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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

#221

Post by Wowfunhappy »

ZunarJ5 wrote: post #170
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 p…

Unfortunately, absence of evidence ≠ evidence of absence.

I obviously don't have time to read a 300 page report—I wish I did—but the conclusion says:

> With regard to total effects of online copyright infringements on legal transactions, there are no robustly significant findings. The strongest finding applies to films/TV-series, where a displacement rate of 27 with an error margin of roughly 36 per cent (two times the standard error) only indicates that online copyright infringements are much more likely to have negative than positive effects.

The conclusion goes on to discuss each type of media. Here's the section on games:

> For games, the estimated effect of illegal online transactions on sales is positive because only free games are more likely displaced by online copyright infringements than not. The overall estimate is 24 extra legal transactions (including free games) for every 100 online copyright infringements, with an error margin of 45 per cent (two times the standard error). The positive effect of illegal downloads and streams on the sales of games may be explained by players getting hooked and then paying to play the game with extra bonuses or at extra levels.

If this is what was meant by "illegal downloads and streams can actually boost legal sales of games" (and it's possible they're talking about something else which isn't in the conclusion), I don't find that convincing. It's within the margin of error and includes free transactions.

Moreover, I firmly believe that we are never going to have good data on this! You're trying to measure two things that are virtually impossible to measure with any accuracy: (1) how much piracy is taking place, and (2) what would sales have been without the piracy.

(I've edited my comment to actually quote the paper)

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

#222

Post by ChadNauseam »

skeaker wrote: post #207
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Your other points aside... > 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. I'm curious as to why you feel this way, genuinely. The decision to boycott means that there is no sale, full stop, so no money is being handed over. Why does anything after that matter? The important part, the money, is already d…

Because otherwise there's no incentive not to boycott. One of the nice things about capitalism is that even unpopular people can make money if they make a product people want to buy. It adds a level of realness to society, above status-games and popularity-contests.

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

#223

Post by joha4270 »

MYEUHD wrote: post #192
jimbokun wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about writers?

IIRC it was shown that piracy increases sales for books. For example, if you pirated an ebook and liked it, you'd likely buy a physical copy.

Even if that might be the case now, I doubt that holds if piracy becomes truly widespread.

I would suspect A pirates book B and tells C about it, C buys book B is a lot more common than A pirates book B and likes it enough to buy it

I have no data to support this, and while I have paid for things I could access for free, but I'm sufficiently pessimistic about human nature to think that's the norm.

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

#224

Post by cobbzilla »

brianstorms wrote: post #174

Fuck that site. Offers people links to free PDF downloads of my book that I worked on for 32 years and finally got published by Pantheon Books in 2017. I didn't work all that fucking time for criminals like these to just break copyright law and make the book available for free. Fuck Anna's Archive, and I hope they go down in legal flames ASAP.

It may be a minority, but not all authors share your view. Paulo Coelho [1] says “a person who does not share is not only selfish, but bitter and alone”. Sorry gotta say it, your tone matches.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho

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

#225

Post by solidsnack9000 »

akudha wrote: post #156
boombapoom wrote: post #32

fuck those guys, annas archive is one of the last good things about the internet.

I am curious how they’re funded. How they are able to stay online. Surely there must be people, governments etc with deep pockets that would want to take them down?

Allegedly, some companies with deep pockets have paid them for access to their collection. The collection turns out to be useful for training LLMs.

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

#226

Post by skeaker »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #162
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.

You've just made this person that you're arguing against up.

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

#227

Post by solidsnack9000 »

kelnos wrote: post #219
MYEUHD wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC it was shown that piracy increases sales for books. For example, if you pirated an ebook and liked it, you'd likely buy a physical copy.

That's absurd. I could potentially believe the conclusion that piracy doesn't take away from sales (that is, most people who pirate would otherwise do without, and not buy a copy). But the idea that many/most (or even some significantly-small percentage) of people who pirate will buy copies of the things they like? No, that doesn't pass the sniff test.

I actually have bought many books that I started reading online. The book format is useful.

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

#228

Post by sMarsIntruder »

glimshe wrote: post #215
jampekka wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can donate to get access to faster download mirrors. I'd guess this is the main source of their revenue. https://annas-archive.org/donate

Can you donate to them without someone claiming you're donating money to a criminal enterprise and getting you in trouble? I mean, without using bitcoins

You can buy Amazon gift cards using bitcoin lighting to add another layer (actually 2) of paranoia :)

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

#229

Post by jdietrich »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #221
ZunarJ5 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

Unfortunately, absence of evidence ≠ evidence of absence. I obviously don't have time to read a 300 page report—I wish I did—but the conclusion says: > With regard to total effects of online copyright infringements on legal transactions, there are no robustly significant findings. The strongest finding applies to films/TV-series, where a displacement rate of 27 with an error margin of roughly 36 per cent (two times t…

>Unfortunately, absence of evidence ≠ evidence of absence.

A study showing no statistically significant effect is not an absence of evidence, it is evidence of the absence of a large effect.

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

#230

Post by lolive »

dfxm12 wrote: post #209
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…

I don't think I follow. There's no recommendation engine in AA, right? Do you download a bunch of books from AA, read them, then if you happened to like one enough, you will buy it from a local bookstore?

Let me give you an example.

Some Lovecraft letters were translated into french some weeks ago. Great reading! There, Lovecraft gives his opinion about the litterature and art of his time.

And he mentions Nicolas Roerich. No idea who this guy was, but hey pretty interesting painter (thank god Google Images!). Ok, let's check on AA if there is a definitive book about his art.

No luck, but that very same guy wrote many books about Hindouism and eastern asia. After a few downloads on AA, no big deal, I am not so fond of them. Except for one that I knew nothing about (the name is Altai Himalaya, and I have absolutely no clue why this one is picking my attention, but it does).

That's definitely what I call serendipity.

And that thing happens a lot when you have a full access to whatever content is available. [and you are curious by nature]

In the end, retrospectively, such widespread access permits serendipity at a level that is absurdly miraculous !

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