Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

To make a dedicated torrent "tracker" in fediverse is probably going to run the same risks any tracker does. So you need a host specifically setup to avoid giving in.

There are hosting providers which will host a domain for you anonymously and host a server for you ignoring DMCAs.

For example: https://njal.la

However, they are very expensive comparatively

As far as I understand if any fediverse instance decided to start having magnet links and stuff like that, eventually it would be taken down by DCMA notices and the like. But what could be done so a community like that could thrive?

No. Magnet links are just that, links.

Some questions:

1. Would other instances that federate with it get in trouble? They can always feign ignorance.

That depends. Again, magnet links are just links. No one would get in trouble for linking to a magnet link to download #LibreOffice or to download a collection of #eBooks released in the #PublicDomain or #CreativeCommons.

1. Could an intance which holds magnet links and trackers be backed up every day, so that as soon as one instance is taken down another one takes it's place immediately?

That depends on the people managing the servers. If they want to create backups, then yes, otherwise no.

1. Could an instance be owned annonymously? Can you register a domain and keep a server running somewhere without repercussions?

Sure. As long as you don't use payment methods that can be traced back to you, and you ensure that your connection is encrypted and you trust your VPN provider. Since you also have to pay for a good VPN provider, that VPN provider should also be accepting a payment method that can not be traced back to you. Not to mention, you should not use your regular computer, regular browser, and definitely avoid mobile phones as you'll always be tracked with it.

1. Could a lemmy instance live in an onion domain, and still interact with the rest of the fediverse? Would that improve anything regarding the instance being taken down?

Yes. Any #fediverse instance can live in any darknet. Now, if they can connect to those in the Surface Web or Lightnet, all comes down to if the #Darknet they are using offers a bridge back. Or, their server directly connected to the Surface Web instead of passing through a bridge inside their Darknet.

1. What about running instances in countries that do not enforce piracy laws? Could someone in some random country that does not care maintain an instance, which all of the fediverse can access/comment/contribute?

You can do that. But that instance will more likely get defederated and included in various blocklists or fediblocks.

To sum up. Magnet links are just magnet links. There is nothing illegal about it.

The same with Darknets #TOR and #I2P. There is nothing illegal about it, unless your country passed laws about blocking it.

The real question is, which instances will have issues federating with instances that links to Copyright infringement materials. As linking (not hosting) is vague, the general reaction would more likely be to defederate that instance to be safe.

In the end, that instance's reach will be less and less and less. Probably reach a point wherein it's a lonely island.

^_^

I saw your reply but it is yet to federate in other instances.

I know magnet links are just links, but post sharing them are still copyright infringement right?

No. Again, you just posted a link. What determines a link as a potential Copyright infringement is the content it is linking to.

Let's use an example: https://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/7.5.4/deb/x86_64/LibreOffice_7.5.4_Linux_x86-64_deb_helppack_en-US.tar.gz.torrent

It's not a magnett link, but just the same, I linked to a torrent file. It is not a Copyright Infringement.

But if the link is a link to a content that violates the Copyright Law, then there is potential issue.

Linking by itself is vague. There are countries that don't consider links as Copyright infringement, because again, these are just links. Only the host is causing piracy / infringement. However, there are countries that considers linking as an act of distribution of an infringement material, so it is illegal for these countries.

So there’s no way to scrape an instance to back it up as a third party?

If you have a script, then you can. You can submit links to web archive services and they'll scrape the site to archive a copy of it.

I understand someone not wanting to have pirated content on their instance, but do you think mods will go out of their way to un-federate?

Oh yes, definitely. You can count on instances defederating/blocking instances tolerating Copyright infringement activities. There are various blocklists available for instances to use, and there are groups where admins share and discuss these things.

So, sooner or later, an instance tolerating Copyright infringement will find itself isolated and potentially an island.

It can remain online as a regular site. It just won't be federated with anyone.

One more thing. There are blocklists and admins who will defederate instances just because they are not blocking certain instances. Thus, if I am running my own instance, I might be forced to defederate from an offending instance to avoid being defederated by everyone else.

one thing to note is that I think posts and comments appear to live on the creator's instance, not the community's instance

for example if you click this button on my comment

it goes here https://programming.dev/comment/143911

Hosting the database with a different provider than the Lemmy Instance would already go a long way in mitigating problems caused by DMCAs. Easy to just put up the site again if all that was DMCA'd was the Web Frontend.