this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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Lemmy.World Announcements

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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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[–] Ivyy_LemmyW@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (7 children)

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...

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[–] deadinside91@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] esty@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 year ago

is this the new most downvoted post on lemmy?

[–] eleitl@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago (15 children)

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.

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[–] alldreadme@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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

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[–] mneasi@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Ahhhh right, we are now one step closer to become the new reddit…

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[–] pedroapero@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

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

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[–] Lummy@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Goodbye y’all I’m out

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[–] SnowMeowXP@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] saga@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

Iβ€˜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.

[–] TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

There is a local piracy-focused community at !piracy@lemmy.world. It's pretty dead, of course, only 4 posts ever, but still. How does this square with those others being blocked?

You have won my goodwill with your track record of decisions so far. I don't agree with this one, but it is not a dealbreaker for me. Thank you for getting around to announcing this in a public space, but as you say, please make sure to do this first next time something of this caliber is put through.

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[–] DavyJones@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not even Reddit banned their r/piracy

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[–] iquanyin@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

are platforms liable for user behavior?

[–] krayj@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It depends on the jurisdiction. In the United States, we have the DMCA which has been weaponized by content creators and publishers, but we also have a "safe harbors" provision to the DMCA that is supposed to protect online service providers from being liable for copyright infringement based on the actions of their users - as long as they meet certain provisions and restrictions and perform certain duties and dilligence. And yet even with that in place, it does not stop content providers from suing service providers and forcing those service providers to incur the pain and expense of mounting a legal defense.

I am pretty sure that Lemmy.world admin team are European and that the instance is hosted somewhere in Europe, so they would have their own jurisdictional laws to follow.

TL/DR: even if a service provider is technically protected from the actions of their users it is still subject to provisions and conditions, and that still doesn't stop them from being sued and having to mount a defense. Some people just don't feel the hassle of all that justifies the whatever benefits they'd gain from fighting that fight.

Certainly you've heard of 'The Pirate Bay', who's 'users' famously used their platform to share copyrighted materials...the founders of The Pirate Bay were arrested, tried, and convicted, and were forced to serve jail time. Turns out the "but it was our user's doing it" defense wasn't as reliable as everyone here seems to be suggesting.

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[–] Donger@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

I can't believe you've done this.

[–] Setarkus@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (5 children)

And once again we have people thinking that the instance owners would have to discuss everything they want to do with them and get the approval of everyone. It's already great that they're making announcements instead of doing it silently until people notice on their own. Plus, it's not hard to make an account elsewhere if you don't like it here. I doubt you're restricted to this single instance.

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[–] Railcar8095@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (29 children)

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

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[–] xyzinferno@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I wish people would be more mature about their reaction to this, as well as other people's reactions, regardless of whether they agree or disagree with the choice.

I'm not opposed to piracy, though I understand the risks that come with a platform allowing potentially pirated content. While I respect the decision and see the reasoning behind it, I don't agree with it, and will likely change my home instance to one that allows me to continue communicating with those communities, as I was subscribed to one of them.

I'll still be participating in communities hosted here, and I hope that with this decision, the admins' concern about being potentially sued is substantially alleviated.

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[–] abstractastronaut@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Didn't even know an instance could block a specific community of another instance. I thought the only option was defederation. Is there any way to see/list the communities blocked by an instance?

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