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I wish they would have done a bit more research and explanation here. Book lending it not new, but the focus on best sellers is rather recent. Libraries spend a majority of their ebook budget on best sellers which is unfortunate.
Z-Library to let users share physical books
51–60 of 84 posts
Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why mail physical books around when all you need is their content? Because physically mailing books is not copyright infringement. Physically mailing books provides a legal way of sharing the contents of books with more people.
Well we need to change copyright then. I really only care about out of print and rare materials. Passing around a book through the mail that's been out of print for 80 years is rather dangerous when you care about its preservation. For some reason we legally treat these as identical to some mass market paperback trade of say diary of a wimpy kid and that's stupid. If we care about research, preservation of materials,…
Yeah, copyright laws on infinitely reproducible material (whose original author is likely already dead) is one of those laws I don’t intend on upkeeping and will torrent/download any such book if available without any moral objections.
Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books
#53I wonder if the benefits of having physical copies of books will outweigh the expense, difficulty, and risk/exposure of running a miniature version of Amazons logistics network.
Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books
#54The copyright police will fall on this like a ton of bricks. Publishers already hate libraries (yes they do), the last thing they want is more of them.
It reminds me of AOI series[1] where they were stopped by the planet-scale war/rebellion. The book series is so-so, but a good cautionary tale and few interesting ideas. I am afraid those devils that calling themselves publishers won't stop before crossing any line just to keep their reign.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/series/169314-the-justar-journal
Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Scanning a book is as easy as ordering a second hand copy in Amazon to be sent to a book scanning service. But at that price, why bother scanning if you can buy it ?
I never thought of that. Digital has lots of advantages. You can have it with you at all times on your phone. You can use text to speech. You can export your highlights. Soon, people are going to want to ask ChatGPT about content from books they read, as well as highlights and comments they added. A physical copy is the worst format that I would personally consider buying. I only do that when I cannot get a digital v…
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Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books
#56They should just make it easier for people to scan books. Or give incentives. Why mail physical books around when all you need is their content? Or just get people to upload photos from the backs of the books in their library. Then extract from those the titles. Match them up against books that are missing in the digital library and are being requested by users. Then send a message to the owner and ask them to scan t…
> Why mail physical books around when all you need is their content? Because physically mailing books is not copyright infringement. Physically mailing books provides a legal way of sharing the contents of books with more people.
Also it's illegal in at least one major national jurisdiction to fuck with people's mail (US). Which means that ironically if you're going to break the law, using the mail isn't a terrible idea.
Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books
#57What we need is a library that focuses only on out of print out difficult to get books. We don't need Harry Potter and likes on it. There are a million legal/illegal ways to get them.
Unfortunately, books aren't abandonware. Legally, sitting on the rights to something is allowed. The odds of such a thing being allowed are low, particularly in this age of reboots, adaptations, etc. One of my favorite book series is basically book abandonware and the rights have always been retained so that things like graphic novels, shitty TV shows, etc. are a possibility.
Allowing out of print, difficult to get books to be lent or shared freely means that you can't reprint them to turn the money machine back on, or try to modernize them. It's the age of books as "IP" instead of books.
Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books
#58They should just make it easier for people to scan books. Or give incentives. Why mail physical books around when all you need is their content? Or just get people to upload photos from the backs of the books in their library. Then extract from those the titles. Match them up against books that are missing in the digital library and are being requested by users. Then send a message to the owner and ask them to scan t…
> send a message to the owner and ask them to scan this particular book. Scanning books take a lot of time. And making an actual high quality scan of a book is difficult even if you have a good scanner. Physically sharing books could make it so that important books eventually get it into the hands of people with the right expertise and equipment to efficiently produce stellar quality digital scans of the book.
You can use a device like www.czur.com to scan a book pretty fast and have a perfect pdf/epub version in under 30 minutes.
Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books
#59This is not new: https://www.bookcrossing.com/
Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Scanning a book is as easy as ordering a second hand copy in Amazon to be sent to a book scanning service. But at that price, why bother scanning if you can buy it ?
I never thought of that. Digital has lots of advantages. You can have it with you at all times on your phone. You can use text to speech. You can export your highlights. Soon, people are going to want to ask ChatGPT about content from books they read, as well as highlights and comments they added. A physical copy is the worst format that I would personally consider buying. I only do that when I cannot get a digital v…
YMMV but I dislike referencing through digital formats like pdf. With a hardcopy I can bookmark various pages and very easily thumb through / reference it. Searching for exact text is slow though, so I try to acquire both types if I get a hardcopy.
For my e-ink tablet/reader, I use an onyx boox and a kobo.