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Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

justice.gov

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Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#71

Post by zb1plus »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #21

A small thought experiment: - Book sales in 2021 were about _9_ billion dollars. [0] - Wage theft in the US is estimated at _50_ billion dollars. [1] Can you imagine if the resources of the justice and labour departments would prioritize citizen wage over publishers' revenue? Would you rather have funds allocated towards social justice or have them spent on intimidating foreign nationals completely outside US jurisdi…

Couldn't agree more. It is disgraceful how our tax dollars are used to prop up failed business models and oppress the little guy. Just another example of how supposedly democratic states only serve the interests of the elite.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#74

Post by untech »

reisse wrote: post #31
adamors wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Given the political climate, they could easily ban Russian books from their platform and live happily in Moscow. Surely I'd prefer that over US custody.

> live happily in Moscow

Not an option for a majority of people who would host an online library, sadly. You can’t live happily in Moscow at the moment if you are capable of intellectual labour.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#75

Post by phpisthebest »

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…

>>An enormous amount of work goes into producing a book

So your saying books should be protected because they take alot of work, but movies should not because they dont?

I am highly confused by your ethical position here. Either creative works should be protected by copyright or they should not.

It seems your personal connection to authors have clouded your judgement in favor of that medium over other creatives mediums, I wonder if you would feel the same if you had personal relationships with independent film maker, to toss your analogy back, not ever filmmaker has a J.K Rowling book to make a film about which comes with a built in audience

Now me personally I think copyright is WAY over protective, I think the US original copyright law was a good balance, 14 years, with 1 extension if the physical person that created the work requests it (i.e corporations get 14 years only, individuals can get up to 28 years of protection)

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#76

Post by anhner »

reisse wrote: post #29
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…

> but e-books can be purchased pretty much anywhere in the world. I'm in Sweden Sorry, but by "pretty much anywhere in the world" you clearly mean "first world". If you live outside of US/Canada and EU it is much harder to obtain books legally. Publishing agreements usually cover specific countries, and no-one cares about, for example, selling books in English in Central Asia. So even if you have means to pay for the…

> If you live outside of US/Canada and EU it is much harder to obtain books legally

I completely agree and even though I imagine countries outside of these have it much worse, even within the EU you can find massive differences between countries. For example, there is a much smaller selection in Eastern European countries vs. Western, and books are the same price or sometimes even pricier while wages are significantly lower.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#77

Post by gyog »

gustavorg wrote: post #8

I don't want to say in the meantime, but, in the meantime, the pedophile ring that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell served have not even been cited, ever.

True but that includes powerful men in the political sphere such as Biden and Trump. No way the Justice Department is going to touch this, when it implicates their bosses and potential bosses.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#78

Post by andsoitis »

nivenkos wrote: post #43

The American Empire strikes again. You'd think they would have seen this coming though. I think a long-term solution is a universal revenue-sharing programme - so like some portion of taxes is allocated to a universal repository, and then paid out to creators according to usage. No middle-men and no distribution issues, etc.

> universal revenue-sharing programme

Run by whom? The UN?

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#80

Post by DoingIsLearning »

jpgvm wrote: post #54
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…

Your geographical white privilege is showing. Getting access to books for instance in SEA or Africa is an entirely different story to one of the richest countries in the world with some of the highest standards of living (in your case Sweden but could apply to most EU/NA/AU/NZ). I would say the vast majority pirating couldn't afford the work in the first place, meaning nothing is lost from the perspective of the auth…

> Your geographical white privilege is showing.

Although I fully agree with the points you make I just want to point out that being wealthy (from a world average wealth standpoint) is dissociated from being white.

The issue is limited access to resources due to lack of wealth, or geo-location with bizantine distribution contracts. Race has little to do with this discussion. Plenty of white poor people across the globe, plenty of non-white rich people across the globe.

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