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How to become a pirate archivist (2022)

annas-blog.org

81–90 of 90 posts

Re: How to become a pirate archivist (2022)

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But now the bigcorps see it as a way to gain more money and control over other's lifes, so suddenly doing piracy is totally fine and for the greater good! I'm definitely about as anti-corporation as you're going to find on HN, but I'm not sure I'm seeing what you're describing. It seems like bigcorps are definitely still fighting against piracy. At the moment, players like Anna's Archive appear to be winning becaus…

> It seems like bigcorps are definitely still fighting against piracy Microsoft with OpenAI is leading the race, but all of the AI orgs are basically just laundering copyrighted material they do not have the rights to.

Sure, but I'm not sure what your intent is for bringing this up.

If your intent is to claim that this is evidence bigcorps aren't still fighting against piracy, I don't think that's true. Corporations are amoral, and it's naive to expect that they have a consistent ethical stance which they apply to themselves.

That is to say, Microsoft can be pirating everything they can get their hands on while at the same time trying to prevent anyone from pirating their intellectual property. They don't care that that's hypocritical; it's profitable and that's what matters to corporations.

Re: How to become a pirate archivist (2022)

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my own written SOPs for how I make personal back ups of commercial media I own (purchased licensed instance because you never really own it even after paying for access). In this case I enjoy maintaining a media archive but my choice of words provides a fully legal context. What I find interesting is the wildly differing approach to piracy between the RIAA and the MPAA. The music industry’s current approach is…

Is this true? From what I've read musicians are hardly making anything off of streaming whereas they used to make much more prior to the popularization of Spotify. And AFAIK Spotify has never had a profitable quarter.

Disney sends me someone else's tax forms and information every year to my Gmail address.

There's a couple spreadsheets on their royalties for songs and their streaming revenue broken out by region, then by provider. It's for multiple items that get a couple million listens a year, one song has 7 million in one month in the UK, of which "she" sees 50% revenue. Totally payout for the 7 million month? 54 cents USD.

These are songs for a mid 00s - early 10s animated TV series.

Re: How to become a pirate archivist (2022)

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's officially not recommended to use Tor for torrents. > There is no such thing as truly anonymous and safe and there never will be Of course, there are no absolutes, but there is a reasonable privacy and safety.

I was talking about TOR being anonymous not just torrents over TOR, just ask the Silk Road guy who had his IP leak afaik

He didn't have an IP leak: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)

Re: How to become a pirate archivist (2022)

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's officially not recommended to use Tor for torrents. > There is no such thing as truly anonymous and safe and there never will be Of course, there are no absolutes, but there is a reasonable privacy and safety.

If you’re doing something online, assume it’s public. > If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. - Eric Schmidt - Former Google CEO

Google wants that to be true. It doesn't mean they're right. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27897975

Re: How to become a pirate archivist (2022)

#85
post #3

Doing something highly illegal and finding a "community" and sharing it with a "friend" would be a stupid move. Don't ever disclose your name if you do something like this, unless you are in a safe country.

I have my own written SOPs for how I make personal back ups of commercial media I own (purchased licensed instance because you never really own it even after paying for access). In this case I enjoy maintaining a media archive but my choice of words provides a fully legal context. What I find interesting is the wildly differing approach to piracy between the RIAA and the MPAA. The music industry’s current approach is…

Far from me to defend DRM (which ought to be illegal), but a major reason why it's more prevalent in movies and books compared to songs and video games is likely because for the first ones they are typically only enjoyed once.

Re: How to become a pirate archivist (2022)

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't it sit right? Providing a higher level of service reward for those who support provides an incentive, yet those who do not support are no worse off than they already were. What surprises me is the need for fast downloads. Books are small. 20 fast small downloads doesn't seem much of a reward.

There's an enormous difference between spreading stolen information for free or selling stolen information for profit. If you don't understand this, you have to investigate your moral compass a bit. There's a reason why purchasing stolen goods is a crime in most of the world.

Yeah, while governments indeed do not care too much about "piracy", this raises the threat that they will do something to stop it, and the punishment will be harsher.

See also : the recent shutdown by Nintendo of a Switch emulator, where they exploited the fact that it got crowdfunded (with specific rewards for bigger backers ?).

Re: How to become a pirate archivist (2022)

#87

I often think about what digital information from the current time humans will still be able to access in 1000 years. Everyone's talking about IP law but I think future historians will be thankful for projects like this that aim to democratize knowledge and preserve it for the future

More relevant than ever ?

https://technologizer.com/2012/01/23/why-history-needs-softw...

Re: How to become a pirate archivist (2022)

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the FAQ, https://annas-archive.org/donation_faq >If you don’t like how we operate our project, go run your own shadow library! All our code and data are open source, so nothing is stopping you. ;) Or be more specific what doesn't sit right with you.

This is such a childish response to the comment. "wah if you criticize us go do your own thing we really dislike taking feedback" is absurdly naive.

On the one side, we have a group of people who have poured untold hours and cash into a project that provides almost no benefit to themselves, on the other side we have a group of people that stumble across said project and say "wah you should do things the way I want."

Which side seems childish?

Re: How to become a pirate archivist (2022)

#89
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because streaming in pretty much the distribution channel today. Even if they sell a few CDs at live shows, increasingly younger people don't even have a CD player. And very few people buy MP3s.

When the artists only get a couple hundred dollars per year from their streams, why even bother putting the music on Spotify? If your listeners don't want to buy your mp3s or CDs when that's the only option, then what's the point? Compare it to any other profession. Let's say a bricklayer decides to go work for a company. He works the entire year and builds houses for many people. Then he's paid a hundred dollars. He…

Recorded music of any kind has, for musicians, been nothing more than a way of basically advertising for quite some time now. The money is in concert tickets, which is why they go on tour so much. The record labels keep almost all the profit from streaming or CD sales, but the musicians keep a significant chunk of the money from concert tickets and merchandise sales.

Re: How to become a pirate archivist (2022)

#90
post #3

Doing something highly illegal and finding a "community" and sharing it with a "friend" would be a stupid move. Don't ever disclose your name if you do something like this, unless you are in a safe country.

Having been in this space (torrenting TV shows), the problem was taking in the money to keep the lights on. I was lucky that PayPal were aware of the scale of our operation and kept their own set of logins, but were happy to look the other way as long as it was never vocalized in phone calls or emails.

Once you have to switch to crypto for funding things get very hard as Average Joe doesn't know a damned thing about how to send you a chunk of Monero.

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