Reddit joins the fight against piracy

As we have reported in the past, Reddit is a user-submission based site made up of 'sub-reddits' or 'subs' focussed on different topics. There is one for sharing pictures of cute cats, one for sharing information about professional kabaddi tournaments, and one for pretty much anything you can imagine from classic three-wheel cars to the deepest niches of anorakery.

Amongst those subs there have been some pirate link-sharing forums. There were subs for blockbuster films, tv shows, live sports events, and even pirated streams of eSports that were widely available for free online anyway.

Reddit has now decided to ban those subs that have refused to stay within its terms of use. Reddit generally has turned a blind eye to a great number of pirate links in the past, but will no longer allow entire communities whose sole purpose is to share pirated links. For example if a pirate link appears coincidentally in conversation about a particular actor on a movie sub, Reddit will take no interest.

Over 23,000 subscribed users discovered this week that their usual source of pirated films was unavailable, and even the backup sub (with a cleverly placed "_" to differentiate it) was gone too.

Reddit is the 27th most visited website in the world welcoming over 200 million unique visitors each month. As such it seems to be taking up a more responsible position towards intellectual property with this new stance on piracy.

If you have any questions on the above, please do not hesitate to contact the team at McDaniel & Co. on 0191 281 4000 or legal@mcdanielslaw.com.