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Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

justice.gov

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Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#171

Post by diego_moita »

phpisatrash wrote: post #167

Me and my colleagues will be affected by the end of Z library and co related projects. Here in Brazil and for sure in most second and third world countries, people don't have money to spend in books. You can argue that people can go to the library, but in most cases it's even expensive to take a bus or taxi even a Uber. I'm a law student at an university in brazil. Law books are really expensive. Even though my unive…

What could be more Brazilian than law students breaking the law in order to be able to understand the law?

Sounds like those specimens collectors from the 19th century that helped on the extinction of species (e.g. dodo bird, great auk) by collecting and embalming them for "preservation".

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#172

Post by burkaman »

dimva wrote: post #84
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…

Wage theft is committed by millions of employers, this "theft" was committed by just a few people. While I agree with your general sentiment, the resources required to prosecute wage theft would be vastly greater than to prosecute this case. That being said, they should definitely prosecute wage theft much more than they are now. Maybe the fear of jail time if wage theft were actually prosecuted a few times would det…

I don't really agree, prosecuting all wage theft would be an enormous effort, but this story is not about prosecuting all book "theft", just one case. The argument is that the resources spent on this one case would have been better spent on investigating and prosecuting wage theft, not solving the entire issue.

Also, wage theft seems to be a much simpler thing to prosecute. You don't have to investigate the owners of anonymous websites or track down any foreign nationals, just show up to a job site, see how long people are working, see how much they're paid, and prosecute if the numbers don't match. Obviously I'm exaggerating, but it's a much more tangible, sort of "old-fashioned" crime, one I would imagine the FBI is pretty good at solving.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#173

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

zb1plus wrote: post #71
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.

>It is disgraceful how our tax dollars are used to prop up failed business models and oppress the little guy

U.S. Government Spending, FY 2022 Top 10 Spending by Category

$ 1.22 T Social Security

$ 914 B Health

$ 865 B Income Security

$ 767 B National Defense

$ 755 B Medicare

$ 677 B Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services

How do you explain this data?

Source:https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#174

Post by lettergram »

phpisatrash wrote: post #167

Me and my colleagues will be affected by the end of Z library and co related projects. Here in Brazil and for sure in most second and third world countries, people don't have money to spend in books. You can argue that people can go to the library, but in most cases it's even expensive to take a bus or taxi even a Uber. I'm a law student at an university in brazil. Law books are really expensive. Even though my unive…

> I do know that the writers and publishers have costs and they need to make money, but I don't agree with the fact that we have to pay to have knowledge. It's more like if we don't have money, we can't have knowledge.

For all human history, access to knowledge requires wealth. Simple example — If I want to know how to fix a particular old refrigerator I bought second hand, I need to buy the manual.

That said, I enjoy the story of Jesus feeding hundreds of people with a few fish and a couple loaves of bread. I point out the story is also a parable. Jesus is somehow duplicating the fish and bread to feed the crowd. Isn’t this similar to knowledge? Should we not spread knowledge in a similar way if it’s of no cost to us? If you say “no, the author needs to be paid!” Then I ask, “is not the fisherman and baker missing out on profit from the sale of fish and bread?”

It always brings an interesting discussion around this topic. Fundamentally, I agree knowledge should be free. I post my blogs for free for this very reason. If I need to make money, I do work, sell products; etc.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#175

Post by HideousKojima »

diego_moita wrote: post #171
phpisatrash wrote: post #167

Me and my colleagues will be affected by the end of Z library and co related projects. Here in Brazil and for sure in most second and third world countries, people don't have money to spend in books. You can argue that people can go to the library, but in most cases it's even expensive to take a bus or taxi even a Uber. I'm a law student at an university in brazil. Law books are really expensive. Even though my unive…

What could be more Brazilian than law students breaking the law in order to be able to understand the law? Sounds like those specimens collectors from the 19th century that helped on the extinction of species (e.g. dodo bird, great auk) by collecting and embalming them for "preservation".

Yes, there used to be massive herds of law textbooks roaming under the canopies of the Amazon, but thanks to Z-library's irresponsible book-hunting and conservation methods they have become a very rare sight. The only remaining herds are in the Oxford University Press/Scholastic//Wiley/Houghton Mifflin textbook preserve located just outside of Brasilia.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#176

Post by xtracto »

A lot of the typical and expected takes for these sort of discussions:

- on one side, people who are in favour of the arrests , because they see their a activities as crimes. They have point

- on the other side people that one way or another, believe that the distribution of the information should be free in some sense. Justifications always abound. A d it's Ok

I offer a third take: Theres no reason why authors should be perpetually paid for the work of 500/1000 hours, or whatever time it took them to write the books; research time included. Publishing a book should give authors, editors and related parties the compensation for their worked time at a fair hourly wage. The same way you a I are compensated hourly.

After that, the only cost of books should be distribution costs, which nowadays are near to 0 with p2p and similar.

The fact that the work output of some people is intended to be overpaid indefinitely, while the output of the rest of us is only paid hourly, is what's unfair.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#177

Post by Barrin92 »

connorgutman wrote: post #142
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…

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 effecti…

If you're pirating Stephen King or a 300$ textbook from a guy who has tenure at Harvard I doubt anyone probably including the author cares but a fair amount of authors aren't making any more than you make.

Friend of mine published her own graphic novel basically living in her parents attic and a day after it was out someone had ripped it and thrown it on a comic piracy site. That's not ethical.

If you live on a 12-15/hour salary which I have too you still can afford the occassional book here and there, you can't tell me you spend zero on recreational stuff. I don't care if anyone fleeces Marvel studios but if people start pirating independent works from people no better off, often worse, that's iffy.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#179

Post by Clent »

phpisthebest wrote: post #66
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…

>>Would you rather have funds allocated towards social justice or have them spent on intimidating foreign nationals I would rather the justice department, and labor dept choose their targets for non-political reasons, neither for "social justice" nor corporate protectionism

What do you mean by 'social justice' and the implication it is a bad thing?

I postulate, labor justice is social justice.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#180

Post by FormerBandmate »

lettergram wrote: post #174
phpisatrash wrote: post #167

Me and my colleagues will be affected by the end of Z library and co related projects. Here in Brazil and for sure in most second and third world countries, people don't have money to spend in books. You can argue that people can go to the library, but in most cases it's even expensive to take a bus or taxi even a Uber. I'm a law student at an university in brazil. Law books are really expensive. Even though my unive…

> I do know that the writers and publishers have costs and they need to make money, but I don't agree with the fact that we have to pay to have knowledge. It's more like if we don't have money, we can't have knowledge. For all human history, access to knowledge requires wealth. Simple example — If I want to know how to fix a particular old refrigerator I bought second hand, I need to buy the manual. That said, I enjo…

Theoretically if Jesus duplicated fish and bread on an industrial scale, yeah, it would. Also, labor still needs to be put in to make the products, all piracy does is make it incredibly easy to make additional copies.

There’s a reason musicians have to constantly tour and the middle class of music has entirely degraded since the 90s

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