Curious on your rules about file sharing.

I have a question on one of the forum rules. It is about paragraph 8 on the liability legalese-section.. First of all I assure you that I agree to follow your rules, and I'm not asking you to alter them. However, I am a bit curious as to why you have chosen to take such an extreme stance when it comes to file sharing.

The rule says: "Linking or giving information about any site that distributes illegal software, ROMs, media, or emulators, seeking help to circumvent any copyright laws, admitting to possessing and/or distributing illegal copyrighted material, or encouraging software or media piracy is grounds for an immediate ban."

I fully understand why you won't allow file sharing in here, since such activity could potentially get you in trouble. But the law (the real law, which I am well-versed in) surely doesn't require you to suppress peoples opinions on file sharing, and it certainly does not require you to punish (kick) people admitting that they are file sharers. The law does not even require you to stop people from linking to torrent websites.

My point is: Linking or even visiting torrent websites is not illegal. Openly supporting file sharing is not illegal either, so why have you chosen to have this suppression on the freedom of speech? Why so sensitive about file sharing?

Again, I am just curious.

Thanks for a great forum!

Because the owner of POTN does not want such illegal and unethical activities to be promoted in any way here. The owner sets the speech standards here.

Ginga wrote in post #15850041
I have a question on one of the forum rules. It is about paragraph 8 on the liability legalese-section.. First of all I assure you that I agree to follow your rules, and I'm not asking you to alter them. However, I am a bit curious as to why you have chosen to take such an extreme stance when it comes to file sharing.

The rule says: "Linking or giving information about any site that distributes illegal software, ROMs, media, or emulators, seeking help to circumvent any copyright laws, admitting to possessing and/or distributing illegal copyrighted material, or encouraging software or media piracy is grounds for an immediate ban."

I fully understand why you won't allow file sharing in here, since such activity could potentially get you in trouble. But the law (the real law, which I am well-versed in) surely doesn't require you to suppress peoples opinions on file sharing, and it certainly does not require you to punish (kick) people admitting that they are file sharers. The law does not even require you to stop people from linking to torrent websites.

My point is: Linking or even visiting torrent websites is not illegal. Openly supporting file sharing is not illegal either, so why have you chosen to have this suppression on the freedom of speech? Why so sensitive about file sharing?

Again, I am just curious.

Thanks for a great forum!

And will you be overjoyed if people decide to "borrow" your pictures without compensating you? Basically, that's what allowing people to "encourage file sharing" does. Personally, if anyone thinks my photos are worth using commercailly, I think I should receive the compensation, not the person who screen-scraped my image from here or my gallery. And I'm willing to extend the same courtesy to Adobe, Canon, etc. If it's their unique code, than it's their right to control who can do anything beyond view it. That means redistribute, use, or resell without specific permission.

Ginga wrote in post #15850041
My point is: Linking or even visiting torrent websites is not illegal. Openly supporting file sharing is not illegal either, so why have you chosen to have this suppression on the freedom of speech? Why so sensitive about file sharing?

Again, I am just curious.

Thanks for a great forum!

Only a small fraction of torrents point to files shared by permission of copyright owner.

These decisions here are based on moral, ethics and caring about building comfortable and safe discussion and photo sharing environment for a wide audience of photographers.

Freedom of speech does not mean this forum has to print out everything your want to say or link to. We apply editorial powers to suit purpose of our site. We filter curse words, we do not allow political discussions or religion discussions, we do not allow personal attacks or hostility, we ban spammers etc. Denying warez should be self-evident and as torrent system is so much used for that then I wonder you have to ask why we deny promoting torrent sites.

Great answers guys. You do make some pretty valid points, even if I don't agree with all of it.. Anyway, I'm not going to start an argument. I just wanted to know the reason behind the rule.

Thanks for answering!