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Removal of piracy communities (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by lwadmin@lemmy.world to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world

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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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[-] majere@lemmy.world 88 points 10 months ago

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 65 points 10 months ago

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.

[-] benjihm@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago

The power of the panopticon lies not in being able to see and punish all deviant activity, but to encourage self-correction in all potential deviants who must always assume they are being watched.

[-] AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You seem to know your way around the law then, so please be the change you want to see in this world. Host a piracy instance and show everyone here that we were wrong and that the admins were just overreacting.

[-] pankuleczkapl@lemmy.world 25 points 10 months ago

I can openly admit I am breaking the law for example by using torrents for piracy - and I seed as much as I can, though it in theory makes me liable. So yes, I am the change I want to see - piracy should be free to discuss everywhere

[-] AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You can go further: host a piracy instance since you seem confident enough and prove us wrong. Why are you avoiding this part? I'm not the only one having suggested this to you.

[-] pankuleczkapl@lemmy.world 39 points 10 months ago

And here you are (after fighting with docker for an hour) http://pankuleczka.ydns.eu/

[-] HaywardT@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 3 months ago

Server address not found.

[-] pankuleczkapl@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

Sure, if someone uses it then it's no problem for me. There are much bigger communities already out there though, so I see no reason to do that. I'll set it up right now to show you

[-] Squander@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Be the change you want to see -should be the catchphrase specifically for lemmy trolls

[-] echo64@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago

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.

it really isn't, the whole point is to streamline the capability for copyright holders to remove content they think they have rights to, without a lengthy court cases. it's still a lot of overhead for any service to manage and also still opens you up to legal action.

[-] pankuleczkapl@lemmy.world 29 points 10 months ago

From DMCA.com:

The document stipulates the content that has been stolen and republished without permission with a request for removal. It must be created and submitted in a specific manner so as to comply with the law. Failure to do so means the "notice" to remove the content will not be followed by any party involved in the infringement.

In exchange for the immediate removal of the content the publisher receives safe harbor from litigation regarding the illegal publication of copyrighted content.

[-] echo64@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago

Yes those are the words defining the initial safe harbor agreement well done.

I'm talking about in practice and how the dmca has actually been used. Why do you think companies like youtube entirely sidestep the dmca? They do it because the dmca is a huge drain on resources and still opens you up to litigation if you make any mistakes (like not working on the weekends for your volunteered lemmy instance that suddenly got 10,000 dmca requests from Sony pictures)

[-] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

You're fighting a famous "intent warrior" you can't win. They exist only in their own head where they can't lose and don't have an idea how things really work...

[-] Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world -3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It doesn’t really have anything to do with DMCA (a US law). Lemmy world is hosted in Germany which is even harsher on copyright than the US with much stricter penalties.

The world doesn’t revolve around the US.

[-] pankuleczkapl@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

It does have a lot with DMCA. Maybe not specifically the DMCA, but all the relevant regulations all around the world that are equivalent to DMCA because of copyright treaties. And yes, while you are right about Germany being more dangerous in terms of piracy (mainly because of copyright trolls), the relevant authority handling the case could very well be the USA court system.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 26 points 10 months ago

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.