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Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

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Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there a wage-thief who's doing it at scale? FAANG got caught having a wage cartel where poaching affected possible salaries between workers. They got a measly 50 million dollar fine. Wage theft pays off in america, and Amazon and Apple being trillion dollar companies proves it.

> FAANG got caught having a wage cartel I remember Apple and Google did. Was there a broader conspiracy? > got a measly 50 million dollar fine This $415mm settlement [1]? Its suit covered ”almost 65,000 employees who worked for the seven companies between 2005 and 2010.” The fine was thus about $6,400 per covered employee (about $8k in 2022 dollars). The alleged cut to “potential employee compensation [was] 10 percen…

> I remember Apple and Google did. Was there a broader conspiracy?

I wrote FAANG cause I didn't remember all involved, which was my bad. It was Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay that got caught in the anti trust suit.

Enough big players to seriously affect job opportunities and labour costs from rising.

> This $415mm settlement [1]?

That was the latest judge sentence, which I hadn't heard of, I can ammend my previous comment. The original sentences, affecting mostly the smaller players like Pixar where much smaller while the Apple and Google one kept being pushed back. 400 million is still quite low in exchange for a 5 year long wage freeze essentially as moving jobs is the best way to increase your salary.

The toal pay seems to be lower, 3,400 for Pixar, intuit and lucasfilm employees and only 5,770 for apple and google employees. Over a 5 year period thats a pretty low salary raise.

Considering a job change every 2 years can end up with almost 100% salary difference over a decade. That means in the 5 years, the salary raises saved the company up to 50% in salary costs.

With the headcount of both of those companies and their average salary. Even if the percentage of workers who did not move between companies, I would argue 400 million is still low.

I am also gonna ignore lawyer fees which are usually the only winners on such big lawsuits

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#142

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…

It's very simple actually. You (and most of HN) live in a tech industry bubble. Living wages in the U.S are terrible and disposable income is non-existent. I work a 9-5 just like everyone else but when it comes down to it I don't have the money to buy new books. I can either buy used paperback from a second-hand store, go to the library, or pirate an epub. None of these options pay the original author and are effectively the same. Given that I was never going to pay anyways, why do you find the third option unethical? It hurts absolutely no one but greatly enhances my quality of life and (in some cases) helps society by making me a more educated individual. The only thing piracy costs authors is opportunity (which in my case was always 0).

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#143
post #41

How much prison time they face? I'm not sad about them. They did it for the money, not because they believed knowledge should be free. They basically stole other people work and put their paywall to access stolen books. Total opposite of Libgen or Sci-Hub.

you must be fun at parties

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1993, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action treats social justice as a purpose of human rights education The declaration was signed by the US as well. So social justice is an objective of US as a whole, as a democracy, as a Country, hence is not a political view since 1993 in USA.

> declaration was signed by the US It was never fully ratified [1]. It was ratified by Russia and, somehow, Afghanistan. [1] https://indicators.ohchr.org/

That's hardly news.

But you're looking in the wrong place.

It was called the "Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action" it was not an agreement to be ratified, but a course of action for the UN members to follow, which includes the US.

Of course in United States social justice is seen as a political stance, it's not surprising from the country that has signed and not ratified

- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

- International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

- Convention on the Rights of the Child (they do not actually think of the children, apparently)

- Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

I get that the rights of people with disabilities can be a divisive argument, but they also refuted to sign for

- Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

- Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

- Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

- Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

and if that wasn't bad enough, they have also not signed

- International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families

- International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CIA really loves making people disappear, they couldn't possibly disappoint them)

How is it possible that we call it "the greatest democracy in the World" while they are not even a real Democracy is the "greatest mystery in modern history"

So, yeah, social justice is political only in USA and probably in some South American dictatorship lead by former nazis and militarily installed by yours truly the USA

Not even Putin would say in public that social justice it's the patrimony of a specific Political side, because it would be a (politcal) suicide, even for a guy like Vladimir Putin who recently spoke about it citing Martin Luther King (of course it's all propaganda in his side, but still...), while in the USA, where MLK was born and was killed, his ideas are still considered "agenda" and not "Country's own values".

Again: not surprising, just sad.

> It was ratified by Russia and, somehow, Afghanistan.

to put it mildly, in that list, as you can see, USA is the country that ratified fewer treaties.

Even Iran ratified one treaty more than US.

Actually there is one that did worse: Bhutan, with zero of them.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#146
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I can access a book for free at a library. Why can't I read it online for free? Ultimately the answer will be about rights and really suggesting the author can put arbitrary restrictions in content that's been purchased. Those restrictions exist for financial reasons not moral. As such this is not theft in any ethical sense but a quirk of the laws. A law apparently many people disagree with...

It's not free at the library, the book was purchased with your taxes.

It was purchased a single time, just like the original e-book that you pirate.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#147
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I can access a book for free at a library. Why can't I read it online for free? Ultimately the answer will be about rights and really suggesting the author can put arbitrary restrictions in content that's been purchased. Those restrictions exist for financial reasons not moral. As such this is not theft in any ethical sense but a quirk of the laws. A law apparently many people disagree with...

It's not free at the library, the book was purchased with your taxes.

[deleted]

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FAANG got caught having a wage cartel I remember Apple and Google did. Was there a broader conspiracy? > got a measly 50 million dollar fine This $415mm settlement [1]? Its suit covered ”almost 65,000 employees who worked for the seven companies between 2005 and 2010.” The fine was thus about $6,400 per covered employee (about $8k in 2022 dollars). The alleged cut to “potential employee compensation [was] 10 percen…

> I remember Apple and Google did. Was there a broader conspiracy? I wrote FAANG cause I didn't remember all involved, which was my bad. It was Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay that got caught in the anti trust suit. Enough big players to seriously affect job opportunities and labour costs from rising. > This $415mm settlement [1]? That was the latest judge sentence, which I hadn't…

> I would argue 400 million is still low

Low, but not so low that it makes wage conspiracies worth it.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#149
post #112
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

At least the anti-democracy party didn’t name themselves after democracy. That would’ve been an even worse joke.

the point im trying to make is they both hopelessly anti-democracy.

they all love lobbying (= anti-democracy to me: the deeper pockets have more influence) there in washington

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