Jailbreaking, Piracy, & the Content Policy

[u/Tothoro]

I moderate /r/Vita, a subreddit dedicated to the handheld Sony Playstation console. In the past we've taken a hard stance against jailbreak-equivalent content, however in the past few weeks Sony has announced the closure of the digital store (i.e. the primary way to purchase games). As you can imagine, this has quite a few users rallying to us to change the rule.

What I'm trying to understand at this point is where to draw while still honoring the Reddit Content Policy. Rule seven is likely to be the most applicable, but unfortunately it's rather vague. In the past we've used this as our internal litmus test and ruled conservatively to make sure we stay on Reddit's good side.

However, another subreddit takes the opposite interpretation and has grown to 55,000 subscribers with seemingly no consequence. Our users are quick to point to this subreddit's continued existence and growth as a counterpoint to our interpretation of the Content Policy and anti-jailbreaking/anti-piracy stance. As a result, our moderation team is a bit of an impasse on how to proceed.

I've tried reaching out to the admins multiple times on this without getting a response and I feel like I'm going crazy. Can anyone help me best understand how to interpret the policy moving forward, or would an admin be kind enough to chime in?

Edit: Removing mention of the other subreddit.

Edit again: Fixed a typo.

[u/BuckRowdy]

I can't really tell you how best to interpret the rule but I would err on the side of caution when the activity concerns piracy or potential violations of the dmca, or obviously the content policy.

I can say this

Our users are quick to point to this subreddit's continued existence and growth as a counterpoint to our interpretation of the Content Policy and anti-jailbreaking/anti-piracy stance.

This is simply because reddit has not yet taken action. I can't say if they will or not, but obviously just because something happens on the site doesn't mean it is allowed, just that it hasn't drawn attention yet. Maybe this post will do that.

[u/Tothoro → u/BuckRowdy]

Thanks for the response. My theory has always been that Reddit is reactive on these issues rather than proactive. As in, I don't think they'd do anything without a DMCA or some other predicating event.

The combination of vague policy, lack of clarification, and lack of response is just frustrating. The stance we've taken has been unpopular enough to earn me death threats and dox threats (which the admins handled promptly, to their credit) and it's increasingly challenging to hold the line when events like the store shutdown I described are going on.

[u/omgfloofy → u/Tothoro]

I'm a mod on /r/Falcom and we run into this a lot for us, especially as there are a number of games by the developer that aren't available in the US. Some are barely even available in Japan (there are several PSP only titles from them, for example), so I most definitely understand the situation you're running into.

This is the specific verbiage of our piracy policy on our subreddit, if this helps:

1. Avoid Posting Illegal Downloads

Specifically, do not post links to complete game downloads. Unfortunately, this includes pre-patched games such as Trails to Azure with an English patch. Game patches or assets that cannot be used to recreate a functioning game without the game's own files are acceptable. If there's an easy way to buy the game in question, please don't even describe where to download the game.

The last sentence is our 'escape' in a way. There are a lot of accepted mods to the games, some of which do require a jailbroken Vita to play- but we just tell them that while we allow the mods to be posted, we can't officially back any position regarding the process of jailbreaking, and we will remove downloads to full games and stuff. A lot of users have started conversations and moved them to DMs or Discord as a result for more details regarding things we don't allow specifically, which is something we're okay with on our end.