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Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

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Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#161

Post by Barrin92 »

SimianSci wrote: post #65
oguz-ismail wrote: post #49

> We recommend not using them I've been using WeLib since April and had a good experience so far

If efforts like this are to be sustainable in any lasting way, participants need to be cooperative, not parasitic. I agree with the Anna's Archive team, it serves noone to have one of these players in the space hoarding their own collections and not sharing them to other archiving projects, it make the collection extremely vulnerable and at risk of becoming lost knowledge as time goes on.

>If efforts like this are to be sustainable in any lasting way, participants need to be cooperative, not parasitic

that is an odd demand for a site that thrives on piracy. Don't steal from the thieves? When you take from others it's liberation, when others take from you it's parasitic, that's certainly a convenient coincidence

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#162

Post by _DeadFred_ »

neilv wrote: post #130

People like this, because people like free stuff, and like to rationalize getting free stuff. Occasionally, someone who likes free stuff styles themself a freedom fighter, though their values do not otherwise seem to extend beyond getting free stuff. Some AI company techbros like this data trove even harder, and limit their pretending to publicly saying things like "we're changing the world" (and "AI could be bad if…

Don't forget the video piracy thread had a lot of justification to the effect of 'the people that work on these shows/movies don't get paid enough anyways, so it's ok for me to pirate'. Wait, so you think they should get paid more for their work, this what they do is worth being paid for, just not by you? Weirdest flex.

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#163

Post by ethbr1 »

crowcroft wrote: post #97
lysace wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What are social security numbers if not just another bit of information that wants to be free? Or perhaps you are saying that people that have an interest in the availability of particular information should have some control on that information's freedom...

The idea that any widely transmitted identifiers' confidentiality should be its primary method of security is asinine.

The failure of any exploit regarding SSNs or the like is not on the offending party, but on each using party's failure to implement even a modicum of actual security.

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#164

Post by agentcoops »

neilv wrote: post #130

People like this, because people like free stuff, and like to rationalize getting free stuff. Occasionally, someone who likes free stuff styles themself a freedom fighter, though their values do not otherwise seem to extend beyond getting free stuff. Some AI company techbros like this data trove even harder, and limit their pretending to publicly saying things like "we're changing the world" (and "AI could be bad if…

I share your concern for the livelihood of authors (and your skepticism regarding the naiveté that often surrounds pro-piracy rhetoric), but I don't think that's fair to the question here. Unlike in the case of music or film, most users are not just trying to get the latest NY Times best-selling novel. The percent of books made accessible through these services that are tied to an author's income through consumer sales is negligible. Most specialist literature, whether in the natural sciences or the humanities, is priced under the assumption that university libraries are the ones making the purchase, often more or less automatically. Yet even and perhaps especially in the US (I know nothing of the library culture in certain sanctioned countries), it's increasingly rare that university libraries have open stacks for non-students and there are incredibly few public libraries that actually provide access to scholarly works, past or present -- New York Public Library and the Library of Congress in DC are the ones I've used personally, but I'm sure there are a handful of others.

Moreover, however many countless AI companies now buying and pulping copies of every book in existence seems to be really changing the used book market. Prices are going up dramatically and before this year it was very rare to not find a single copy in the world of whatever old book one desired.

As someone who spends a disproportionate amount on books and shares your concern for not making life even more difficult for authors, these services going away would be a tremendous regression.

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#165

Post by Wowfunhappy »

lolive wrote: post #140

I choose the books I buy, from Anna's Archive. I choose the comics I buy from readComicsOnline. I choose the [european] graphic novels I buy from #WONTTELL. And I am one of the best customers of these 3 physical shops, in my town. So sure, I don't buy the latest trends based on ads. I investigate a lot to buy GREAT stuff. Sometimes the shopkeeper has headaches to find the obscure stuff I discovered online that NOBODY…

> Am I an exception?

Yes, I think you're an exception, sorry.

We will never have real data on this. But simply on its face, I find it extremely hard to believe that most consumers have a strong enough moral compass to go out of their way to buy something they already have access to. Maybe they will for a tiny handful of special books that they want hard copies of, or authors they really like, but not for most media they consume.

This type of system also becomes a popularity contest for creators; you are supporting the people you like as opposed to whose work you want to read. If an author says something you disagree with, it's easy to just read their work without paying them. I'm not against consumer boycotts, but it should generally come with a sacrifice on both sides--for consumers, that means missing out on the product or service.

You are free to feel however you want about this. I can certainly see the immense societal value of making things accessible to more people. But I flat out don't believe the "piracy doesn't lead to lost sales" shtick, of course it does.

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#166

Post by 9dev »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #24
burkaman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do: https://xcancel.com/vxunderground/status/1888019174133276846 , https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/9/23788741/sarah-silverman-o... The tweet only names Meta, but it would be very surprising if OpenAI didn't do the same thing.

Anyone who doesn't train on all material available, legal or otherwise, will be outcompeted by teams that do, including those based in countries that don't respect Western copyright law. It's that simple. Either this is practice is judged (or legislated) to be fair use, or copyright is done. It's also that simple.

Or none of both happens and the corporations will just continue to evade laws and taxes to their benefit.

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#168

Post by stavros »

bmacho wrote: post #145
tzs wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If #1 is a reference to a famous quote from Steward Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, it's only part of the quote. The rest is relevant: > On the one hand you have—the point you’re making Woz—is that information sort of wants to be expensive because it is so valuable—the right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information almost wants to be free because the costs of ge…

It's not a quote, but a statement. And even if it were a quote, random other quotes from the same person are not relevant. "This is just a part of the quote" people are so annoying. Like guess why it is "only a part of a quote"? Because some parts are neat, insightful and true, and some other parts are irrelevant and garbage. Sorry, this was a more general rant, because it is so annoying every single time . In this c…

For me, it was useful to clarify that "information wants to be free" was "information wants to be gratis", not "information wants to be libre". I didn't realize it referred to cost.

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#170

Post by ZunarJ5 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #165
lolive wrote: post #140

I choose the books I buy, from Anna's Archive. I choose the comics I buy from readComicsOnline. I choose the [european] graphic novels I buy from #WONTTELL. And I am one of the best customers of these 3 physical shops, in my town. So sure, I don't buy the latest trends based on ads. I investigate a lot to buy GREAT stuff. Sometimes the shopkeeper has headaches to find the obscure stuff I discovered online that NOBODY…

> Am I an exception? Yes, I think you're an exception, sorry. We will never have real data on this. But simply on its face, I find it extremely hard to believe that most consumers have a strong enough moral compass to go out of their way to buy something they already have access to. Maybe they will for a tiny handful of special books that they want hard copies of, or authors they really like, but not for most media t…

https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-...

From above:

'The Dutch firm Ecory was commissioned to research the impact of piracy for several months, eventually submitting a 304-page report to the EU in May 2015. The report concluded that: “In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements. That does not necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect.”

The report found that illegal downloads and streams can actually boost legal sales of games, according to the report. The only negative link the report found was with major blockbuster films: “The results show a displacement rate of 40 percent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films are consumed legally.”'

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