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Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

justice.gov

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Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#11

Post by fragmede »

jerojero wrote: post #3
elashri wrote: post #2

> As alleged, the defendants profited illegally off work they stole How did they profit? If they even admitted that > Defendants Operated Z-Library, Which Offered Free Download of Copyrighted Works This is a complete nonsense

Maybe ads on the platfom? I'm not sure because 1. i use libgen 2. i run adblock. But it wouldn't be surprising that such a popular platform would have ads. Z-library was a site for pirated e-books, no?

shh! do you want lingren to get taken down as well? whether accurately or not, the takedowns is attribute to a sudden burst of popularity due to social media sharing of the site.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#13

Post by gadders »

reisse wrote: post #12

I guess in 2022 "don't ever travel to countries that have extradition agreements with US" should've already been #0 opsec rule, above everything else. Sad for them. Does anyone know if Z-library provided torrent dumps?

Apparently yes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32972923

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#14

Post by sec400 »

null_object wrote: post #9

I know this won't be a popular take on HN, but while I can understand and to a certain extent sympathize with pirating movies (the intentional friction and arbitrary geographic limitations on access imposed by the multinational movie-industry conglomerates), I can't see stealing some poor author's work in the same light. Sure, people get hung-up about DRM (which can easily be removed by widely-accessible tools), but…

Imagine the person who cannot afford a book or paper on a particular topic. Should they not have access to the information?

I agree, as always there is nuance, but zlib et al fulfill a need for certain people. In b4 public libraries, they aren't equal around the world, depend on geographic proximity and add latency to the learning process.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#15

Post by keewee7 »

IIRC Z-library is a LibGen mirror that is faster than other mirrors but is also much more monetized with more ads, limited free downloads, and premium plans.

Something else weird about this story is why did they move to a country that has an extradition agreement with the US? There are plenty of countries that would ignore US pressure to arrest them.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#16

Post by null_object »

sec400 wrote: post #14
null_object wrote: post #9

I know this won't be a popular take on HN, but while I can understand and to a certain extent sympathize with pirating movies (the intentional friction and arbitrary geographic limitations on access imposed by the multinational movie-industry conglomerates), I can't see stealing some poor author's work in the same light. Sure, people get hung-up about DRM (which can easily be removed by widely-accessible tools), but…

Imagine the person who cannot afford a book or paper on a particular topic. Should they not have access to the information? I agree, as always there is nuance, but zlib et al fulfill a need for certain people. In b4 public libraries, they aren't equal around the world, depend on geographic proximity and add latency to the learning process.

> Imagine the person who cannot afford a book or paper on a particular topic. Should they not have access to the information?

Imagine I want whatever you do for a living? Should you work for me for free?

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#17

Post by gizmo »

null_object wrote: post #9

I know this won't be a popular take on HN, but while I can understand and to a certain extent sympathize with pirating movies (the intentional friction and arbitrary geographic limitations on access imposed by the multinational movie-industry conglomerates), I can't see stealing some poor author's work in the same light. Sure, people get hung-up about DRM (which can easily be removed by widely-accessible tools), but…

Artificial scarcity is still bad. Imagine a world where books are free for everybody, not just for people who live in prosperous areas with good libraries. Would you then advocate making books nonfree thereby placing books out of reach for 2/3rd of the world population, which is more or less where we are today?

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#18

Post by adamors »

reisse wrote: post #12

I guess in 2022 "don't ever travel to countries that have extradition agreements with US" should've already been #0 opsec rule, above everything else. Sad for them. Does anyone know if Z-library provided torrent dumps?

As Russian nationals, their choices are rather limited at this time.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#19

Post by 0xR1CK »

elashri wrote: post #2

> As alleged, the defendants profited illegally off work they stole How did they profit? If they even admitted that > Defendants Operated Z-Library, Which Offered Free Download of Copyrighted Works This is a complete nonsense

They accepted payment to get around quotas (and probably ran ads). Even if it was a tiny percentage of people who engaged with them this way, or even if they profited at all, they took money in exchange for accessing an illicit resource. That is likely the main reason the teeth have come out to bite.

If anything though this might push that resource to the hands of people who can maintaining the massive library voluntarily and distributed with less ethical/morally-dubious implications.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#20

Post by theCrowing »

null_object wrote: post #9

I know this won't be a popular take on HN, but while I can understand and to a certain extent sympathize with pirating movies (the intentional friction and arbitrary geographic limitations on access imposed by the multinational movie-industry conglomerates), I can't see stealing some poor author's work in the same light. Sure, people get hung-up about DRM (which can easily be removed by widely-accessible tools), but…

The price spike on comics and graphic novels after the comiXology acquisition by Amazon is over 150%...
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