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Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

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Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#451

Post by qeternity »

franga2000 wrote: post #448
gruez wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But at the same time, their customer base in most cases are college kids. How do they expect them to pay? Student loans. When you flood an entire sector with money, it's only logical that prices go up.

> When you flood an entire sector with money, it's only logical that prices go up. Is it? The costs haven't increased and the value of money hasn't decreased. The only "logic" here is "the publishers are assholes".

> the value of money hasn't decreased

This isn't true in the slightest, not sure why you think that.

And producers don't charge what it costs them, they charge what people will pay. And if you flood consumers with capital that they can use for specific types of purchases, then you reduce their price sensitivity and prices increase.

Why do you think college tuition has soared? All people on average are greedy, it's called being a rational self actor. But not everyone gets to charge insanely inflated prices year on year...they could if they would.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#452

Post by barrenko »

akudha wrote: post #181
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 was looking for a book a while ago, it was something like $150 in the U.S. Out of curiosity, I looked up the price in other countries. It was 150 times the exchange rate. 150$ for a book is a lot of money even in the U.S. How do publishers expect other countries to pay the equivalent of 150$ (in local currency)? In many places $150 might be half the monthly salary or worse. I understand publishers and authors need…

Not only that, but the last couple of times I actually ordered and paid for a book, it never actually arrived. I can get a refund, sure, but I really needed the books.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#453

Post by [deleted] »

rg111 wrote: post #238
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…

> You can argue that people can go to the library, Where I grew up, my town library did not have any tech or programming books. Forget new jornal issues or cutting edge science books. "Just go to the library" is such a first-world-and-megacity thing to say.

[deleted]

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#454

Post by franga2000 »

qeternity wrote: post #451
franga2000 wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you flood an entire sector with money, it's only logical that prices go up. Is it? The costs haven't increased and the value of money hasn't decreased. The only "logic" here is "the publishers are assholes".

> the value of money hasn't decreased This isn't true in the slightest, not sure why you think that. And producers don't charge what it costs them, they charge what people will pay. And if you flood consumers with capital that they can use for specific types of purchases, then you reduce their price sensitivity and prices increase. Why do you think college tuition has soared? All people on average are greedy, it's ca…

Poor phrasing on my part. The value of money hasn't changed as a result of the large amount of money students have because of loans, which is what the comment was citing as a reason. Obviously inflation exists, but I've never heard it linked in any significant way to student loans and it's not nearly as high as the increase in costs of textbooks that was being discussed.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#455

Post by deafpolygon »

bentley wrote: post #429
tintor wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But for ebooks there is no such thing as second hand.

If I give a friend a copy of a DRM‐free copyrighted ebook, delete all of my own copies, and he pays me, isn’t that equivalent? It may be impractical to verify that all my copies are gone, but is there any reason it wouldn’t hold up under first sale doctrine? Any 17 U.S.C. § 109(d) experts in the house?

I'm pretty sure that the law does not permit you to re-sell digital copies. As when you purchase a digital book (DRM or not), you don't own the digital copy - you're only granted a license to use it for your own use. This license does not extend to reselling it (what your suggestion would be doing).

Physical books fall under a 'property purchase' model while ebooks fall under the 'license based' model. A good (albeit basic) read: https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/this-is-the-big-rea...

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#456

Post by idoubtit »

jcrawfordor wrote: post #425
droopyEyelids wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have no idea what you're talking about, post your comment as a question instead of a statement full of inaccurate misconceptions

Could you expand on what's inaccurate? I have honestly been very confused about all this Z-Library news because it struck me as being... well, a profit-motivated knockoff of libgen. With the number of users it has I assume it offers advantages I don't know about?

I've used both libgen and z-library to search for books over the last year. Maybe a hundred of books, mostly old fiction works (translated) in English and French (authors like Joseph Roth or Aleksandr Kouprin). Z-lib had much more results than libgen.

I've read several times that z-library is a fork of libgen and that their contents are similar, but that's not my experience at all.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#457

Post by schuke »

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…

In China it’s not even a matter of money. People already need VPN for accessing the free internet. Books are invaluable against censorship.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#458

Post by vendiddy »

Mezzie wrote: post #318
kennend3 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow Canadian i can tell you another story about our broken library system. It NEEDS to be consolidated. I live in ($smalltown$) just outside Toronto. The border between my smalltown ands the other small towns that surround me are unclear at best. Oddly enough, each smalltown has its own library system, its own staff and each for the most part has a terrible book collection. I rarely go to the library for the…

I'm actually not Canadian, I just did my MLIS there. ;) It is odd that your small towns don't have some kind of consortium agreement. There are benefits and drawbacks to having separate versus consolidated systems. Consolidated systems would, as you note, be more efficient in terms of staff costs and probably allow for materials to travel more easily. On the other hand, a consolidated system can end up only really se…

I wish libraries would go digital and rent out ebooks to people. They could pay authors based on reads.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#459

Post by michaelcampbell »

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.

Tsundoku notwithstanding, I guess.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#460

Post by SturgeonsLaw »

jmt_ wrote: post #411
stubish wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

https://www.raptitude.com/2022/01/everything-must-be-paid-fo...
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