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.
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:
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.
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.”
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.
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?
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.
My ABC is directly a response to a person wondering why I wouldn’t want channers hanging around
Lay down with dogs and end up with flees. Piracy is always one web search away. It’s hilariously easy.
I think comparing a community you aren’t a member of (and clearly don’t understand) to dogs is the sort of mentality I was hoping Lemmy could be an escape from.
But to reiterate a comment from my last post that you are clearly still not understanding, no piracy occurs in these dbzer0 communities. These are communities where people just discuss the news of the day as it pertains to piracy.
Whatever you’re finding by googling piracy is absolutely the sort of stuff that’s going to end in you being part of a botnet, though. Good lord is that a crusty and dangerous way to go about it.