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.

  • Squizzy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • lwadmin@lemmy.worldOPM
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • xXxBigJeffreyxXx@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        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.

      • snake@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          to an entity with greater legal capabilities?

          Someone who has the necessary legal capabilities is going to be a corporation. And that’s exactly why we left Reddit.

          • void_wanderer@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            No. In Germany we have something called gGmbH. It’s basically a non-profit Limited. But IANAL, no idea if and how this would be able to protect the admins.

      • ladicius@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        I support your decision. Want to see the new instances that will pop up now hosted by your critics 😄

    • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      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.

      Actually, Reddit was far worse with huge ass lists of links to games and sites.

      • AlmightySnoo 🐢🇮🇱🇺🇦@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I’ve never seen anyone post or comment a link to a pirated file. I’ve never even seen anyone link to a website.

        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.

        • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Are you trying to say I’m a shill? Lol wat.
          I chimed in with my experience. You chimed in with one example expecting it to be the end all of the discussion.

          If you really want to talk about who does what, look at yourself asking for links to alternate apps for online services so you don’t have to pay for them. Someone’s been asking for assistance in obtaining things alright.

    • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      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
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        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.

        • samus12345@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          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
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            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.

    • Holyginz@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      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.