodon have profile migration.

        • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          Interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing.

          You’re not wrong. It’s not the same as voting for a desired outcome and if owners/admins push for something, they can usually get it until people leave.

          But the system is open source so they can’t just shape their server how they like. They can’t keep others from getting news from outside and they also can’t push their own agenda imo.

          So I‘d say you‘re right, it’s not „democracy“ but its either something else entirely or it is „about democracy“. Maybe power equality through federation?

          • TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            What it’s about, in my opinion, is trust. To tie it back to Reddit yet again - on Reddit, if the admins of the site did something, their word was final and there wasn’t much you could do about it. On Lemmy, if the admins of an instance do something, even here on the biggest one, their reach is limited to their own space; they cannot affect what happens beyond. This means that instead of having to do a big ol exodus to try and prop up a new network, people can just pick another instance and continue where they left off, outside the reach of the admins that did the thing they dislike.

            Therefore, the instance admins and the users (and also the mods) need to actually have trust in each other to stick around, as there are viable alternative spaces they can go to if that trust is broken. Additionally, the entire concept of federation is also built on trust - “we will allow an exchange of content between our instances because we trust you”.

            I don’t agree with this decision, but I understand it, and I still trust LW admins because they’ve had a good track record so far. For those reasons I’ll stay here. I don’t fault anyone leaving, though, if their personal threshold of trust has been broken. The only thing I’m really wary of is the free-speech absolutists that insist no one should be defederated from; the tool exists for a reason. There’s not many of them, though.

            • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
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              1 year ago

              I agree on practically everything you wrote there. Thanks.

              I‘d like to add that I was a little upset first by their childish action but then came to the conclusion that they in fact have very little power compared to the whole platform. So yes, it‘s still not ok (and I would be furious if my content just gets deleted) but it is not that big of a deal.

        • samus12345@lemmy.world
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          It’s only about democracy if you make your own instance. Otherwise, you have to follow the rules of wherever you’re signed up.

          • TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world
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            If you make your own instance, as a one-man thing, then it’s not really democracy at all either. The only way it would be democracy is if you made your own instance and specifically said “all decisions will be made via vote” and you actually had users around to participate in those votes.

      • Mubelotix@jlai.lu
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        1 year ago

        Yes. The thing is there is zero content breaking the law, so they would have looked ridiculous

        • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
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          From the other comments here I think these people are not very smart. Probably should make new sailor sub somewhere else soon. Obviously with relatively strict rules. For example: only trackers, no direct links etc. (I‘m not a pro at this. What I know is from reading)

    • lwadmin@lemmy.worldOPM
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      Sure. But we’re a group of volunteers and we would not like to find out the hard way what is possible and what not. We would think meta discussions about piracy should be allowed as long as there is no linking to actual illegal content.
      But is pointing to locations with illegal content legal or not? And having members/admins worldwide it makes it even harder to be sure.

      We don’t want to find out the hard way and this is a better safe than sorry measure. Again we personally have nothing against the people on these communities or against the communities itself.

    • Holyginz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Reddit has the money for legal defense when companies try to go after redditors. The mods and administration for world are volunteers and don’t have th resources to defend themselves. It’s unfortunate but this move makes sense as part of the bigger picture.

  • derf82@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The people whining are not the people that could face multimillion-dollar lawsuits over the issue. Like it or not, media companies are powerful and will go after websites seen as promoting piracy. Do what you reasonably have to do.

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    The fact that there was no announcement before the banning of the communities is not great, but good on you for acknowledging that mistake.

    It’s unfortunate that this action had to be done, but it’s also understandable. It’s not about what’s right or wrong, and it’s not even about whether there actually is any illegal content in these communities. It’s about the fact that the Big Entertainment Companies don’t care about the difference and see it ALL as bad, irregardless of whether it actually is illegal or not. If the admin team had a legal team and the financial security to fight back, then it wouldn’t be as much of an issue. But they’re not, they’re just a bunch of regular folks, so they’re being cautious and trying to pre-emptively prevent these problems from coming up, especially as Lemmy continues to grow every day.

    The beauty of the Fediverse is that you can always switch instances or make an alt account.

  • WolfyGamer29@lemmy.world
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    Y’all realize that saying things like “You’ve just lost a user!” or “Deleting my account!” or “This is now the worst instance on Lemmy!”… you sound like a Karen telling the kid at the register in CVS that she’s leaving a bad Yelp review… right? Y’all seeing this? Am I going crazy here?