Reddit’s Repeat Infringer Policies Have Shut Down Megalinks
- Popular subreddit /r/megalinks has stopped receiving new submissions after getting a warning from Reddit operators.
- The subreddit was used as a piracy link forum which resulted in Reddit receiving a huge number of DMCA notices.
- Currently, Megalinks have moved to a new home that is hosted "offshore" and has already established a userbase of nearly ten thousand users.
Reddit is one of the most popular websites on the Internet which houses nearly 138,000 communities called sub-Reddits that tackle every single subject you can possibly think of, and much more. And even though Reddit’s terms and conditions forbid it, the platform does have plenty of subreddits dedicated to sharing pirated content e.g. Megalinks.
The popular subreddit /r/megalinks has recently been threatened by Reddit operators to clean up their act, or the repeat infringer policy act will be implemented. Following the warning, /r/megalinks’ administrator informed its 108,000 user base that they will stop accepting new submissions “for the safety of the subreddit.”
Image Courtesy of archive.is
The warning which came from Reddit operators makes it clear that the platform is no place to encourage piracy and that they will not tolerate people using the platform to create piracy link forums.
As written in the warning, “This is an official warning from Reddit that we are receiving too many copyright infringement notices about material posted to your community. We will be required to ban this community if you can’t adequately address the problem [...] The law also requires us to issue bans in cases of repeat infringement. Sometimes a repeat infringement problem is limited to just one user and we ban just that person. Other times the problem pervades a whole community and we ban the community [...] This is our formal warning about repeat infringement in this community. Over the past three months, we’ve had to remove material from the community in response to copyright notices 60 times. That’s an unusually high number taking into account the community’s size.”
This means, that /r/megalinks will not only have to restrict further entries but also remove old posts to ensure that Reddit stops receiving DMCA notices. Now considering that Megalinks is purely a subreddit dedicated to infringing content, this means that pretty much everything needs to be deleted.
Under their current predicament, Megalinks are moving to a new home which is reported hosted “offshores.” Their new forum has already reeled in nearly ten thousand members, and the number is rising.