Removal of piracy communities
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.
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So, in order to subscribe to those communities I should create another account in a different instance that either has them or is federated with them, right….? Any workaround for that? This sounds like it’s going to be a real chore to follow and will push a lot of people out of lemmy in general Edit: As it seems some people don't understand, this is not a threat, just a fact. It doesn't matter the justification, doesn't matter that lemmy.world is run by volunteers, it doesn't matter that it's piracy (or weed, or shrooms...) that's blocked. It will be a chore for everybody to have to manage multiple accounts in different instances and that will push people away from lemmy in general. Reddit wasn't important because of it's technology, it was the massive userbase and the content that provided. Pushing people back into reddit will harm lemmy and the fediverse. And all for those comunities which didn't do more than just saying "this game has this DRM" or "there exists a cracked version somewhere for this game".
So that many people pirate? I think LW will be okay, don't kid yourself
Also... Exactly how much of a contribution are we losing from people who care deeply enough about piracy to want to leave Lemmy as a whole rather than make a tiny amount of effort.
Like... If they aren't people who want to pay for things or put any personal energy into them... How will we notice they have gone?
With https://github.com/CMahaff/lasim, it's 3 clicks
lemmy.world doesn't owe you anything, they don't benefit from additional users, and they're definitely not obligated to put themselves in legal jeopardy to keep you around.
Edit: I welcome your silent and cowardly downvotes. They shine as my honor 🙂
If this isn't a Redditor moment I don't know what is
Haha yeah, maybe so. All I'm trying to say is, if there's a community of people so childish that they're going to oppose this announcement with this much vigor, then I'd rather they be opposing me, too.
Says the child.
The poster didn't mention anything about LW owing us anything or if they're obligated to users in any way.
I appreciate LW, and i understand their stance on piracy. But I'm also interested in how we regular users can easily find servers that are more flexible with their policies.
This whole conversation is getting me legitimately frustrated. The unmitigated gall to say that creating an account somewhere else is "a real chore" when speaking to a group of people who are running this place for free and making it available to him, for free, is staggering. Maybe it's just a lack of understanding or caring how much work it takes. I've done stuff like this before, it's not simple. Probably if Antik were doing what he does for lemmy.world at a job, he'd be making six figures at that job. It's fine and nothing wrong with them choosing to contribute that, but going to their server and then shitting all over them for not doing it the way you want them to, in a scenario like this where all they're trying to do is protect themselves legally, is an incredibly entitled, childish, rude, selfish, and ultimately destructive thing to do.
It's very different from reddit running their business, screwing the users because it's not about the users, and people getting upset with them. There are no investors here, there is no IPO or marketing budget. It's just some people deciding to host a service they think is important, and you're coming on here whining about how they need to do what you say, even if it puts them in legal danger, and if they don't you'll go somewhere else. Okay, sounds good. Go.
You are correct that Railcar8095 didn't explicitly say that lemmy.world owed him the hosting of this pirated content. He just made vague passive-aggressive statements which implied it, with threats to no longer bless the admins by consuming resources they were choosing to make freely available to him, if his requirements weren't met.
right….? Any workaround for that? This sounds like it’s going to be a real chore
Staggering.
You are correct that Railcar8095 didn’t explicitly say that lemmy.world owed him the hosting of this pirated content. He just made vague passive-aggressive statements which implied it, with threats to no longer bless the admins by consuming resources they were choosing to make freely available to him, if his requirements weren’t met.
I agree with you, but I guess we now have the proofs that the assumed "nicer community" on Lemmy is not that completely nice overall.
You made a lot of good points, I guess people just don't understand (or want to) what it takes to manage such a server.
I think that's a lot of it. The internet being made of free services for so long has created this sort of "I sit on my ass and the internet is supposed to all come to me and if I don't like something I'm going to demand to speak to the manager" mentality. That's fine for some things, but on a community-run server where people have no clue the level of work and the generosity being put in by the people they're talking to, it genuinely pisses me off.
I actually don't really care about Lemmy people being nice; I was a big fan as of two months ago because it was full of weirdos and tankies and creative people being genuine about their weird cantankerous ways. Now it seems like the people whose heads are just filled with wet newspaper are here in force, and it makes me sad.
Appreciate your response.
And i don't mean to be daft. But I don't know where to start to find somewhere if any that suits me better than LW.
And that is a problem with something as decentralised as Lemmy is, to be a reddit competitor The layman has too many options and won't seek a server that might suit them better. LW was a good starting point for me, I will probably look around for a server that isn't as risk averse, but not everyone would.
Why are you being so hostile?
I'm not being hostile, I'm being direct. Read it again. If I said what I really felt about talking that way to the people who are bending over backwards to keep this service operating for him, for free, then it would be hostile, but I didn't do that.
Lemmy is not a free service, it is a donation-based service, which is a business model which does benefit from having as many users as possible. The more users you have, the more donors you will have among their ranks. Your conception of social media makes sense for reddit and twitter and similar zero-interest-rate-phenomena websites that get by on idiot VC money, but this business model absolutely depends on satisfying the largest possible percentage of users such that the largest possible fraction will convert to donating.
Are you seriously telling me that the people all aggrieved and upset that lemmy.world won't serve them pirated content, are donating?
I'm subscribed to the Patreon, and threads like this make me think about leaving this instance. I think it's likely that the intersection of the donators and the people who get driven away by this stuff, is much larger than the intersection of the donators and the whiners-about-losing-piracy-subs.
These communities do not host pirated content, and they weren’t removed on the presumption that they do. They are communities that pirates used to discuss piracy. And yes, as you probably aren’t aware most websites that actually do host pirated content (or torrents to pirated content, let’s not split hairs) are 100% donation based. The communities which most enable piracy are the communities most supported solely through donations. Pirates do a lot of donating to keep their hobby going.
Personally I’d be thrilled to see people who go off half cocked, don’t understand what they’re complaining about, and don’t bother to do any research before making pronouncements about whole communities all leave Lemmy. I don’t need this place to be just like reddit.
Not that it matters to my central thesis, which that if you run a community-oriented server and you in good faith decide you don't want to host piracy-supporting content, you should have that right, but sure, I'm happy to address this:
These communities do not host pirated content
Here's a thread where someone is asking "Where can I download this copyrighted thing?" and a bunch of people send him links to where to download it. It took me all of 90 seconds of clicking around on the banned subs to find that.
No, they're not literally uploading movies to the pictrs installation or something so it gets served back from lemmy-ui, but yes they are specifically asking "where can I pirate this thing" and getting links back. People have been sued for way less than that, for just in a general sense "allegedly promoting pirating content."
And, personally I wouldn't want that on my instance, either.
they weren’t removed on the presumption that they do
The post says, "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."
And yes, as you probably aren’t aware most websites that actually do host pirated content (or torrents to pirated content, let’s not split hairs) are 100% donation based.
Source? I'm sure it happens some percent of the time, but my personal observation and limited experience has been roughly 100% obnoxious-ad-supported and roughly 0% "please donate if you use this service" supported.
Pirates do a lot of donating to keep their hobby going.
Personally I’d be thrilled to see people who go off half cocked, don’t understand what they’re complaining about, and don’t bother to do any research before making pronouncements about whole communities all leave Lemmy.
Are you passive-aggressively referring to me here? I.e. I failed to research how much money piracy communities give back to the community, and if I had had the real knowledge I wouldn't have spouted off? If so, can you send me a source?
Also, can you walk me through the logic behind being willing to pay for content, but not willing to pay the authors, but still being super responsible about making sure you pay your fair share to someone who isn't the authors to keep the hobby going?
Here’s a thread where someone is asking “Where can I download this copyrighted thing?” and a bunch of people send him links to where to download it. It took me all of 90 seconds of clicking around on the banned subs to find that.
That is not hosting pirated content.
People have been sued for way less than that, for just in a general sense “allegedly promoting pirating content.”
Lemmy.world will be sued, repeatedly. It is going to happen, most critically because of non-compliance with GDPR, but also because all social media sites get sued regularly.
they weren’t removed on the presumption that they do
The post says, “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.”
Which is exactly what I'm saying, that is not banning the communities on the presumption that they host pirated media.
Source? I’m sure it happens some percent of the time, but my personal observation and limited experience has been roughly 100% obnoxious-ad-supported and roughly 0% “please donate if you use this service” supported.
You're using terrible public trackers that are full of viruses and bait files the media lobbies use to get your ISP to send you threatening emails. I could provide sources, but under the rules you've just outlined that would be a violation of the "never talk about sites that provide access to piracy" rule.
Suffice to say that piracy fundamentally could not and does not survive on ads. It is 99% supported by donations and (at the very tippy top) subscriptions. None of the legitimate sites worth using for this purpose have ads (unless you're really into streaming pirated content instead of downloading it).
Also, can you walk me through the logic behind being willing to pay for content, but not willing to pay the authors, but still being super responsible about making sure you pay your fair share to someone who isn’t the authors to keep the hobby going?
Again, nearly all of piracy exists solely due to donations and subscriptions. People do this as a job, and they cannot run ads without exposing themselves far more than is smart. If you've ever pirated something and seen the name of a release group at the end of the download name like Razor1911, Empress, RiseHD, etc., these are people or groups who do this for a living and are paid for their time by fans (and sometimes very exclusive FTP communities). The knowledge it requires to do some of the things these pirate groups do is highly specialized, and it requires a very sophisticated understanding of programming to do something like crack Denuvo. No one with that skill set is doing it for free (or ad money).
But to walk you through the logic of it, media isn't readily accessible to all people, and certainly not equitably. Some media is banned outright in other countries, some is released after a long delay, some is only sold at exorbitantly high prices out of the reach of the majority of people. These are people willing to pay a reasonable price for the content, but not what's being asked of them. Further, in certain industries like video games, there is next to no incentive or motivation to preserve media to be accessible by future generations outside of what pirates do. If you want to experience any previously released Grand Theft Auto game as it existed when it was released for example, there is no legal way to do that. They've been stripped of their music over time as their licensing contracts expired.
Finally there are people who pay strictly because it's more convenient. Rather than paying for Netflix, Hulu, Max, Disney+, Paramount+, and Apple TV, you can pay one fee to one service and get access to all the content you want, which through methods I won't mention here can be automatically downloaded for you as soon as it's released and made available to any device you want with no action on your part. Pirates deliver a killer service, and some people just want the best service rather than the one that pays the most to studios.
Here’s a thread where someone is asking “Where can I download this copyrighted thing?” and a bunch of people send him links to where to download it. It took me all of 90 seconds of clicking around on the banned subs to find that.
That is not hosting pirated content.
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.
Lemmy.world will be sued, repeatedly. It is going to happen, most critically because of non-compliance with GDPR, but also because all social media sites get sued regularly.
I would prefer to minimize it, and make that outcome less likely. Wouldn't you? Or is that not important to you?
These communities do not host pirated content, and they weren’t removed on the presumption that they do. They are communities that pirates used to discuss piracy.
- 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.
It is 99% supported by donations and (at the very tippy top) subscriptions.
What is your source for this?
these are people or groups who do this for a living and are paid for their time ... The knowledge it requires to do some of the things these pirate groups do is highly specialized, and it requires a very sophisticated understanding of programming to do something like crack Denuvo. No one with that skill set is doing it for free (or ad money).
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 🙂.
media isn’t readily accessible to all people
exorbitantly high prices
experience any previously released Grand Theft Auto game as it existed when it was released for example, there is no legal way to do that
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?
Finally there are people who pay strictly because it’s more convenient. Rather than paying for Netflix, Hulu, Max, Disney+, Paramount+, and Apple TV, you can pay one fee to one service and get access to all the content you want, which through methods I won’t mention here can be automatically downloaded for you as soon as it’s released and made available to any device you want with no action on your part. Pirates deliver a killer service, and some people just want the best service rather than the one that pays the most to studios.
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.
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.
I'm fine with 4chan-like communities peacing out
There’s nothing 4chan-like about them, or me. I’ve never used 4chan. I just like to research things before condemning them, which I realize can be a rare trait.
If you don't understand connection between chans, torrent sites, and piracy aggregation idk what to tell you man.
I've pirated a ton in my time but I'm sane enough to realize
A) it's fuckin stealing, which is always wrong, but often largely victimless with digital media
B) allowing it on your aggregator sites invites problems of all kinds
C) if you are blindly pirating shit and trusting torrents you are part of a botnet and don't know it
Again, there was no pirated content in these communities. None, zilch, nada, zip, zero. If that's what you're going to hang you're entire argument on then you've got nothing at all to complain about, it does not exist there.
Your ABC is basically a non sequitur, nobody was turning lemmy.world (or dbzer0) into a torrent tracker.
All social media has some people who pirate and talk about piracy on them, all of them. That does not make 4chan some special gateway to piracy that facebook, reddit, twitter, etc. aren't also.