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Z-Library to let users share physical books

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Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books

#61

Post by infinityio »

leobg wrote: post #38
kristopolous wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Right. This is silly. I’m wondering: If it’s 80 years out of print, is it still protected by copyright at all? The thing with copyright is, it seems to me: You cannot ask for them to change the rules. You just have to break them. Imagine Google had asked copyright lawyers if they could build their search engine. Crawling other peoples websites, keeping an index of their content, and then make people come to Google be…

Worth noting that Google tried (and failed) to solve this specific problem

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-t...

Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books

#62

Post by vba616 »

Mezzie wrote: post #57
blackoil wrote: post #8

What 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 b…

Used books appear to me to be largely unaffordable these days due to the internet creating a global market.

If an obscure out of print book costs $500, because (my hypothesis is) it is priced for the single most desperate buyer in the world, then the market for used books no longer has any relationship to my life or needs.

On the other hand, if there are only a dozen people who would buy it at say $5 then it's not in anyone's interest to reprint it. And if someone did reprint it but didn't do the labor intensive part of editing the scan, it would hardly be worth it - so I'm sure even free isn't cheap.

So, I mean, I will do without. Just like I did without Napster back in the day. But people should ask themselves if this is the dystopia we want, and who is serving who. If the Patent and Copyright Clause verbiage in the US Constitution meant what it said, and if markets serve society too.

Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books

#63

Post by petra »

kennethologist wrote: post #58
codetrotter wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

bookscan.us has a book scanning service for $1/300 pages.

There's a bit of friction though. It could be much simpler.

Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books

#64

Post by emptybits »

patcon wrote: post #34
bitwize wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little Free Libraries are the USA equivalent: https://littlefreelibrary.org My wife has constructed, and contributed to, a few of these. I see them around town, even in residential areas; and, as you say, there is almost no vandalism or abuse.

You might be interested in how Little Free Library has been taken over by a misguided board of directors https://nothingintherulebook.com/2019/11/15/listen-to-the-pe...

LittleFreeLibrary.org applied for trademark control of “wooden boxes with a storage area for books”. Additionally, LittleFreeLibrary.org now stakes claim to word variations beyond their trademarked name “Little Free Library”, such as “little library” and “little libraries”.

From a beautiful idea in 2009 to these terrible ideas now. :-(

Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books

#66

Post by causality0 »

Z-Library envisions a book 'sharing' market, where its millions of users can pick up paperbacks at dedicated "Z-Points" around the globe.

Has this ever worked out? By "this" I mean some online entity that's only or mostly involved in less than legal activities saying they're going to launch some massive real-world project? I feel like it's less a way to accomplish something in the real world or even to generate press attention, but actually just self-fueling hype. The non-legal project is manned by mostly unpaid activists, who are motivated by a shared philosophy, which must be driven by willpower. That will to continue on is bolstered by hype, and these announcements are a way to self-generate hype.

Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books

#67

Post by UncleEntity »

> According to Z-Library, users will be able to send books by mail. These can then be loaned by others and/or sent by mail when requested.

Like the old e-tree where they would send someone a CD, they’d make a copy and send it on to the next person.

Never actually used it because by the time I got into the jam bands I already had good enough internets to just download stuff but it was still operational circa 1999 — guessing for folks without broadband.

Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books

#68

Post by 35208654 »

leobg wrote: post #38
kristopolous wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Right. This is silly. I’m wondering: If it’s 80 years out of print, is it still protected by copyright at all? The thing with copyright is, it seems to me: You cannot ask for them to change the rules. You just have to break them. Imagine Google had asked copyright lawyers if they could build their search engine. Crawling other peoples websites, keeping an index of their content, and then make people come to Google be…

> The thing with copyright is, it seems to me: You cannot ask for them to change the rules. You just have to break them.

Absolutely. Break them and support the people who facilitate the disobedience. Fuck the copyright lobby, fuck publishers, and fuck anyone who gets in the way of me reading what I want in whatever form I want.

The people who are preventing you from reading what you want in the form you want it are not protecting some sacred system of authorship reward. They have no ethos. They are simply protecting the interest of their masters, for pay.

Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books

#69

Post by blackoil »

Mezzie wrote: post #57
blackoil wrote: post #8

What 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 b…

My thoughts are publishers won't be interested in suing such a library. Courts would be lenient and public support stronger. But once you start sharing bestsellers economics changes for everyone.

Re: Z-Library to let users share physical books

#70

Post by Mezzie »

blackoil wrote: post #69
Mezzie wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

My thoughts are publishers won't be interested in suing such a library. Courts would be lenient and public support stronger. But once you start sharing bestsellers economics changes for everyone.

15-20 years ago, I would have agreed with you.

Now I absolutely disagree. The primary thing keeping them from suing would have been the optics of the situation: Suing the local library or the small group trying to keep knowledge alive would look bad. That's less of a factor now, and suing the small guys in order to ram through judicial precedent they can wield like a cudgel later would be too tempting.

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