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Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

justice.gov

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Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#271

Post by zerotolerance »

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…

I'm an author. Steal my book. The whole point of writing is to hopefully help anyone learn something that you've shared. Authors aren't writing for the money those who do are selling at such volumes that they'll never even notice the dip. In most cases they'd be trying to get blood from stone.

Steal it every time.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#272

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

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…

> completely outside US jurisdiction

> The pair was arrested on November 3, 2022 in Cordoba, Argentina at the request of the United States.

The government of Argentina disagrees.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#273

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

primroot wrote: post #262
zb1plus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all." - Adam Smith

We're not talking about security of property here but about who benefits from government spending.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#274

Post by RHSeeger »

josh_fyi wrote: post #111

I was delighted when my book showed up on Z-library! I of course was never paid for authoring that book; indeed I paid a subvention to publish it with Harvard University Press. At some point, the rights were sold to the giant publisher Brill, which was charging $30 per chapter for a book that has no value by chapter. Luckily, some kind soul at University of Marburg uploaded it and Library Genesis still has it. https:…

If you didn't get paid for writing the book, how did the copyright transfer to someone else (so that they could sell it)? Or the transferable rights to print/distribute it, if that's what we're talking about here.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#275

Post by mmmlinux »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #104
theCrowing wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Maybe I'm thinking wrong but I expected digital editions of books to be like $3 or something since there are no printing/shipping costs of the equivalent printed book. In the old analog world, authors might expect 15% of gross sales. You figure the publisher needed the 85% to cover printing, shipping of the physical book. (Oh, and they should make a profit there too.) But if you no longer have to deal with pulp, I wo…

Download video games have the same issue. same price as physical release, cant resell it, never goes on sale, still the same price it started at 4 years later when a physical copy is 50% discounted. Already have a physical copy? no you cant download it.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#276

Post by chis »

dchuk wrote: post #219

(Hypothetically) Couldn’t this concept be built out in a much more decentralized way, where there’s a desktop app you install that is basically a BitTorrent client and a search interface, and then the app synchronizes with all other desktop apps to keep a SQLite database updated with all of the book meta data, and then each user also contributes some amount of disk space (let’s say 1gb) that the app automatically man…

You also need a system to manage books coming in, separating spam/viruses from real content. You either need a centralized source verifying books (zlib and usenet approach) or some kind of voting system like thepiratebay. If it's a centralized source, that'll be the weak point to take down, and voting systems won't work well for unpopular books.

Last I checked there were some pretty good usenet servers flying under the radar with even more books than z-lib, manually curated. So there might not be enough demand for your idea at the moment.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#277

Post by TremendousJudge »

sabellito wrote: post #38
smeagull wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's human culture. The idea that it should be the sole provenance of rich multi-nationals to decide who can afford to read is disgusting. It should all be freely accessible. Removing money from the equation would also solve other quality issues.

How would the authors pay rent?

A huge majority of book authors (especially for technical writing) are not professional authors, and barely get any money from book sales. Ask any university professor that has had a book published.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#278

Post by kranke155 »

bombcar wrote: post #210
denvrede wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: I always hear about the gigantic military spending in the U.S. I would've expected it to be on top of this list. It can't be only 7. no?

US military spending is HUGE compared to other countries budgets. It is not that big compared to the US budget - in WW2 we spent about 45% of GDP on military stuff - if that was done today we'd have a budget of about ten trillion dollars . Also much of what is classified as military spending could probably be moved to other categories - the VA, for example.

Wow. Imagine the Manhattan Projects you could make with ten trillion!

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#279

Post by crtasm »

0xR1CK wrote: post #19
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 volunt…

I don't believe they ran adverts, can anyone confirm?

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#280

Post by aquariusDue »

connorgutman wrote: post #237
trabant00 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to pretend you are serious and genuine so: - living wages in the US are something most of the rest of world only dreams about. And most can afford to buy a book once in a while, even new (of course it depends on the book). Source: eastern Europe. - second hand and library books have generated revenue for the author already. Going full piracy and decreasing demand for the those two hurts the author, hurts th…

I am absolutely genuine, and I think you do not understand the average American. The rest of the world may dream about our wages but it's still putting lipstick on a pig. Most the people I know can't even feed their families right now, let alone buy a book for pleasure. I'm not sure where you are getting your information from but the lives of college-educated middle-class Americans and above are not representative of…

I agree with you, even if it is unethical to pirate books I'd make the case that pirating books you can't afford to buy is what helped a non-trivial amount of people escape the generational cycle of poverty. In this particular case, stealing knowledge for a chance at a better career, the end might justify the means.

Programmers from poor countries and poor backgrounds are were they are today making a good living from this career probably because of torrents with collections of programming books back from 10 years ago or more when free video learning on YouTube wasn't as developed as it is today.

I made some sweeping generalizations but I hope I got my point across at least. This criminal avenue of pirating books and stealing potential revenue from authors is what allows some people to enjoy a better living.

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