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Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

annas-archive.org

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121–130 of 560 posts

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

#121

Post by pdabbadabba »

teraflop wrote: post #96
cakealert wrote: post #88

Can Anna's Archive claim to be a non-profit when it's effectively an illegal enterprise with unknown controllers? They are even offering decent bounties: https://software.annas-archive.li/AnnaArchivist/annas-archiv... Whoever is running it must be doing really well for themselves laundering all that crypto. Also interestingly they don't offer a tor onion service, while the admin is most certainly technically competen…

Your comment seems like a non sequitur to me. Whether something is a "non-profit" has nothing to do with whether it receives or spends money. (See, e.g. the American Red Cross's ~$4B/yr budget.) It's about what it does with the money it has. Obviously, since Anna's Archive is breaking the law, it can't conform itself to the normal legal/regulatory system that governs non-profit organizations. It can certainly still c…

At least in the US, claiming that you are a nonprofit implies that contributions are tax deductible. Claiming that you are a nonprofit when contributions are not tax deductible might be considered fraudulent.

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

#122

Post by curvaturearth »

whirlwin wrote: post #87

Just curious - What is the future of service like these? More and more content will be AI generated, to some degree. And should thereby that content be aggregated?

Pretty sure no one wants AI slop stored away forever even though that's the unavoidable future

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

#123

Post by Projectiboga »

addaon wrote: post #108
cakealert wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The connotation of a non-profit is that it's being audited. It would be extremely silly to suggest otherwise.

> The connotation of a non-profit is that it's being audited. This is very geography-specific. In the US, 501(c)(3)s (what most people think of when they say "non-profit" where I am) have no general requirement for audits. There's also plenty of non-profit-by-some-definition organizations that never file a Form 1023, giving up some benefits of the 501(c)(3) regulations but in exchange being even less regulated.

The entities are regulated at the state level in the usa, with the responsibility to comply with both state and federal tax authorities.

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

#125

Post by hyperman1 »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #41
CamperBob2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So, what? Authors and rights holders are supposed to just take it? Copyright law exists for a reason. Trying to improve an LLM doesn't give you the right to flout our legal system. Yes, other countries might have an advantage in LLM training as a result but so be it.

Copyright law indeed exists for a reason. And that reason was that church and crown felt threatened by the power of printing presses to distribute ideas they couldn't control. 'To promote the usefull arts' has always been a way to sell the idea to the masses.

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

#126

Post by aniviacat »

vlade11115 wrote: post #51

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

I'm surprised i2p torrents are still not popular enough to be offered as an option by sites like this.

I'd assume there are many people who don't help out purely because of legal fears, something i2p could help with.

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

#127

Post by nine_k »

gowld wrote: post #115
teraflop wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment seems like a non sequitur to me. Whether something is a "non-profit" has nothing to do with whether it receives or spends money. (See, e.g. the American Red Cross's ~$4B/yr budget.) It's about what it does with the money it has. Obviously, since Anna's Archive is breaking the law, it can't conform itself to the normal legal/regulatory system that governs non-profit organizations. It can certainly still c…

Is Cosa Nostra a non-profit? The question doesn't make sense. It's a category error. A non-profit is a corporate legal structure. An unregistered organization could be a cabal, a gang, a syndicate, a fellowship, a religion, a movement, a private club, or something else.

The intent is still important. While from a legal point of view a terrorist cell cannot be registered as a non-profit, it typically spends whatever funds it can secure to further its political goals, not on increasing the wealth of its owners or participants. A typical criminal band though is a for-profit entity.

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

#128

Post by AIPedant »

Vektorceraptor wrote: post #111
SimianSci wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No such thing as free when bandwidth costs money. Any service online that is handing out things for free without restriction is getting their return through scrupulus means and shouldnt be trusted. Anna's Archive straddles the line enough to allow people to download books for free but not at too great an expense to the volunteers who pay out of pocket to support the project.

So what about the authors and creators of the works? They did it for free?

Information and well-crafted sentences are available on the Language Tree, easily plucked by anyone at zero cost. It's greedy for those so-called novelists and subject matter experts to expect a living wage.

"Information wants to be free," which means that any cost of producing that information can be abstracted away due to ideological inconvenience.

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

#130

Post by neilv »

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 you don't give us money and lock out competitors") but really only care about wealth and power.

Certain sanctioned countries that culturally value literature and science might also appreciate this. (This last category, I'm much-much more sympathetic to, and wish them well in their intellectual pursuits and appreciation of the humanities, though we should really find a better way to share that doesn't undermine Western economies and many people's livelihoods.)

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