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Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

annas-archive.org

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

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Am I an exception? Years ago I was following development of an indie game. The developers wanted to provide a DRM-free experience. The game had some online functionality (leaderboard or something). They were surprised when the number of accounts accessing the online functionality exceeded their sales by a dramatic number. The developer updates grew more and more sad as they switched from discussing new features to…

Your story sounds like "World of Goo," which reported a 90% piracy rate from comparing unique IP addresses to number sold. Despite that, they didn't quit and recently released "World of Goo 2" still DRM free.

Yes, hit games are still popular enough for sequels (world of goo 2 came out 16 years after the first one, according to wikipedia, which is an unusually long time). I remember World of Goo being one of the few choices of games for iPad when it was young.

But the vast majority of developers aren't lucky enough to have massive hits, and so money differences can still matter.

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

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but whereas libraries need to buy more copies of books that lots of people check out, Anna's archive only ever needs one. Not exactly sustainable for the author. As I said, I loved the Internet Archive's approach to this! That's very much not what Anna's archive is doing.

Still, libraries buy what, maybe 5 copies of a mildly popular book. I don't think that would be sustainable either if that was the only books sold.

Have you tried borrowing a mildly popular recent book from the library? There's often a digital queue of 20+ people with reservations.

There's plenty of incentive for most people to buy the real book rather than wait for the queue.

(I've also found libraries a useful way to discover lesser-known authors, since you can quickly sample/browse books on the shelves. But they wont have all of the books published by those unknown authors.... so I end up buying/ordering other things by them)

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

#403

"Anna’s Archive itself has organized some of the largest scrapes: we acquired tens of millions of files from IA Controlled Digital Lending" Not really helping in the big picture, here, guys.

People have likely already been mirroring it quietly for years.

IRL, "scanparties" used to be a thing if you were in the "bookz scene" around the turn of the century. (Where you and a small group of others go to a public library, hit the limits of your library cards and often clear out entire sections of shelves focused around a particular topic, meet someplace to scan/"cam" everything you borrowed as quickly as you can for processing and uploading in the near future, then return them all within a few days, and repeat this until you get bored or have other things to do.)

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

#404

Know am going to be downvoted into oblivion, but as a composer, can see it from the side of creators. Yeah, making their products free is starving these industries. For instance, in music, there is already very little money in music (think about how many musicians you personally know who can make a living off of music, besides being a music teacher). And, the music industry is still not even the same size as it was i…

Streaming has replaced piracy, and scammed artists in the process. You can complain to the labels for that.

As for why I download: I am legally forbidden from buying the music that I want. Either it's the selling label geoblocking, or they only sell versions in a shitty format like mp3. I'm not jumping through hoops to give you my money, either I can buy FLAC files, or I download.

I want convenience, the same way users want it. Artists discovered that they were scammed by the labels instead of the pirates.

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

#405

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…

You feel. You think. Google up the studies of piracy and you’ll see that the biggest pirates are also the biggest buyers. Replace your private opinion with some science. The reframing that will help you understand this is that these people are fans (I stole this framing from Korey Doctorow who releases his books online for free and encourages his fans to buy a copy if they like it). Fandom is a positive sum game. The…

It is not science. Don't fool yourself that you have science on your side when it is just some shitty survey.

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

#406
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? Years ago I was following development of an indie game. The developers wanted to provide a DRM-free experience. The game had some online functionality (leaderboard or something). They were surprised when the number of accounts accessing the online functionality exceeded their sales by a dramatic number. The developer updates grew more and more sad as they switched from discussing new features to…

[deleted]

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

#407
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? Years ago I was following development of an indie game. The developers wanted to provide a DRM-free experience. The game had some online functionality (leaderboard or something). They were surprised when the number of accounts accessing the online functionality exceeded their sales by a dramatic number. The developer updates grew more and more sad as they switched from discussing new features to…

Yeah people pretending that "piracy" is good because they can try product first before buying which is true but lets be real

out of 100 people doing that how many actually buy product in the end???? if net gain is positive then developer would not pay millions to license DRM

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

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps he could spare a few coins, chump change to him to help out.

Might need more than a few as the price would tank if his wallets came out of dormancy.

Superman will freak out the world if he kills so he doesnt. Does Satoshi want to avoid freaking out the BC holders?

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

#410

Also, they provide a torrents list that anyone can seed and be part of the long-term preservation. https://annas-archive.org/torrents

The numbers are interesting and a bit surprising to me.

I remember a time when people would have seedboxes for private trackers, data hoarders brag about having TBs of storage and yet only a handful of people are seeding the complete collection(s). I understand not everyone has or can seed multiple TBs of data but I was expecting there to be a lot of seeders for torrents with few hundreds of GBs.

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