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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

#231

Post by griffzhowl »

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…

> The report found a lack of evidence that piracy displaces sales.

This isn't true though, as they conclude a 40% displacement in blockbuster movie sales. You would need a better analysis of their methodology to dismiss their other conclusions

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

#232

Post by vixen99 »

mavamaarten wrote: post #194
iLoveOncall wrote: post #114

> In recent weeks we’ve seen increased attacks on our mission. A pretty rich thing to say when your mission is piracy. I'm not against piracy at all, quite the contrary, but this is quite laughable.

Right? I mean I love what they're doing. But at the same time please, stop claiming to be holy angels trying to build an archive for historical purposes. You're a terrific piracy site, period.

What is it then that they love doing? Is there a long-term thrill in being a piracy site? I don't think so. No truth in the angel story but they do say "it aims to "catalog all the books in existence" and "track humanity's progress toward making all these books easily available in digital form".

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

#234

Post by jrflowers »

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…

> 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

I like the idea that consumers only buy stuff out of moral obligation.

Like if you went to your ethical friend’s house and saw that he had empty book cases and no art on his walls because he hasn’t yet been imbued with the requisite moral fervor necessary to buy anything. It’s hard for him to be sure what he’s obligated to buy or that he’s obligated to buy anything since it would be wrong of him to know what’s inside any book without buying it first.

And then you went to your no-good, dirty, downright despicable friend’s house and it’s full of books and art because for every 20 books he pirates he buys one, and because he’s just so darn unethical he pirates a lot of books

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

#236

Post by stronglikedan »

haltcatchfire wrote: post #218
dfxm12 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That’s exactly how I do it. I enjoy reading DRM-free epubs on my Kobo, and whenever I finished a book I enjoyed, I buy it from the local sci-fi bookshop. I buy about 90% of all books I read.

I used to do that with games back when I played. I was always a staunch advocate of, if it's good, people will pay, and I didn't want to be a hypocrite despite refusing to buy most games because they could not be returned afterwards. Even newer services that offer refunds make it more difficult than I'm willing to put up with. If I played it most of the way through, I bought it.

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

#237

Post by wiseowise »

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 do. When I was poor – I couldn't do it. Now that I'm wealthy and can afford any book, I prefer to take a quick look at online version and then buy a physical copy.

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

#238

Post by southernplaces7 »

cakealert wrote: post #116
southernplaces7 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

illegal doesn't at all have to mean immoral or particularly wrong either. Laws are complex constructions, often created for decidedly hypocritical reasons of benefitting some at the expense of others. Thus, Who gives a shit if they're taking money from those who voluntarily subscribe. They still offer an absolutely incredible free service to who knows how many people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford so much a…

> what shred of evidence do you have of anyone there laundering crypto, and how The controller's freedom. If they didn't launder it they wouldn't be free. > They still offer an absolutely incredible free service Actually their free downloads aren't particularly good when compared to some of the other online services that 'leech' from them. And their torrent strategy could be altruistic but it could also be self inter…

>What mainly interests me is how much money they are actually making, I suspect it's very profitable.

Well, it's about calculating their site support, storage, server and bandwidth costs. What might those be? Aside from these, I've seen them claim they use volunteers for much of their site support and certainly don't pay, or need to pay, anything for marketing since the word of mouth (partly through notoriety and partly through uniquness coupled with extreme usefulness) is more than enough to keep them famous.

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

#239

Post by computerdork »

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…

Very interesting report, and am not discounting it, but another factor is that maybe the pricing affect is already baked in from years of piracy. For example, back in the early 2000's, when P2P file sharing was being used to download music, then to compete, the music industry had to resort to iTunes store, which allowed users to buy just one song for a dollar, instead of the entire album (and then later on, to music streaming services). The damage was done decades ago, and eventhough P2P file sharing isn't big today, it's effects are still with us today (no music executive is going to go back to forcing people to buy an entire album to get just one or two songs).

But, maybe this report is taking this into account too??

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

#240

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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