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Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

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Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#321

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…

Most of the cost of a book is not the physical pulp or ink that went into making the book, it is in the editing, typesetting, and marketing that went into making the book ready for sale, so ebooks generally should not be much cheaper than physical books.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#323
I believe that copyright should be reformed, and all books must be available for free in the digital form. If there would be fewer books, well, there are more than enough fiction books than one can read in the hundred lifetimes. Technical/science books, and crucial technical information contained in them can be made available as paid web services, or authors could be funded prior to writing it - via crowdfunding, grants, or by irresistible graphomania.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#326
My first thought on this is that the people who download books from these sites were never going to buy them in the first place. This is particularly true if they engaged in downloading dozens or hundreds of books. In other words, not sure just how much money anyone lost because of the existence of these sites.

If someone is never going to buy what you sell (let's say they can't afford it) and they are able to get it for free in digital form, you did not incur any expenses and you did not lose any money.

I am not trying to justify IP theft, just trying to understand the financial reality of the matter.

At the extreme is the case of an author who produces a great book after over a year of hard work only to see 100% of the books stolen in digital form. The author has a household to support and goes without income.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#328
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two questions: (1) there are torrent backups of LibGen, right? (2) If (1) is true, then I can download a book with a magnet link, and they'd have to arrest hundreds or thousands of people all over the world to prevent it. The UI for for finding and downloading a single file from a massive torrent is not very good in any torrent client I've used, but how hard of a problem is that really? Is there not tremendous value…

It's a big problem for extending the library. And torrenting is inherently less safe than downloading through a browser.

Why would torrenting be less safe?

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#329

Too many Copyright defenders here, mandatory "the intellectual property oxymoron" read: http://harmful.cat-v.org/economics/intellectual_property/

I don't think it was your intention, but your language is unnecessarily inflammatory.

People who don't share your opinion are allowed to be here. Even if there are more of those people than you'd like.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

> but about who benefits from government spending

Elon Musk? And, if you count foregoing taxes as spending, Jeff Bezos?

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