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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

#282
post #257
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?

[flagged]

Let's agree that I use piracy to find the things that match my tastes. [something that the legal offers fail to provide conveniently]

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

#283
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP is referring to the ongoing legal struggles the IA is facing wrt. to their version of an online library (with digital book lending).

Precisely. To be clear, I don't agree with a comment upthread saying the "shoutout" is what might potentially do harm to the IA in court. I think the actual act of having scraped all those books from the IA's lending system could potentially do harm to the IA in court. The publishers can now point to all the copies of the books in the wild that IA had in their lending system and argue that IA's system is not legally…

I believe this was already brought up in the court proceedings, and Brewster Kahle already addressed it in April 2024: «Trying to blow protections we have put on files, for instance, does not help us– and usually hurts».

https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1bswhdj/commen...

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

#284
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…

Studies show that the biggest pirates of content are also the biggest buyers of content. The theory is that piracy functions as a way to deepen paid fandom not to erase it.

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

#286
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…

Same here.

Also, I tend to look for obscure and old books (I love old travelogues) and once I find one that really gets me, you'll be sure to receive it as a gift, if I think you'd be someone (or in a place in life) who would enjoy it.

So, I might not but it for myself but I make my decision on the pirated version and then buy more than my share when it's truly a gem. If I don't end up recommending it or buying it for someone that usually means it was something which I'd be ok not to have consumed.

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

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most information is not easily available, it is purposefully hidden because knowledge is power and money. And that's through all fields and not only Coca-Cola recipes. The argument is that authors will stop making information publicly available because piracy takes away the value. So instead information will be hidden in vaults and do good only for a few people. Like how maps used to be top state secrets.

The obvious fix for this is to either eliminate trade secret protections in favor of patents, or make them conditioned upon escrow with the government to be released to the public domain after some time (perhaps half the time of a patent). Don't want to release your recipe ever? Tough cookies when your lead scientists bring it to a competitor. Trade secrets are counter to the purpose of "IP" law. The public has no in…

Until every new born child is forcefully implanted with a microchip in their brain at birth, you will never be able to stop people from thinking and having secrets.

If people are not fairly compensated for sharing their secrets and discoveries with the public, they won't do it. They'll take it to the grave if so be. And we loose out on information which can benefit an enormous amount of people.

So the quoted person is absolutely right that there is a great tension between these two factors. How should great ideas be greatly compensated while giving the widest access possible? Neither piracy nor expensive access to information is the right solution.

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

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or it's evidence that the effect can't be measured, which is what I'm trying to say.

I honestly don't understand how you would even attempt to measure something like this. There's no counterfactual. How can you possibly know what sales would have been without piracy?

This study appears to be relying on survey results. That seems questionable to me, because no one wants to admit "I totally would buy more books if piracy wasn't an option, but I choose piracy because I like having money and I think authors deserve to starve." I'm exaggerating for the sake of effect, but really, how can anyone ever know what they would have purchased under different circumstances? It's human nature to self-rationalize your actions. And yet, despite this, the study still didn't find statistically significant results!

Maybe if one country ever manages to truly cut off access to piracy websites, and there's another economically and sociologically similar country where piracy remains readily available, it will be possible to get some valid data on this question. I mostly hope this doesn't ever happen, because while I'm not a fan of piracy, I am a fan of the free internet!

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

#289
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cultures are created to protect power structures. Culture is the enforcer of authority. Culture distorts principles in order to defend the authority of evil. Culture must convince you that it is not wrong when law subjugates your worth and destroys your freedom. Culture convinces people of this by perverting the concept of morality. Morality is liberty. Immorality is evil. The exercise and defense of freedom are mora…

I think you must be using an unusual definition of culture. As I understand it, culture is, broadly speaking, the shared values and practices of a group of people. The only way to avoid having culture, in the usual sense, is to prevent groups of people from existing.

I would agree if those shared values and practices grew entirely organically. But unfortunately people in power have a lot of, well, power, to shape culture.

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

#290

Given that big tech has been scraping everything ever written to train LLMs, are there specialized prompts to trick models into spitting out copyrighted works ?

Yes, if you believe the New York Times: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/28/the-ny-times-lawsuit-aga...
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