10k+ users will be able to see that this answer was removed since it was found to be in violation of our Piracy policy. But how exactly was this answer violating this policy?

According to the website that is linked in that answer (which I am intentionally leaving out of this question) it states:

We do not support piracy and never will. If any party owning copyrights, feels that their rights are fully or partially breached,​​ my logic is flawed or otherwise displeasing of content creators, the content will be removed or edited to comply with the requirements they set us.

I know it's just a website stating this and doesn't really have any jurisdiction, but does this not matter in any way?

I'm not defending that the answer shouldn't have been removed. I actually contemplated about flagging it, but I wasn't sure if it was supporting piracy because of the disclaimers and information at the bottom of the linked website. I'm just curious as to how it violated our policy.

Edit: I'm linking this meta answer which is what you are directed to when you click on the "illegal content" link when you flag/vote to close a post for this reason. According to that answer:

as long as you're not actively advocating to pirate content (or looking for us to help you do so), you're welcome to share your knowledge, or ask questions.

Was that answer unintentionally advocating pirated content (despite the website saying it doesn't support piracy)?

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    Obtaining assets from a different game without paying for it sounds pretty sketchy to me. I'd say that would meet the definition of piracy pretty well. – Frank Feb 16 '17 at 18:22


As far as I could tell, yes. The purpose of the pages in the answer is for users to be able to use the assets from Source games without buying the games themselves, and there are two reasons I think it was violating our piracy policy.

First, using the assets for a game you don't own is, by itself, pretty murky territory. This is why many open source versions of games (like OpenXcom) require you to have a copy of the base game to play them.

Second, Garry's Mod is sold by Valve, and it already provides a few assets from some of their source games. The fact that Valve included some of their game assets, but not all of them, means to me that Valve never intended for consumers to get all source assets for free. Instead they want customers to buy other source games if they want to have access to their assets in Garry's Mod. Afterall, if they wanted you to have them for free, they'd just be included in Garry's Mod to begin with.

So that summarizes why I think this violates a policy, although I will toss in that the fact the site says "we don't support piracy" doesn't suddenly mean they're not supporting piracy. Youtube videos which are just rips of wholes episodes of TV Shows say things like "I DON'T OWN THIS MATERIAL, ALL CREDIT TO THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS" doesn't suddenly mean what they're doing is legal.

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    I was hoping you would answer this! I guess what confuses me is the fact that the content from that site didn't allow you to play the individual games - it just provides the assets so you can you use them in Garry's Mod. That why I wondered if it was legal or not. – Timmy Jim Feb 16 '17 at 21:51

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