Hello World!

As we’ve all known and talked about quite a lot, we previously blocked several piracy-focused communities. These communities, as announced, were:

In our removal announcement, we stated that we will continue to look into this more in detail, and re-allow these communities if and when we deem it safe. It was a solid concern at the time, because we were already receiving takedown requests as well as constant attacks, and didn’t want to put our volunteer team at risk. We had zero measures in place, and the tools we had were insufficient to deal with anything at scale.

Well, after back and forth with some very cool people, and starting to have proper measures as well as tooling to protect ourselves, we decided it’s time to welcome these communities back again. Long live the IT nerds!

We know it’s been a rough ride with everything, and we’d like to thank every one of you who were understanding of us, and stayed with us all the way. Please know that as users, you are what makes this platform what it is, and damned we be if we ever forget it.

With love, and as always, stay safe in the high seas!

Lemmy.world Team

❤️

  • bean@lemmy.world
    12·
    1 year ago

    This is what I like to see. Not just heels digging in, but explanations as to why, the follow-ups, the investigation of options and follow through. Thanks for the transparency. Piracy has and won’t ever go away. I used to pirate due to lack of money and resources. When I had those I went legit. When legit sources started turning into:

    • monthly subscriptions for everything
    • when legit sources suddenly delete or remove content from their systems (to avoid paying taxes?)
    • when the rates go up for everything (internet access AND streaming services)
    • now ads in your paid services unless you pay more (Amazon)
    • Plex trying to go legit and police where and how people run their private streaming, fucking over license holders who built the financial footing they could stand on in the first place. Cool.

    You can’t rely on any shit from these services, except for one shit… enshittification.

    I don’t want to sound negative, but as a consumer, it’s been nothing but ads rammed down our throats from everywhere we go and look. They lie, they change rates, they shrinkflate, while their pockets get bigger. Long live piracy.

    • CosmicTurtle@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      From lemmy.world’s perspective, I get it. Our current legal framework makes it damn near impossible from a financial standpoint to take a stand against corporations with pocketbooks the size of some first world countries.

      But the rise in piracy is a direct consequence of these corporations’ actions against their very users.

      Piracy has and always will be a service problem. I don’t think lemmy should be used to share torrents for example. But honest discussion about the current state of affairs and alternatives should be allowed.

      The admins took a measured approach here and it’s one that is refreshing given the regime that many of us came from.

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      More price hikes! More Ads! More tracking!

      Plex can go can screw themselves. I’ve been self hosting for over a decade (and stupidly spent hundreds of dollars on a PlexPass instead of buying a lifetime one early on) and finally decided to move to the cloud. Two weeks later I get an email saying that they’re blocking my connection in about 3 weeks and to move to a more expensive hosting company if I want to avoid getting blocked. I’m not the one violating their ToS, but yet I’m getting screwed.

    • Bebo@literature.cafeEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      One of the reasons I explore the high seas is that some shows I want to watch are not legally available to watch in my region at all.

    • beefcat@lemmy.world
      0·
      1 year ago

      the problem i have, that nobody has been able to really explain to me, is how the economics of streaming should be made to work.

      content is insanely expensive to make. even with all of Netflix’s recent shitty changes, their operating margin is still only about 13%. that isn’t enough cash left over to fund production of every single show they don’t have. and it’s important that they actually be able to fund production, because unlike 10 years ago, most productions no longer rely on first runs on OTA or cable TV to make their money

      so it seems to me there are three paths here:

      1. the industry puts everything on a single service and dramatically increases the base price (remember cable? my parents paid twice as much for it in 2005 as i spend today on streaming services)

      2. the industry puts everything on a single service and dramatically scales back production (remember OTA TV?) to fit within the budget afforded by a reasonable subscription price

      3. studios branch off into competing streaming services

      i’m not trying to start a fight or defend shitty corporate behavior (no one will ever get me to pay for ads), i just want to know how people think this could work in a way that balances out

      • Brawler Yukon@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        i just want to know how people think this could work in a way that balances out

        They don’t. They just think content is generated in a vacuum and it’s their right to consume it in whatever way they see fit.

  • Ignotum@lemmy.world
    4·
    1 year ago

    Yet another informative post, and a decision that takes some guts and you’re willing to take on some extra work and risk in order to make the instance better

    I didn’t want to have to do this, but you’ve brought this upon yourself. You give me no choice but to… donate money to you which you so damn well deserve!

    Let this be a reminder that actions have consequences!

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    Piracy is a right of the people as far I’m concerned, a way to fight back against corruption

  • TehBamski@lemmy.world
    1·
    1 year ago

    “Please know that as users, you are what makes this platform what it is, and damned we be if we ever forget it.”

    A lesson u/spez forgot.

  • 3minutespast@lemmy.world
    1·
    1 year ago

    I think this is the mark of a decent admin team, the ability to re-evaluate a decision based on new or better data. I’m more inclined to stick with lemmy.world in the future, even through decisions I don’t necessarily agree with .

    • OrekiWoof@lemmy.ml
      0·
      1 year ago

      To show what happens if you don’t listen to the community before making changes, I’m guessing.

      • Acters@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        But they are not incentivized to grow numbers exponentially like shareholder funded companies. They make money from community involvement and value-added services. Instead, they removed these type of contents because they felt like those communities needed to reform their overall community personality. In the end, it is all a community effort to help one another. now that users have switched, there is less legal pressure, and the people who moved have helped make these other servers better. It was a win-win for us. I am grateful to all the people who made the move and participated in posting to their respective communities.

        Also, this helps lessen the host cost on them. Lastly, a federated community is not the same as these mega corps.

  • Smokeydope@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Now please unremove the shroom community as next priority. Empowering open minded people with the option and knowledge to heal themselves through the use of psychadelics (and other kinds of mushrooms that can potentially help fight diseases such as cancer) that they can grow themselves without big pharma and giving them a community to share their advice+experiences is the right thing to do.

      • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
        0·
        1 year ago

        There’s been a few poisonings lately, including half a dozen people in Australia about 2 months back that may have contributed… orrrr it might just be US law and broad optics.

        • Dr. Moose@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          I’m not sure the mushrooms used in thr Australian case were magic mushrooms. That’d be more about mycology rather than magic mushrooms we’re talking about. Either way banning doesn’t make much sense.

          • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
            0·
            1 year ago

            Oh - they definitely weren’t magic mushrooms, but people will definitely overlay the general danger of amateur mycology over the risk and (US) illegality over the magic mushrooms.

  • Gamey@feddit.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    I am fairly sure that good parts of that post are lies, I looked quite close at the situation when it happened and from all I could find those “takedown requests” was a single troll who got banned dbzer0 for their right extreme garbage. You also made claims about unmoderated illegal material in those communities which was simply wrong but I would have understood the move if you explained it like you do here right from the start and it’s great to see a mistake reversed! I am not going to pretend that this Federation while not actually illegal can’t cause annoyances and it’s great to see you reverse it despite that, keep it up! :)

  • Chonk@lemmy.world
    12·
    1 year ago

    I have love/hate relationship with piracy. I love doing it but hate when it’s done with my products.

  • Crass Spektakel@lemmy.worldEnglish
    01·
    1 year ago

    Show me someone who claims to have always been legit and I show you someone who has lied at least once.

    I don’t mind piracy much but don’t rely on it anymore.

    But I can perfectly understand if Lemmy wants to distance from Pirate/Warez Sites. Those Sites may cooperate between themselves but not within the Lemmy Backbone.