Remote View

1y ago

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.

967 comments

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.
- 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?
  
  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.
  
  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.
  
  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.
- 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.
  
  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.
  
  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.
- 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.
  
  "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.
  
  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.
  
  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.
  
  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
  
  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.
  
  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"?
  
  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?
  
  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.
  
  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.
- 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.
  
  I don't think that's a fair assessment. It's a cache. Is Cloudflare liable for hosting lib genesis then? Because cliudflare caches much worse stuff than copyrighted pictures and books.
  There's a lot to talk about but afaik Section 230 that defines every website in US says that host is not responsible for user content and I honestly don't see how big copyright could prosecute lemmy.world here that's not even hosting data directly.
- 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.
  
  There is no suing for that, talking about piracy is perfectly legal. That's called freedom of speech for your information
- What signs of legal trouble are you referring to?
  
  Pre-legal action such as DMCA requests or cease and desist letters
- 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).
- 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.
  
  But the content in question isn't hosted on lemmy.world..?
- 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.
  
  This is incredibly reasonable and reflects the exactly appropriate amount of urgency and emotional reaction to this happening. 👏🏻
- 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.
  
  I think the problem is that because of the way that the fediverse, they ARE hosting the content.
  And the "content" is discussions about piracy, not piracy.
  Come on. Small instance indie devs don't have the bandwidth and storage to save all seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 4K.

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
- 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,
  
  Thank you. It is appreciated.
  
  Thank you for this
  
  Misunderstanding eh?
  
  Speaking of removed communities, can an admin respond to this please: https://lemmy.world/post/3165787
  
  Aged like milk.

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.
- The "ight I'm out" ban note was.... hm. Not a great look. Comes across as petty and vindictive.
  
  There are worse, imo.
  user @snake posted:
  Did you ever consider ceding ownership of the instance to an entity with greater legal capabilities?
  In the end, it will not make sense to try to keep this instance running if the owners are unable to provide adequate service to its users.
  and was banned for:
  reason: Go get your service somewhere else
  Definitely not a great look.
- I hope that this demonstrates to people that the oppressive reddit behaviour is not confined to special individuals (such running major social media sites), but is a systematic occurance in online forums. Simply switching from one toxically moderated space to another is not a solution. But this is where the strength of ActivityPub/fediverse lies: we are able to leave for another server while still using the same fundamental service and being able to interact with the same content as before. I would recommend startrek.website as a new or second home for those who wish to migrate.
  
  I'm probably being overly cynical, but I have a pretty unflattering option of volunteer moderators and the type of people that seek out such seemingly thankless positions-- and their motivations for doing so. I know this might seem-- bizarre-- considering where I am posting this, but I think it nonetheless.
  I like lemmy because there's a modlog to see these things. I do not believe that these users would be unbanned if it hadn't been noticed in the modlog. Any it appears they're unbanned from the sitewide ban, but still banned in the community. Not sure what sense that makes.
  If your instance gets big enough, you'll also have to deal with petty tyrants seeking out positions of petty power.
- Just wondering and looking at the mod log for one admin and maybe I am crazy but are they unbanning and rebaning users? (Keep in mind it goes new on top):
  admin Banned @snake from the community Lemmy.world Announcements reason: troll
  admin Unbanned @snake
  admin Banned @soviettaters from the community Lemmy.world Announcements reason: Troll
  admin Unbanned @soviettaters
  admin Unbanned @ilfi
  admin Removed Comment Spineless pieces of shit. by @sused reason: toxic
  admin Banned @sused reason: Bye
  admin Banned@ilfi reason: Inactive account comes back to troll. Bye
  
  They're unbanning them from a sitewide ban and then immediately banning them from the lemmyworld community.
- I think some of this instance's admins are not onboard with the rest. Too many cooks in the kitchen.
  
  Well the radio silence on it sure seems like they're circling the wagons to protect an admin that clearly isn't emotionally mature enough to be in such a position.
- The next Reddit/Lemmy is going to be ran by AI lol, us humans are too easily corrupted by power
- Yeahhhh, please leave reddit (they still run ads there for this instance) for lemmy.
  I guess they wanted people to feel at home?

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.

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.

And still people are crying about this.
You can literally change to another instance. That's the entire point of the Fediverse. If you don't like a decision the admin has taken, you can move elsewhere.
The entitlement of some people these days is ridiculous.

Surely there is a discussion to be had around what is and isn't allowed, there are plenty of subreddits discussing piracy without dolirect links that are playing within the rules.
- Yeah I'm subbed to few piracy comms just because I like to see how that side of things is going. I've never seen anyone post or comment a link to a pirated file. I've never even seen anyone link to a website. It's all been news and discussions and that's it.
  
  I’ve never seen anyone post or comment a link to a pirated file.
  You ignored the "assistance in obtaining it" part, because members of !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com have been doing that. Also:
  
  EDIT: oh boy, shill posts a lie, innocent pirate mob upvotes. I literally post a proof that what he said is completely false, innocent pirate mob downvotes.
- 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.
  
  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.
  
  Yes. The thing is there is zero content breaking the law, so they would have looked ridiculous
- 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.
- 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.
  
  should go ahead and ban image uploading to lemmy.world, as there is likely a ton of illegal, copyright-violating content that hasn't been stress-tested for fair use.
  
  Smart, might as well shut down this whole thread then as we’re discussing piracy here too, right?
  
  I support your decision. Want to see the new instances that will pop up now hosted by your critics 😄

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.

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.

Oh no. Wtf. Do you know what's funny? I actually joined this instance from piracy subreddit.
I guess it's time to leave.

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.

Thanks for only banning the communities and not the entire instance as a whole. That is a much healthier approach to deferation.

Lovely this happened because someone complained after being banned from the piracy instance for being a transphobic asshole.
- Not sure why people are downvoting you, since that's exactly what happened. It's Bungiefan_ak, a troll that admins are playing wackamole with, as the person keeps appearing on new instances and pulling the same shit.
  
  Is there any indication this happened because of that? The reason people are downvoting is because such a link seems tenuous without proof.

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.

Ight, I'm out
- From the modlog
  Banned @soviettaters@lemmy.world
  reason: Let us help you
  That is petty and thin-skinned af lmao
  EDIT 1: Account has been unbanned sitewide
  EDIT 2: Banned from !lemmyworld@lemmy.world instead, for "trolling" (ツ)_/¯
  At least there is a public modlog for accountability on Lemmy
  
  The modlog is a great feature. Thank you for sharing
  
  At least there is a public modlog for accountability on Lemmy
  This is one of the features I like in Lemmy so far. Accountability for actions.
- Here's my new account. I found a random tiny instance and am chillin. I'd rather you not ban my new account (since I did nothing wrong) but bygones will be bygones.
- Between Beehaw and LemmyWorld, I'm on my third account at this point. What starts as an alt quickly becomes the main under the right circumstances. 😂
  
  Gotta choose progressively smaller instances until you self-host.
  
  You can solve your "problem" by running your own instance and federate with whoever you want
  
  Join smaller instances, they don't do that there
- Understand that Lemmy.world is run by volunteers. It is not a company. They don't have the resources to fight legal battles. The Fediverse is big, feel free to migrate to another instance if you want to participate in that community.
  
  But why would lemmy.world be the target of those supposed legal battles? These instances aren't even hosted on lemmy.world.

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.

I think a this is a bigger issue then just .worlds stance on piracy. Lemmy.world has put it self forward as the "front page of lemmy" but has now also removed one of the largest community using lemmy. And did so with no input on a discord server (not on any instance). This front page status was already shakey with all the down time and clunk. This seems like maybe not the best side to show new users.

Time to host my own instance. I disagree with this move.

It's a tough decision.
There's a target on the collective back of Lemmy, its developers and this instance. Rooting out these issues early is part of it. One of my first recommendations to @ruud@lemmy.world was to start putting aside contribution dollars from donors for a legal fund to manage liabilities like this. This decision is just solid management and avoiding issues well ahead of time.
I wish the admins well. And for those who have had their communities 'snipped' from being connected to Lemmy.world, I hear you. It's hard when you have built a connection and a sense of self on a platform, and then it becomes severed. That's hard.

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?

Time to switch instances

QQ: Have there been other communities removed and was it communicated?
I have just realized that c/Shrooms has been banned too, but I cannot find a statement regarding this particular ban.
Are or will there be more bans? I am not asking to complain about it or make remarks about which the decision is correct to me or not, but rather point out the lack of communication or unfortunate communication.

I can understand this. This is a server hosted by an individual who doesn't want the potential legal headaches that may arise. Everyone is free to make another account on another instance, or create their own instance.

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

You're not allowed to discuss piracy. You wouldn't talk about stealing a car would you?
Delete this.
- You are allowed to discuss piracy. You aren’t allowed to facilitate piracy (I.e. providing links to pirated content). It is illegal in the country where this instance is hosted.
  
  That community never linked to pirated content, you goose

Seems overly cautious, or lemmy.world is trying to find excuses to cut off content they don't like. Legal trouble for allowing access to those communities, which aren't even based on lemmy.world, would be so much of an overstep, they'd probably be able to get free legal counsel from the EFF or a similar organization.
Anyways, this will be my last post on this server. Even though I don't use any of those communities, I don't want to have to constantly monitor what has been banned to see what I may miss out on.
Apparently, lemmy.world also removed c/shrooms, which I didn't even know about. And again, risk of legal trouble for that would be extremely low.

I do understand that you would remove them if they were also hosted here... But they are hosted on other instances so I don't understand the issue? Is linking to that specific instance via comment the same issue as if they were visible for everyone on this instance? Or even mentioning it now in the OP like it is?

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.

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

This is a bit concerning… why is Lemmy censoring things that not even Reddit is censoring? This seems like a bleak warning for the future of the platform. I understand censoring illegal content, but if nothing is hosted on Lemmy, then what’s the problem?

I can still access r piracy on Reddit, i thought lemmy.world had more freedom of speech than corporate sellouts. 💀

What is the legal theory being used here?
People chatting about piracy is now a crime in US? I thought the crime was uploading or downloading copyrighted content...
- The DMCA has a provision on circumventing technical protection measures. It is illegal to break DRM. And it is illegal to "offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology... primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure"
  Hosting discussions, or linking to anything that defeats any DRM scheme would have them offering that to the public. A lawsuit would likely cite the specific sections of the DMCA about circumvention.
  The other thing to remember, is that you have to pay to have a lawyer defend you in court. Even if you're innocent. Even if they are 100% wrong, you have to have enough money to defend yourself. And a community hosted non-profit instance doesn't want that expense.
  
  I wish the state put this much energy into defending my property too
  Either way, fuck media companies, they can keep trying.
  
  DMCA isn’t particularly relevant here though.
  
  Good summary.
  Shorter version: DMCA is a shitty law, beacuse it's not practical for individuals to exercise their rights under it.
  Until we can get rid of the DMCA, copyright and freedom of the press is threatened.
  Folks in this thread would be better served turning their anger on the DMCA and those that keep that unpopular bill in the law books.
  Edit: DMCA doesn't apply to this server, I don't think. So nevermind. That's nice, at least.
- Lemmy.world is based in the Netherlands, not the US. I don't know what the law is there.
  
  lemmy world is hosted in Finland. the owner, ruud, is in the Netherlands
  
  This is a good point, could anyone comment on the copyright law differences in Netherlands v. US? I think simplifying it for everyone might make it more palatable, otherwise people will continue speculating Lemmy World is overreacting.
- https://www.hrpo.pitt.edu/european-union-eu-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20GDPR%3F,of%20individuals%20in%20the%20EEA.
  
  Sorry, how is GDPR relevant here?

Honestly fuck off. I came to Lemmy because I'm sick of people telling me what I can view and how I can view it. Guess I'll go find another instance again.

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.

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

Any suggestions on instances to move over to?

How does Reddit get away with hosting these communities without the mentioned issues?

I'm no fan of piracy - just seems like a pretty name for petty theft to me - but this decision seems problematic. I went and read some of the threads about this decision on some of the other communities, including dbzer0, and I looked around the blocked communities on an alt account.
I'm not seeing evidence of actual copyrighted material posted, just discussions about how to steal content, which itself isn't illegal. And there's a pretty fair amount of content - the communities are active - so if there was a violation I feel like it should be handled as the exception it appears to be. Those communities themselves don't allow posting of copyrighted content, so it shouldn't be a problem to get a violation removed. If someone posted an image that contained child pornography to one of the NSFW communities, would we block the whole community, or just get that post removed (and alert the authorities)? The latter, I hope.
They also make a good case that the action was taken in response to a troll on a newly-created account who didn't provide any evidence of there being copyrighted material. That in itself seems like a problem, though maybe someone looked into it? I'm pretty supportive of the .World admins, I think you're doing a good job in a difficult situation, but I believe these communities should be unblocked unless there is an actual problem.

What are your thoughts on communities about drugs? Pretty big topic for me, although the drug subs mostly haven't moved here yet, is that because you ban them? If so, I'm wasting my time waiting for them here.

is this the new most downvoted post on lemmy?

I don't understand how lemmy world has removed them, aren't those all communities on different servers? How is this our problem?

Not with me. Pirating for personal use is perfectly legal in my country.
Do we have an account migration tool yet and can somebody recommend a nice instance?

This is why Lemmy won't grow, a lot of instances are forcing their users to create another account on other instances, this was my third account due to the blocking of some instances like this...

While I wish there was more transparency about this decision before action was taken, in this case it's kind of understandable due to the servers being hosted in Germany and them having really draconian piracy laws. Just hoping that this won't lead to a chain reaction of other communities being removed due to legal complaints.
In the meantime, happy to get my piracy content over at db0.

Time to get serious about running my own instance. I now have to wonder what kind of political opinion I might voice which could make the instance operators liable. This is not tolerable long-term.

I kinda do understand their stance, it sucks but its better than having to deal with legal shit.

Just to put my two cents: Thanks for the good work. Continue keeping up to make sure lemmy.world won’t be liable in any way for possible issues.
I did not know you can defederate from specific communities. I thought it can be done only to instances.

From what I can see it is informational only. There is no direct content linking, this does not sound illegal.

Goodbye y’all I’m out

👎

I‘m absolutely pro pirated software, as in many cases DRM violates many personal rights, so this decision will lead to the deletion of my account. I never support censorship. Gbye.

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