Humans who run instances are real people who have jobs and mortgages and kids. I also like having piracy communities around to balance the greedy ass corporations trying to control media and copyright…I’m glad to know they are there if I need them or feel like screwing around with it. I just wonder if the people ranting all indignantly acting like instances are competing for their usership would feel the same if the most active instance was on a server physically sitting in their basement, or paid for by money tied to them in the real world. Yes it seems pretty unlikely that you’re ever going to run into issues with law enforcement, copyright claims, lawsuits…but how much would you risk for a fucking hobby you do for free? Would you risk your house? Your job? I would not. Grow up. No one cares what instance you use.
I mean… The piracy communities have very useful links to wikis all about how to sail the high seas…
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really have any skin in this game, I dabble in a bit of piracy now and again, and am broadly pro having a community for people to chat about it although I don’t myself.
But at the same time when a community description has a link to a page with comprehensive lists of the best sites to download/torrent from, including a cute little goat emoji next to the best ones, let’s not be disingenuous. (That wiki is terrific btw)
If theoretically someone did decide to investigate you for having links to lots of legally dubious information available on your instance I don’t know the law in other people’s countries but in mine it wouldn’t be worth the hassle or attention. I say theoretically because at the moment Lemmy is probably too small to get attention but still.
I can see why people might want to play it a bit on the safe side if they’re not sure if they’re going to get into trouble over something or not.