Following the nude celebrity hacking scandal last week, controversial online forum 4Chan has been forced to improve its posting rules to comply with US copyright laws.
The anonymous message board is a rich source of internet culture, with lolcats, ‘Rickrolls’ and a flood of other long running internet memes emerging from its popular /b/ discussion board.
However, the site has often courted controversy and last week it was the source of the nude celebrity photo leaks- which seems to have been a step to far.
Under the new rules, visitors to the notorious website 4chan will now be stopped from uploading protect images that come under America’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA).
As the website’s own FAQ states: “Threads expire and are pruned by 4chan’s software at a relatively high rate. Since most boards are limited to ten pages, content is usually available for only a few hours or days before it is removed.”
Now, users that attempt to upload images that have been the subject of a written infringement notice from a rights holder will have their images blocked, and repeat offenders will have their access “terminated”.
Although it’s not been made explicit by 4chan’s management, it’s widely assumed that this new, stricter approach to copyright is a pre-emptive response to the ongoing FBI investigation into the leaks of dozens of nude images of US and UK celebrities.
Under current US law copyright owners (ie celebrities affected by the hacks including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton) could collect up to $150,000 in “statutory damages” for every infringing photograph on 4chan.