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Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

justice.gov

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Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#411

Post by jmt_ »

stubish wrote: post #401
Balgair wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of how Orwell preferred to write introductions to 1984 only for illegal reprints behind the iron curtain. I can't find the exact quote but he said that he'd write it for that audience alone as he knew without a doubt that they would read his introduction. If I ever actually write a book, I hope I have enough courage to do the same and only write introductions for cracked copies. You know the audience actua…

The dynamics are completely different to printed books, which need to be purchased by the reader. Cracked e-books are downloaded in bulk and often never read or replaced by another 'free' book when the first few pages don't engage sufficiently. It isn't unusual for someone to get an ebook reader, have a mate fill its storage with best sellers or a genre dump, and never ever download a new title or even know how.

Don't remember where I saw this but: "The act of purchasing physical books and the act of reading them are two entirely different hobbies and practices".

Additionally, if someone downloads your book for free, and barely reads it, as you suggest, have they _really_ done much more than picking up the book in person, scanning the table of contents, reading some pages in particular, then setting the book back down? What you're describing sounds like the digital version of what I used to do at physical bookstores; it seems a less compelling argument against what the z-lib founders were doing, not more.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#412

Post by dpedu »

hggh wrote: post #223
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…

The Z Library is still alive, as a TOR Hidden Service: http://zlibrary24tuxziyiyfr7zd46ytefdqbqd2axkmxm4o5374ptpc52...

There is also a ~28TB torrent with ~6M books within it.

https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ymiwzs/zlibrar...

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#413

Post by Psyladine »

connorgutman wrote: post #206
deafpolygon wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What people fail to realize is that ebooks sometimes cost libraries more money than physical books. The libraries buy them with cost of degradation in mind, so after x number of lends, they have to repurchase the book in order to keep making it available to their patrons. This is how they're able to make an agreement with the publisher in order to legally provide you with a digital lending library.

IMO (having worked at a public library) the vast majority of inventory is donated second-hand books.

Careful there, you might burst the libertarian-leaning conceit behind the "difference" between libraries & unregulated e-books: if libraries didn't already exist today with centuries of tradition in their foundations, the very suggestion of an institution like them would be met with howls of the inevitable destruction of the written word and bankrupting of our already starved wordsmiths.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#414

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #396
kneebonian wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not be direct subsidiaries but I'd be willing to wager a pretty penny that there are a lot of European countries that feel comfortable with spending little on defense and aren't worrying about Russia because they know the US has their back. Not to mention keeping Taiwan from being brought under the CCP umbrella, the efforts the US Navy puts into preventing and reducing piracy. In fact most of the world that do…

The pledge - which wasn’t signed was for 2% - nobody is afraid of Russia at this point and Poland alone could very well handle any Russian army if this war is any indication. Of what the US spends on NATO, very little goes to smaller nations. In exchange, the US has legal bases and troops deployed in other countries without fear of retaliation, do you grasp how much power the US gets to project through this? Probably…

>decided to invade Middle East for oil

You mostly had me until this point. Did you know there is more oil in the US than Iraq and Afghanistan combined? Do you have any data on the number of oil rigs set up during the invasion? Who gets this oil by the way? Do you know how many trillions were spent in Afghanistan and Iraq? More than it's GDP of the entire period the US was there. Please provide some source for this claim. If anything, the US would invade a country just to "stretch it's legs" and keep the machine running.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#415

Post by dredmorbius »

atyppo wrote: post #407
dredmorbius wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long that remains the case with at least two of its principals arrested may be somewhat uncertain. Any present operator(s) and site(s) would have to remain outside the reach of US or other Western jurisdiction and extradition treaties.

They were arrested on the 3rd, not today. It's just that the indictment was unsealed today.

My point remains.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#416

Post by wang_li »

pessimizer wrote: post #381
wang_li wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The US has the largest gap between its top earners and everyone else. The Netherlands actually surpasses the US for GDP per-capita of the bottom 99%, and the difference between Germany and the US narrows considerably. https://blogs.worldbank.org/psd/removing-oligarchs-from-per-... I wonder what would happen if you removed the top 10%, other than that 99% of the people posting on HN wouldn't be counted.

A. The economy is not zero sum. Lebron James making lots of money doesn't take anything away from you.

B. Median: the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. It's not an average, there are no outliers dragging the median up. It's just an ordered listing and then looking at the one in the middle and seeing how much they make per year. If you removed all the billionaires and their income from the chart it wouldn't change the median income at all because the position of the median would only move 350 places. If you took away the top ten percent the median position would shift to the left 5% and the median annual income decreases a few thousand dollars per year. But in no way is the typical American living in poverty and desperation. (Turns out that only 11% of the US live in poverty.)

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#417

Post by michaelmrose »

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.

This context free numbers isn't illustrative or even useful. The world isn't populated by median Americans earning median salaries in a median cost of living area. Imagine 5 households in areas where the poverty line for their household size are 30k 50k and 70k 70k 70k

We have could have learned from the sample that the majority live in areas where wages are higher but so are costs of living and the median value is 70k which seems like a lot of money until we figure out that rent alone costs most of this money and all parties are on food stamps. This also ignores just how far below that median value many of the bottom half actually are. The bottom half lest we forget is 169 million Americans many just getting by as their entire segment of the population shares about 10% of the total income and virtually none of its wealth. None of these facts about the actual distribution of wealth and income is captured by looking at a median income and making up a fiction about what an imaginary American can afford.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#418

Post by michaelmrose »

wang_li wrote: post #416
pessimizer wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US has the largest gap between its top earners and everyone else. The Netherlands actually surpasses the US for GDP per-capita of the bottom 99%, and the difference between Germany and the US narrows considerably. https://blogs.worldbank.org/psd/removing-oligarchs-from-per-... I wonder what would happen if you removed the top 10%, other than that 99% of the people posting on HN wouldn't be counted.

A. The economy is not zero sum. Lebron James making lots of money doesn't take anything away from you. B. Median: the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. It's not an average, there are no outliers dragging the median up. It's just an ordered listing and then looking at the one in the middle and seeing how much they make per year. If you r…

How do you define poverty? The federal poverty line is a figure that where most people live would afford you a fine living commuting between your 2 jobs and your tent living as a hobo and the public library where you give yourself a sponge bath.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#419

Post by michaelmrose »

wang_li wrote: post #297
connorgutman wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a logical race to the bottom that makes me think you have never checked out a book from a US library. If you were to calculate how much an author makes from their book being in libraries it's miniscule. For starters most library books are donated secondhand and not purchased new by libraries. Secondly, most libraries only have a single copy of a given book unless it is a major title (It's not uncommon for wait…

>A more productive approach would be to publicly fund authors but according to Americans that's filthy communism. That's how you get books written by authors who are good at filling out government forms, not books written by good authors. See the many terrible pieces of public art that is required in many places as part of public construction projects as an example of what I'm talking about.

Couldn't you give people emailed tokens to give in token to authors?

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#420

Post by michaelmrose »

gamblor956 wrote: post #321
JKCalhoun wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you substantiate that?
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