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Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

justice.gov

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Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#301

Post by artificial »

kranke155 wrote: post #278
bombcar wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (equivalent to about $23 billion in 2020). We're nearing $100 billion with Ukraine. $31 billion to California EDD (unemployment) fraud.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#302

Post by sombragris »

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…

> e-books can be purchased pretty much anywhere in the world

That would be true if and only if there's an ebook version for the book you want.

There are lots of books (even essential works for some fields) out there for which there are no legal ebooks. Your only hope would be to get a digitized PDF from zlibrary or libgen. Even if you had the cash to spare for purchasing it, you can't.

One interesting case is what happened with books such as James Livingston's "Modern Christian Thought" (Fortress Press). I need it as an ebook. Well, they have (and I have purchased) volume I as an ebook, but they have Volume II only as paperback.

I reached out to the publisher to inquire whether they are going to release Volume II as an ebook. Someone there answered, telling me that they "forgot" to release Volume II in electronic format, and that they plan to release it "soon". I'm still waiting...

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#303

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

calibas wrote: post #250
Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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-fin…

According to a different official government site, it's $1.2 T on National Defense... https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function

Thanks for that link. It also shows medicare as increased to $1.5 T

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#304

Post by jiveturkey »

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…

Sleep deprivation of just 10 min per night across the entire USA adult population of 330M is 3.3Bn minutes, is over 6 thousand YEARS of sleep related fatigue, etc. PER NIGHT

Can you imagine if we attacked that problem in earnest?

My point, obviously, is that 50 billion is nothing on a per capita basis. This arrest is very high leverage, and very effective use of resources.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#305

Post by connorgutman »

wang_li wrote: post #296
connorgutman wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Median household income in the US in 2022 is $78,000. The average American has adequate income and can't justify pirating movies, books, music, porn, etc. on the basis of poverty.

That is a wildly skewed outlook. The per-capita income in America is $35,000 (https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/SEX255221). Household income, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, includes the gross cash income of all people ages 15 years or older occupying the same housing unit, regardless of how they are related, if at all. Meaning my household income is somewhere above $100K because I have 3 roommates. Typically, the lower your income the more roommates you have. Median household income is a useless figure for determining how well the average American is doing.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#306

Post by skyyler »

inshadows wrote: post #191
andsoitis wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they don’t profit?

Who cares. Don't be a free-loader.

I find it interesting that zlib is supposed to be compensated for their servers but the authors aren't supposed to be compensated for their writings.

Personally, I'm in support of zlib / libgen / other illegalist libraries. But it is kind of funny to see where the morality lies on this.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#307

Post by CyanBird »

ankaAr wrote: post #88
untech wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Argentina on the first glance would look “safe” to me, as South American nations seem in general not very pro-US. Live and learn, I guess. TIL that all South American countries have these extradition agreements. I feel bad for the arrested; even if their values were not pristine. Punishments for these kind of “offences” seem extremely harsh to me, being grown in a copyright-unaware climate.

Where is "not very pro-america"?! Maybe not the actual government, but from saving in dollars to travelling we are very pro-american. If we divide the world in pro-america, pro-europe, pro-rusia, pro-china, for us is Europe and America, and very far away the other options. So, bad luck for this guy. Bro, Che Guevara died decades ago...

> Where is "not very pro-america"?!

Brazil left despises the US after the coup. Bolivian right wants more US help to do another

Venezuela gov despises the US

Chilean left looks down on the US

Argentinian left is not US friendly, at most could be seen as transactional with the US. They really need help from world bank and imf

Bolivian left abhors the US, Bolivian right wants US support for a new coup

Paraguay is just doing its drug smuggling like they always do

Uruguay is in the process of signing a free trade agreement with China while US southern command is trying to avoid it from happening

Peruvian left is not friendly to US, Peruvian right has been working with US assistance against Peruvian left for a while to try and kneecap it

Ecuador is famously very anti-US and wouldn't deport Assange until he became excessibly annoying to deal with in the embassy

Colombia is a US puppet oligarchy. New gov is interesting, but it is still an oligarchy

Panama is a defacto neo-colony of the US

Puerto Rico is a literal colony of the US

Centro América with exception of México is a mishmash of neo-colonies literally using USD as their base currencies or detest the US in some form

So yeah...

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#308

Post by jiveturkey »

Does anyone know if when FBI/DOJ seizes domain names, do they only do so when an arrest is imminent? It's quite obvious in this case that it was allowed to remain operational while they were investigating. I wonder if that's the general MO for domain seizures. Because there are just tons of domains that should be seized that are still operating. Why don't those get taken down? No way FBI/etc aren't aware of these.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#310

Post by mrkramer »

I had an idea for books shop website where you would buy a book and get it in paperback, audiobook and e-book form all at once(bundle). Ofc it would be bit pricey but readers could swap between formats at will and writers would be more rewarded and subsidized. Would anybody use it?

Somebody who pirates books in the e-form maybe would want to enjoy it in paperback and audio form as well?

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