• shagie@programming.dev
    5·
    1 year ago

    Are admins responsible for the content that shows up in all? And from a legal perspective, if they were investigated for hosting and distributing copyrighted material what would their liability be?

    User bans and community bans and warnings don’t work too well across instances for managing the content on all… unless you want to go about warning and banning users on your site to not subscribe to content on other instances that would lead to problems.

    (edit)

    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 assitance in obtaining it.

    The admins could play whack-a-mole with the /c’s hosted there that are pro piracy or otherwise not honoring copyright… though that’s kind of the point of the site: “Be Weird, Download a Car, Generate Art, Disregard Copyrights”. At some point, it’s going to be more work doing that than it is worth it to have their content federated to lemmy.world.

    • blazera@kbin.social
      41·
      1 year ago

      No instance is responsible for the entirety of the all feed, and this place isnt like reddit where they host every sub centrally. Dbzero is a server, any piracy hosting or distribution is only on their server.

      • shagie@programming.dev
        10·
        1 year ago

        Is the server admin responsible for federated data stored in the database and accessible via a URL on their instance?

        This is a question that the admins of lemmy.world would rather not have to answer and so were proactive in removing /c’s and defederating from instances that could cause them problems.

        For a United States hosted instance, reading https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/12/user-generated-content-and-fediverse-legal-primer is probably a good idea (and spending the $6 to register someone as a DMCA agent who gets the copyright complaints and can follow the process for dealing with them to ensure the instance maintains its safe harbor status).

        • blazera@kbin.social
          42·
          1 year ago

          Paying protection money and doing free work so that you dont get punished for crimes you arent committing, legal words cannot describe how much i hate you and the system youre endorsing.

          • shagie@programming.dev
            8·
            1 year ago

            This is the system that the EFF is endorsing - the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit for defending civil liberties.

            For people hosting instances, however, it can also mean some legal risk. Fortunately, there are some relatively easy ways to mitigate that risk – if you plan ahead. To help people do that, this guide offers an introduction to some common legal issues, along with a few practical considerations.

            Two important notes: (1) This guide is focused on legal risks that flow from hosting other people’s content, under U.S. law. In general, the safe harbors and immunities discussed below will not protect you if you are directly infringing copyright or defaming someone. (2) Many of us at EFF are lawyers, but we are not YOUR lawyers. This guide is intended to offer a high-level overview of U.S. law and should not be taken as legal advice specific to your particular situation.

            …

            The safe harbor doesn’t apply automatically. First, the safe harbor is subject to two disqualifiers: (1) actual or “red flag” knowledge of specific infringement; and (2) profiting from infringing activity if you have the right and ability to control it. The standards for these categories are contested; if you are concerned about them, you may wish to consult a lawyer.

            Second, a provider must take some affirmative steps to qualify: Designate a DMCA agent with the Copyright Office.

            By registering a DMCA agent for your site, you get to tell people who are saying “there’s copyrighted material on your site that you are hosting” to fill out the proper forms that includes their name and address and a bunch more information that they are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder. If they don’t have that, then you get tell them to pound sand.

            This is a much better alternative for protecting a site than talking to lawyers when you don’t have the ability to rely upon section 230 as a defense for hosting user generated content.

            I am for protecting the fediverse from over zealous copyright holders and copyright trolls with every legal tool available. That also comes with following the laws that exist and trying to mitigate any danger to the staff and users.

            Lemmy.world is a large instance with a big target painted on it and probably many fewer lawyers than Reddit has on retainer. As such, removing piracy and copyright infringement from a site are reasonable steps to make sure that while DDOSs can take down the site, it will be harder for lawyers to do so.