this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
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So if reddit wins, that means the content is theirs. So if the content is theirs, they are liable for any content that is illegal. Is that true?
yes to both regardless of this lawsuit
The wiggle room for large businesses is that they remove content that violates local laws when notified of it
No. I am not aware of any law that makes you liable by holding or claiming the copyright to some content. EG you may have to pay damages for libel, but not because you have copyright to the libelous statement.
Doesn't quite make sense.
You're telling me that someone can get popped for mistakenly visiting the dark side of the internet and having whatever-the-fuck horrible shit put on their machine, but owning the content and hosting it on your servers results in nothing?
Not quite.
Generally, sites aren't liable for user generated content as long as they follow some rules. They need to take down illegal content and provide some way of reporting such content. In the US, that's the whole DMCA takedown thing. The whole content ID thing, that YouTube does, might not be strictly necessary, but it was rolled out in response to a high-stakes lawsuit. The EU is, as always, more strict in these matters.
People are not punished for things beyond their control (but mind that a fine is not the same as damages). If you are sent illegal content, that you have not requested, you shouldn't expect formal punishment, though the investigation may be punishing in itself. If you simply don't know how caching works, you're probably in trouble.
But this was about copyright. I don't think you get punished anywhere for holding some copyright. Say some Japanese Manga artist travels to some European state where some of their works are illegal. They're not going to get arrested for that. Anyone who brings such illegal works into the country will not be so lucky, regardless of copyright.
Copyright law is messy. Thank you for the elaboration.
The content's theirs whether they win or not, isn't it? It's in the EULA when you sign up.
Edit: Here's the clause.
That means we can license all our content to another company, and Reddit would be forced to allow them to fetch it, as we still own it, right?
It certainly reads that way. Gonna start a Reddit User Collective? Licence it to Anthropic at a discount to undercut Reddit? That could be pretty funny.
That would be legally possible, though, obviously, you would have to pay for your own servers.
In practice, it wouldn't be worth anyone's time.
I don't see why. Users own the content wherever it's located. Reddit, of course, would be free to remove that content, but that would be cutting off their own nose to spite their face and is also acceptable.
You don't see why you would need your own servers? Do you see why unauthorized access to a computer system might be illegal?
Non-exclusive just means you're free to give a copy of your content to whoever you want. It doesn't mean Reddit is obligated to distribute it for you.
No. Just because you own a copyright, doesn't mean that you are entitled to free network services. If you owned the copyright to a movie, would you expect free tickets for any cinema showing it?