LBRY

LBRY says it ‘will likely be dead’ following SEC loss

LBRY Inc. noted that while the company is on its last legs, the underlying protocol and blockchain behind the content platform will carry on.

The firm behind the decentralized content platform LBRY said its days are likely numbered following its recent loss against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in court.

The SEC initially took LBRY Inc. to court in March 2021 over its LBRY Credit (LBC) tokens, alleging that the firm had been conducting unregistered securities offerings since 2016.

The SEC ultimately won that battle last month on Nov. 7, after a judge deemed the tokens to be securities in a major blow to the industry. 

Providing an update on the state of the business via Twitter on Nov. 30, LBRY Inc explained that the company “will likely be dead in the near future.” However, the underlying protocol and blockchain will carry on:

“We’d like to be upfront about the fact that LBRY Inc. will likely be dead in the near future. We expect the LBRY mission to continue on, but the company itself has been killed by legal and SEC debts.”

LBRY Inc. essentially provides a blockchain-based alternative to YouTube that offers less stringent censorship policies on its hosted content. The platform also facilitates direct tips in LBC to content creators as opposed to the standard advertising revenue share model.

In the SEC’s case against LBRY, it alleged that LBC was designed for pure speculation, while LBRY had argued that the tokens served key utility functions for its platform such as tipping, publishing, purchasing and boosting video content.

Despite the SEC winning the court dispute, LBRY suggested on Twitter earlier this week that the government agency has continued to be difficult to deal with in terms of settlement negotiations.

Responding to a post about its Nov. 29 status report on its ongoing SEC negotiations, the company noted that it offered the SEC “everything we have,” but this proposal was still rejected.

Defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor James Filan questioned whether this was due to the SEC seeking out more drastic stipulations on future LBC sales.

“Let me guess. That’s because they want a Consent Judgment that also includes a specific agreement that every sale, even on the secondary markets, is a sale of a security,” he said.

In response, the LBRY Inc. team simply supplied an emoji showing their lips are sealed.

It is also worth noting that Filan, who has 131,000 followers on Twitter, has remained up to date with the LBRY case due to his long running commentary on the ongoing dispute between the SEC and XRP (XRP) creators Ripple Labs.

Related: LBRY alleges Apple forced it to censor certain terms amid COVID-19 pandemic

The cases are of a similar nature to each other in that the SEC has aggressively pushed to get both LBRY and XRP deemed as securities in court. Given that these are some of the first major crypto and securities-related court cases, the outcomes could be seen as reference points for future rulings in the future.

LBRY alleges Apple forced it to censor certain terms amid COVID-19 pandemic

After Elon Musk lamented the winding back of Apple’s Twitter advertising, crypto company LBRY replied about its own troubles with Apple and censorship.

Blockchain-based file-sharing and payment network LBRY has alleged that tech giant Apple forced it to filter out certain search terms during the height of the COVID-19 crisis in an apparent censorship attempt. 

In a Nov. 28 post on Twitter, LBRY alleges that it was asked to censor anything related to COVID-19, especially vaccines and potential human origins of the virus, or face having its apps removed from the Apple store.

“We had to build a list of over 20 terms to not show results for, only on Apple devices. If we did not filter the terms, our apps would not be allowed in the store,” the crypto company alleged.

LBRY is a decentralized content-sharing platform that allows artists, filmmakers, writers and other content creators to retain full artistic and financial control over their work. Its Odysee video-sharing website is one of its best-known apps, but it’s unclear if this application was involved in the alleged censorship.

The blockchain firm made the revelation in response to a post from Elon Musk, who said that Apple has “mostly stopped” advertising on Twitter due to concerns about the social media platform’s content, prompting LBRY to share its experience with Apple during the COVID-19 pandemic.

LBRY also alleged that when some of its users included images of Pepe the Frog in videos, Apple “rejected” them.

Pepe the Frog is an Internet meme of a green anthropomorphic frog originating in 2005, which has since been adopted by protest groups in Hong Kong alongside being used in right-wing political ideology.

The crypto company said that “Apple may make good products, but they have been opposed to free speech for some time.”

Cointelegraph reached out to Apple for comment but has not received a reply by the time of publication.

Related: Crypto Twitter unhappy with SBF ‘puff piece’ pushed by mainstream media

Meanwhile, discussions around censorship on Twitter have continued to rage on. 

Musk took over Twitter on Oct. 28 and has been teasing the release of the “Twitter Files,” supposed proof of a concentrated effort by the previous Twitter administration to stifle free speech on the platform.

Musk’s takeover of Twitter and subsequent plans for the platform have seen some users seek out decentralized social networks as an alternative. 

Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey recently unveiled his new Bitcoin (BTC)-powered Bluesky Social app as part of a decentralized answer to Twitter.

The Oct. 18 announcement came roughly three years after the initiative was announced by Dorsey, with the goal of allowing users to have control over their data and be able to move it from platform to platform without permission.