this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2026
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I mean... Why would there have to be special rules/laws in place to make them liable?
It's their product, it's capable of doing stuff in their name. They're liable by default.
Because it's new tech, and any time there's new tech it takes the judicial system around 20 years to figure out that old laws still apply even in the context of new tech.
Remember how long it took for copyright to become somewhat relevant on the internet?
Or how long it took for murder threats to become illegal on the internet?
When I was growing up it was totally 100% to be expected that once you step online, especially in games, someone will graphicly threaten to murder and rape you and your entire family in an arbitrary order.
Stuff like that would have gotten you in legal trouble instantly if you said that in real life, but online it was totally fine for a very long time.
Laws are different everywhere. Just because it was tolerated (maybe), doesn't mean it was illegal. Also in real life kids always said stupid shit. The thing here is that their product does illegal things. There's no good reason this would by default be exempt.
Kazaa, LimeWire and similar products were proprietary for-profit software that made money with copyright infringement. LimeWire was opensourced later on.