1

I’ve seen this issue come up quite a bit recently, and I feel that we as a community have to make a decision: should we allow articles on pirating and torrenting? These activities are illegal in most countries, however there is still benefit to these articles to readers (unlike articles such as Kill, Rape, etc.) What are your thoughts on this?

2

I don’t think we should keep them. I don’t really feel as if they add to wikiHow as a whole. I’d rather give it a better impression than just helping a couple people. What are your thoughts, Andrew? Hannah x:)

3

Should pirating be allowed. What?!!

4

Of course not.

5

(This is really the first discussion I’ve participated in, so I’m not completely familiar with how all this works.) I think it’s a difficult to make a definite decision. After all, these articles might be useful to people who live in nations where the Internet is censored. The primary question is: Is pirating and torrenting universally illegal? If it’s not, the articles cannot be validly deleted under the deletion policy.

6

Torrenting and pirating are two different things. Torrenting can be used legally since there are sites that use it to share freely licensed (read: non-copyrighted) materials, like large files of public domain (pre-1923) books or Creative Commons licensed movies and music. So, if there are articles on how to use torrenting software or upload torrents, I think they should be kept, since not all torrenting is done illegally. Pirating happens when torrenting is used to share copyrighted materials without the consent of the creator and I agree that we shouldn’t have articles encouraging pirating.

7

It depends on how you veiw pirating. Let’s use Minecraft as an example. Basically, any mod for Minecraft is pirating, as it’s adding or depleting the game’s original code. However, it’s not illegal to create mods. Pirating articles is wrong, yes, but not universally illegal. It’s vandalism. And no, it should not be allowed anywhere. It’s horrible. But it’s not illegal. Wikihow does not allow vandalism, so in the since of Wikihow, yes, it’s illegal. It should not be allowed. What kind of pirating are you talking about? Just any kind of vandalism?

8

@OoT2D It’s not a matter of personal opinion, but rather a matter of policy. No matter how much you dislike something, you do not have a valid deletion case if the act is not universally illegal , as the policy says. However, I think there’s a pretty good chance that pirating is universally illegal, so there might be a legitimate basis on which these article could be deleted.

9

…Good point.

10

@Elocina +1

11

@Elocina +1 “Torrenting” is not illegal. Downloading copyrighted material from torrents is. We can teach people how to use torrents. If they choose to download copyrighted material, that’s on them. I don’t see much of an issue here: just follow the deletion policy. If the article includes instructions on violating a copyright law, NFD it. If the article simply instructs on how to use torrents for downloads but doesn’t advocate breaking copyright, it should stay.

12

@Isorhythmic +1 @Elocina +1

13

Torrenting yes. Pirating no.

14

@Elocina nailed it. @AndrewG1999 Can you offer some examples of articles that haven’t been deleted, but you think should be? Examples always help:slight_smile:

15

Modding isn’t pirating. There is a distinct difference. For example, “How to Mod Minecraft” is not the same as “Obtain a bootleg copy of Minecraft.” I believe Pirating article should NOT be allowed.

16

I agree with Elocina. Not all Torrenting is pirating. Not all pirating is done through torrents. Ergo… giving instructions for using a torrent to download is not a bad thing.