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.
Is it possible to calculate which people who steal content would have purchased it if stealing it was not an option? No, of course not. Would you suggest that the number is zero? That no one who steals it would have purchased it? Especially considering the fact that prices in general would be lower for everyone if stealing it was impossible? I think it's pretty safe to say that people stealing content robs creators of some profits. Which, by the way, is why it's illegal.
And are you suggesting that the only form of entertainment poorer people have as options are movies and games that they have to steal? Because that's crazy. My family was not well off when I was little and there were loads of things that we couldn't afford that my friends could. It's like you're insinuating that I'm arguing that poor people shouldn't be able to eat if I say that it's not okay for people to steal filet mignon. There are movies on TV and YouTube. There are free and affordable games. Most older content is pretty cheap. We're not taking away someone's inalienable rights by saying that to see the latest Marvel blockbuster, they have to pay for it.
It's remarkable to me that people justify this stuff by saying it's right and good. I'm not an angel, but when I do something I shouldn't, I don't try to convince people that I'm entitled to it. I don't make up words to make my actions sound okay.
I think this discussion is leading nowhere, but I again want to emphasize the fact that you cannot point to a person and say that their actions specifically led to any harm and thus you cannot (imo of course) morally hold them responsible. As for the second part that was not my point, you are of course right about what you said and I agree with the whole paragraph, I just wanted to show an extreme example of how there is no harm, because there is no way such a person would pay for the content anyways - so yeah, you can just let them not enjoy filet mignon, but why would you when they could eat it with no harm to anyone? And as for the last part I am not stating that piracy is always a clearly good thing, I am just stating that it is ethically neutral in most cases and rarely necessary to save content from being forgotten or for other research purposes, when eg. the scientific articles are locked behind absurd paywalls.