DBZer0 has begun banning people simply for believing in the concept of copyright

Advocating piracy is one thing, but now banning people for believing in copyright? That's like banning people for following the law. That is banning people for following the law. What gives? And to think a while ago I declared I wouldn't have any reason to not take their bans (or the motives behind them) seriously.

Are we trying to get world governments to ban Lemmy (or, worse, the fediverse)? Love the administrative decisions or hate them, such decisions will drag down the whole fediverse. Typically sites are defederated to protect the sites defederating them from liability. Will this be an example, or does this, out of convenience, not apply? Are we forgetting a large portion of the fediverse's demographics consist of artists trying to make a damn living?

87 comments

OP, you reading this wrong on many levels, review the comments and provide proper post on
!yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com
so the community can provide proper feed back if mod is in fact power tripping.
- OP has very little understanding of the fediverse given they don't know how bans work and appears to dislike the fediverse quite a lot given their other post and this one as well.
  I wonder if it has anything to do with this, and this?
- It's just Leni trolling under an alt
  
  god damn it...
  nice troll leni!

Dbzer0 is explicitly anti-copyright. It's in the sidebar and when you sign up.
It was a mod that did it, not an admin.
It was a community, not the entire site.
Jesus Christ, reading is a thing.
- I counted way more than two communities. That's often said to mean it's an instance ban.
  In case people missed it (I will assume good faith here), “anti-AI troll” is another way of saying “this person is concerned about copyright”.
- Jesus Christ, reading is a thing.
  Ah, but reading comprehension sadly, is not.

A - That was a mod, not an admin. We didn't do shit.
B - What the hell are you even trying to do, anymore? like genuinely, i have no idea what you're trying to aim for.

edit: Also fuck copyright.
- That was a mod, not an admin. We didn’t do shit.
  A mod banned the individual from a dozen communities?
  What the hell are you even trying to do, anymore? like genuinely, i have no idea what you’re trying to aim for.
  It's just everyday commentary. I don't see where the confusion is. Everything I've said reflects something that concerns me.
  edit: Also fuck copyright.
  Using someone's work without their permission is exploitation. People have to spend time out of their day to make something creative, so coattail riding off of them takes away the incentive to make the art, which interferes with the artistic process. The ancient Romans even knew enough to have a concept of copyright. In the very least, people should be giving credit to the artists, as you would when you are gifted something.
  
  dozen communities
  It's literally two.
  It’s just everyday commentary. I don’t see where the confusion is. Everything I’ve said reflects something that concerns me.
  You're going to a drama community to stir up shit. There was nothing to be angry at, here.
  Using someone’s work without their permission is exploitation. People have to spend time out of their day to make something creative, so coattail riding off of them takes away the incentive to make the art, which interferes with the artistic process. The ancient Romans even knew enough to have a concept of copyright. In the very least, people should be giving credit to the artists, as you would when you are gifted something.
  We could blabber about this all day; this is the average leftist stance, and i'm not here to convert you. That is our instance's stance, and it will never change.
- Yeah, I thought I recognised OP from somewhere, and not in a good way.
  
  I've never had any of the names described above.
- Sheeeeeit receipts

TLDR: OP has no idea the difference between comms and instances, or what the fediverse actually is, and thinks dumbasses trolling AI art comms are doing nothing wrong.
- I counted a dozen communities where this happened. Typically, when someone is banned from multiple communities for the same reason simultaneously, an admin is involved and that it might be an instance ban in disguise. Is this wrong?
- It really does seem like the entire concept of decentralized, ground up, mutually interconnected systems... is just actually incomprehensible to a certain number of people.
  Things can be organized in a complex manner, but also not centralized with a god king or round table of mob bosses at the top of everything?
  Unpossible!!!
  I want to talk to the manager's manager!
  
  I counted a dozen communities where this happened. Typically, when someone is banned from multiple communities for the same reason simultaneously, an admin is involved and that it might be an instance ban in disguise. Is this wrong?
  
  I mean, there are admins and mods, don't oversell it. ^^' But also I am honestly lost on how do you manage to think of hundreds of interconnected forums basically as one thing.
- I mean, it's called the fediverse. That alone should cue OP that it's not a single site.

~~DBZer0~~ Two communities in dBZer0 have begun banning people simply for ~~believing in~~ posting apologia for the concept of copyright.
Which, without further context, is still a bit of an overreach IMO, but nowhere near as extreme as your title suggests.
That's like banning people for following the law. That is banning people for following the law.
Lol fuck the law. I wipe my ass with the law. Banning people for following the law is turbo-based when the law is turbo garbage. Again, I don't think that simply apologizing for copyright warrants a ban without further context, but "I was banned for following the law" is a terrible argument and I had to speak out about it.
Are we forgetting a large portion of the fediverse's demographics consist of artists trying to make a damn living?
I was a music producer before going into engineering and I've always been against copyright lol. Copyright is a terrible minefield for doing work in my craft.
- I counted way more than two communities.
  In case people missed it (I will assume good faith here), "anti-AI troll" is another way of saying "this person is concerned about copyright".
  
  "anti-AI troll" is another way of saying "this person is concerned about copyright"
  ...are you sure about that? There are lots of arguments against AI that aren't related to copyright, e.g. displacement of workers and environmental impacts. Considering that those forums are explicitly a place to appreciate AI content, I imagine it would be quite annoying to relitigate that issue in their home turf. So if the mods wanted to call out copyright, why not just do so explicitly?
- You were against copyright? the thing that got you paid and prevented me from just ripping your stuff for free lol
  
  Yes, I always was and I am against copyright, full stop. Copyright makes it harder for people to share my music, which is why I gave it away. I was working in music for the music, but the little money I did make was from producing for others. The only reason I'm not posting it here is because I don't want to dox myself.
  IMO the most important sources of income for musicians are live performances and *merch". This is also what we were taught in recording school. I barely got paid for my digital downloads, although I did get a few people paying even when I released it for free.
  I would unironically be thrilled to find out someone pirated my shit. At least then someone thought it was important enough to steal.
  And also I'm on Bandcamp. It's super easy to just rip my stuff. It's not as if copyright was protecting me from anything 😆.
- The law can take down the fediverse. Well, suit yourself then.
  Also not sure how one can do apologia without believing in what they're saying.
  
  No, the law can take down dbzer0 and you are pretending to give a shit about that when you’re just upset that you can’t wipe your dirty shoes on their couch aka not follow their rules. They don’t want to debate copyright with you. Get over it
  Edit: Now that I think about it I’m starting to wonder if you understand how the fediverse works. There is no “fediverse” to shut down. The fediverse is just a word to describe sites federated with each other built on activity pub. They can’t ban that.
  
  Also not sure how one can do apologia without believing in what they're saying.
  ...you can just lie to people... like trolls...
  But even if we assume for charitability's sake that apologia ==> believing in the cause, that does not automatically mean that apologia <== believing in the cause. Like they're not being banned for your beliefs. That user was banned for advocating for them. Which again, without context is still an overreach IMO, but this is absolutely not someone being banned for simply having the wrong opinion.
  The law can take down the Fediverse
  Can they? Sure they can take down individual servers, sure they can ~~make it impossible for money grubbers to make money here~~ make it hard to be profitable, but they can't take us all out.

- People would think that not remembering that copyright is more than just about the distribution.
  
  Fuck the whole concept of owning ideas. Human culture should be free for all to use.

Without knowing the context of those bans, it's kinda hard to say whether your take of them being "simply for believing in the concept of copyright" is actually anywhere close to reality or not.
Based on past experience of people posting hyperbolic claims about "instance X banning people for Y", it's never actually about Y.
- Like redditors getting banned from dozens of communities for “literally no reason.”
  
  What subreddit has this happened in? I've used Reddit daily for a decade and only experienced this once.
- So all those times people in Fedilore said "so-and-so was banned for so-and-so reason", it was premature to say so?
  
  Depends on the amount of hyperbole, and getting banned for "believing in the concept of copyright" definitely smells like hyperbole.

This doesn't look like it has anything to do with what you are claiming, being banned for 'believing in copyright'.
It looks like people going to comms specifically set up to share AI generated images, and banning people for bitching about how AI image gen involves disrespect of copyright.
I am no fan of AI gen imagery in about 99.9% of scenarios you'll actually encounter it or hear about it in.
... So I just blocked these communities that are all about that, because they do not interest me, and do not interact with them.
... You can also see that these are comm specific bans, not instance wide bans, as say .world did initially, and then rolled back when people were cheering the UHC CEO getting assasinated.
Looking into a few of these users that have been recently banned, from the modlogs on dbzero... it seems like these users have been getting various comments deleted, with mod explanations why, for days or weeks now, and whoever is modding these StableDiffusion comms just decided to ban them.
Here's the actual dbzero modlogs:
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/modlog
... Also as far as you being a worry wort about 'all of lemmy being banned'... pretty sure that's not possible, the whole point of a federated structure like lemmy is that different instances both host and police themselves.
Could a single instance get taken out? Sure. ... All of them? Seems unlikely without a massive coordinated effort, and afaik, db0 (the instance creator) is pretty tech savvy and has a reasonably secure hosting setup.
Disclaimer: I am neither a dbzero admin nor mod, just a member of the instance.

Check the Dbzer0 sidebar. The instance is literally explicitly anti-copyright.
- My surprise lies in the fact there's a difference between being anti-copyright and banning people for being pro-copyright.

Well its kinda true to their instance, being full on anarcho.
- We at least want Lemmy to not get the same fate Tiktok almost did, right?
  
  We at least want Lemmy to not get the same fate Tiktok almost did, right?
  what fate? The one that was just a stupid stunt by Trump? Literally can't be happening on the fediverse as the instances are distributed across the whole world.
  
  Every instance is free to operate how they please (sort of). That is the entire point of this project. Lemmy is not one site with one set of rules. It’s a lot of different instances, and within them communities, with their own rules. Respect them or leave, don’t complain because you want to hang around an instance but don’t want to follow their rules. You are stirring up trouble for no reason. You are being disrespectful of their community, so you are not welcome.
  Beehaw rigorously protects LGBT people. They will ban you for being homophobic. Other instances won’t. Should we tell Beehaw they can’t do that? Or is their first responsibility to the community and the expectations they have set for them?
  
  How? Lemmy is federated. If tiktok was banned, tiktok was "banned." If dbzer0 is banned, .world and .wtf still work.

You can believe in whatever you want in other comms, that have different policy. Nothing will happen with fediverse if you won't or will support copyright.
- Whole services have shut down because they don't support copyright. YouTube's very first legal battle had to do with copyright. Discord shuts down several servers a day because those servers violate copyright. Scientology exists solely because of the power of copyright law. Copyright enforcement is quite big.
  
  So? It's not illegal to talk about it, it's not illegal in multiple countries in europe in general, it's not illegal to ban you.

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