33 votes

Reddit’s /r/Piracy is deleting almost ten years of history to avoid ban

20 comments

  1. [7]
    Guyon
    Link
    It's very interesting to see the actual content for which reddit received DMCA notices. IANAL (or a pirate) but it seems like these requests are totally bogus, and it seems unfortunate that reddit...

    It's very interesting to see the actual content for which reddit received DMCA notices. IANAL (or a pirate) but it seems like these requests are totally bogus, and it seems unfortunate that reddit does not [perhaps can not realistically] fight these notices.

    17 votes
    1. [4]
      Deimos
      Link Parent
      We had a thread here about that at the time, and I commented that reddit can't really push back. If it's a legally valid DMCA request, I believe that they're required to comply with it. They're...

      We had a thread here about that at the time, and I commented that reddit can't really push back. If it's a legally valid DMCA request, I believe that they're required to comply with it. They're not supposed to investigate them and make a decision about whether to remove the content or not.

      The person that posted the content is able to file a counter-claim and have it reinstated if they want to, but people usually won't because it requires them to reveal their identity and opens them up to having the company come after them directly.

      24 votes
      1. [3]
        sublime_aenima
        Link Parent
        Back when I used to make gifs I pirated tons of movies and shows. It was easier for me to torrent something than to rip a dvd o to my computer. In fact before I stopped, my isp gave me two (of 3)...

        Back when I used to make gifs I pirated tons of movies and shows. It was easier for me to torrent something than to rip a dvd o to my computer. In fact before I stopped, my isp gave me two (of 3) strikes for movies I owned the dvd of (one 10 years old). I once had YouTube ban an account because I had too many infractions. No videos (gifs that I was seeking feedback on) had more than 10 views nor were public, yet automated software flagged me. It’s a shitty system, easily corrupted and usually not worth the effort to contest. Unless legislation changes, Reddit really has no choice but to comply

        11 votes
        1. [2]
          khang06
          Link Parent
          what isp did you have? i've had fios ever since 2007. i've done some light torrenting and they never seemed to have cared at all (and still don't, from what i can see)

          what isp did you have? i've had fios ever since 2007. i've done some light torrenting and they never seemed to have cared at all (and still don't, from what i can see)

          1. sublime_aenima
            Link Parent
            My only options where I used to live were Cox Communications or dsl. With 2 kids who game and stream video, dsl wasn’t really an option.

            My only options where I used to live were Cox Communications or dsl. With 2 kids who game and stream video, dsl wasn’t really an option.

            1 vote
    2. [2]
      heartbeats
      Link Parent
      I don't think it really matters. The sub is most likely on its last leg now.

      I don't think it really matters. The sub is most likely on its last leg now.

      2 votes
      1. Thrabalen
        Link Parent
        They and Reddit really can't see eye to eye. Someone should give them a hand.

        They and Reddit really can't see eye to eye. Someone should give them a hand.

        2 votes
  2. [11]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. [10]
      Octofox
      Link Parent
      What is wrong with discussing piracy? No one is pretending the users are not pirating stuff and they shouldn't have to. As long as they are not posting copyrighted content I see nothing wrong.

      What is wrong with discussing piracy? No one is pretending the users are not pirating stuff and they shouldn't have to. As long as they are not posting copyrighted content I see nothing wrong.

      22 votes
      1. [10]
        Comment deleted by author
        Link Parent
        1. [8]
          Octofox
          Link Parent
          So now just mentioning the name of a file is wrong? Yes its obvious that this upsets advertisers which is all reddit cares about but we shouldn't be thinking that this is ok behaviour from reddit.

          So now just mentioning the name of a file is wrong? Yes its obvious that this upsets advertisers which is all reddit cares about but we shouldn't be thinking that this is ok behaviour from reddit.

          13 votes
          1. [2]
            asep
            Link Parent
            I don't see why it's not ok from reddit though. People have the right to discuss piracy and not share links sure, but at the end of the day Reddit is a private company and if they think /r/piracy...

            I don't see why it's not ok from reddit though. People have the right to discuss piracy and not share links sure, but at the end of the day Reddit is a private company and if they think /r/piracy is degrading their site then they're fully within their rights to do whatever they want with it right? I mean it's their servers which are hosting all of the data so if those users don't like it they can just make their own site or no??

            5 votes
            1. Octofox
              Link Parent
              Sure reddit has the right to do whatever they want and I'm not implying that they are not allowed to ban the piracy subreddit but I am saying this shows the long running shift from reddit being a...

              Sure reddit has the right to do whatever they want and I'm not implying that they are not allowed to ban the piracy subreddit but I am saying this shows the long running shift from reddit being a community website to reddit being just another ad infested social media.

              4 votes
          2. [5]
            Hypersapien
            Link Parent
            The filename is all you need to download it from bittorrent.

            The filename is all you need to download it from bittorrent.

            3 votes
            1. [3]
              Octofox
              Link Parent
              Might as well ban movie review websites because the movie title is all you need to download it

              Might as well ban movie review websites because the movie title is all you need to download it

              20 votes
              1. [2]
                Hypersapien
                Link Parent
                The name of the movie and the filename are two completely different things, especially when the filename is designed specifically to hide the contents of the file.

                The name of the movie and the filename are two completely different things, especially when the filename is designed specifically to hide the contents of the file.

                4 votes
                1. Octofox
                  Link Parent
                  The file name is usually just the movie name, the codec and maybe the user who encoded it. Finding a movie torrent is not hard. The movie name is all you need. Posting the filename doens't really...

                  The file name is usually just the movie name, the codec and maybe the user who encoded it. Finding a movie torrent is not hard. The movie name is all you need. Posting the filename doens't really help at all other than to maybe let people know that a torrent has arrived on the internet before the general public release. To use a filename you still have to go on a torrent website and search the name to get the torrent which you could have done with just the movie name. If they were posting the torrent hashs then thats a little different because a hash is all you need to start downloading a torrent without any extra steps.

                  14 votes
            2. JoylessAubergine
              Link Parent
              This is a pretty extreme view even by mid 2000s peak piracy hysteria standards. All you need to download most things is "name online/download"

              This is a pretty extreme view even by mid 2000s peak piracy hysteria standards. All you need to download most things is "name online/download"

              8 votes
        2. Whom
          Link Parent
          Those posts happened, but I don't know how you could possibly claim they were almost the entirety of what the sub was about. Unless it drastically changed in the last few months, /r/piracy was a...

          Those posts happened, but I don't know how you could possibly claim they were almost the entirety of what the sub was about. Unless it drastically changed in the last few months, /r/piracy was a place mostly for community resources and answers to common questions: "What are the best private trackers?", "What is the best torrent client on this platform?", "What vpn do I use?", etc. as well as a place for discussion of the status of websites going down, laws that impact piracy, consoles getting custom firmware, directions on jailbreaking / installing that cfw on different platforms, and a billion "is x safe?" posts.

          I'm just going through the wayback machine and seeing old posts just to make sure it wasn't my own filter of what I was paying attention to, but I'm hard pressed to find a day where there's more than one post that's just a filename anywhere near the top.

          Reddit can do whatever, fuck 'em anyway, but this comment and Yugioh_Mishima's are massive misrepresentations of what that sub was.

          1 vote
  3. [3]
    joelthelion
    (edited )
    Link
    I'm guessing this stuff will move to the darknet, either on Tor .onion sites, or even on distributed stuff such IPFS. There isn't really a place on the open internet where you can reliably post...

    I'm guessing this stuff will move to the darknet, either on Tor .onion sites, or even on distributed stuff such IPFS. There isn't really a place on the open internet where you can reliably post such links nowadays.

    3 votes
    1. ghostsplosion
      Link Parent
      The /r/megalinks subreddit ended up creating a separate forum that can only be accessed via an access code. That may be another way of doing it.

      The /r/megalinks subreddit ended up creating a separate forum that can only be accessed via an access code. That may be another way of doing it.

      1 vote
    2. teaearlgraycold
      Link Parent
      I hope it causes more people to move onto private trackers. Still technically darknet but not a different protocol.

      I hope it causes more people to move onto private trackers. Still technically darknet but not a different protocol.

      1 vote