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.