hypothetical situation
Let’s say I have a simple website, let’s call it the mothership-website (for no particular reason). On this website, I allow anyone to download some program that I wrote myself and licensed under a public license. This program could be used to emulate a game server for a game I like to play, and include detailed instructions for the setup, but wouldn’t include any client files as those are owned by the game company and redistributing them would be copyright infringement.
Now, let’s say there was a second website, let’s call it the shadow-website (also for no particular reason), and this website (which is not controlled by me but by some mysterious unknown individual) was using my publicly available server-emulator to host a game server and was offering the download of a matching version of the copyrighted game files owned by the game company, thereby engaging in copyright infringement. And let’s say, even though the shadow-website receives DMCA takedowns, it keeps popping up under a different domain.
If that were the case, I would like to spread awareness of the shadow-website and the project behind it (to protect users and to combat copyright infringement of course, just like r/piracy does with its megathread). I would like to add a list such as this one to the front page of the website:
| Projects |
|---|
| Awesome Community Server |
my question
What exactly would I have to do to be legally allowed to include this list on the mothership-website? I wouldn’t want to risk the mothership-website becoming subject to DMCA takedown requests, as this would harm my intentions of building a community around it.
In other words; what exactly is it that makes it legal for r/piracy to list various copyright infringing resources in its megathread, and how could I do the same on my website?
PS: I am posting this here, because reddit told me I didn’t have enough “Karma” to post on r/Piracy
Historically, it seems like the legality is a bit fluid, and depends on how much money someone is willing to spend to stop you. What the Pirate Bay did was legal in Sweden until the big companies applied pressure and resources to stop them. I wish we lived in a world where laws could be interpreted clearly, but at least it seems like big money can have its way regardless. So, in your hypothetical website scenario, would someone powerful be very upset, or would it not be worth it for them to go after you?
Thanks for replying.
It would not require much effort to go after me. I’d be using code hosting services like codeberg or github. They would only have to write an email to the hosting provider, which would take a look at the publicly hosted code and shut it down if there is any copyright infringement. So to answer your question: Pretty much everyone would be powerful enough, and if the project is successful it should be worth it for the game company to go after me. Therefore, I would want to make sure there is no claim for copyright infringement to begin with on the mothership-website. Building a community around a project that has to switch domains on a monthly basis would not inspire trust.
do the thing first - nobody is going to find out about it for a while, which gives you time to think and build a defence
if it gets successful, then worry about takedowns
worst that happens is it goes away
I remember not long ago Nintendo attacked the emulators and won, they didn’t attack reddit. So yeah, you might be not OK offering this emulator.
You could do unintentional linking if you don’t want to be subject to DMCA claims, like putting in the description
“We do not provide support for external projects that use our code, like shadow-website. Please contact them for further assistance.”
or
“If you’re using external services like shadow-website, please say so while reporting issues/bugs.”
This gives off an air of legitimacy to the shadow-website to anyone who’s interested in looking at mothership, but doesn’t explicitly associate it with mothership.
I can see why even Reddit wouldn’t want this posted over there.
So, okay, you’ve made up a scenario but it has nothing to do with the question you’re asking. Why couldn’t you have just asked the question and not beat around the bush before doing so?
What makes it “illegal”?
I am sorry, I don’t understand the quotation marks around the word “illegal”. I did not use this word anywhere.
EDIT:
Oh, I see now, you were referring to the title.
What makes it “illegal”?
I read in many places that it is illegal to do so, but not why.
I didn’t say you did. Your question implies that there must be a reason why the listing of resources in the megathread is considered “legal”. I am flipping the question around and asking you - why must this be the case? Do you believe there is something inherently “illegal” about the megathread? If so, what?
Quotation marks are not only used for direct quotations, despite the name. The question is valid.
I guess some people just don’t care and do it anyways. And I’m not sure how much the copyright industry and courts care about people chatting about copyright infringement and not actually doing it at that place. Could be protected by free spech in some jurisdictions. You can obviously live in a place that doesn’t care about copyright. But I guess people don’t move across the world just for that.
You could find bulletproof hosting pay anonymously and take care to never mention any personal information about you. But given what you said, that’s not what you want. I’d split responsibility between several people and let someone else do the copyright infringement. Someone who lives someplace else and doesn’t engage themselves on the website. And focus on the development and the legal aspect of it. Or just do the illegal part and not do the software. But I imaging it’s really complicated to do both sides of that coin in one person… And I suppose running an illegal website costs more money than running a regular one.
