Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

3lib.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 543 posts

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#161

Post by hutzlibu »

bawolff wrote: post #157
hutzlibu wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Some people are just destructive for some reason, and it's entirely from carelessness, not malice. " And then some people simply consider books as objects for use, and not sacred reliques to be touched only with glothes. (unless we are talking about historical books) I mean, books or rather the information in them is kind of sacred to me. But the physical objects are just paper, that can be printed out again, if it…

Dipping your book in sea water is not normal "heavy use". If you do that to your library book the library will probably make you purchase a new one. Anyways the reason to treat library books reasonably nicely (not with gloves, but like a reasonable person) is not because books are sacred. Its because library books are not yours, they are something you are borrowing from someone else. Treating other people's possesion…

"If you do that to your library book the library will probably make you purchase a new one."

Sure thing, which is why I would not do this with libary or borrowed books in general, but rather buy it cheap second hand, before I take them to the beach with me.

"Treating other people's possesions that you are borrowing with respect is just common courtsey."

Sure thing. I was refering to the general habit of rough use of books, not that it is nice or acceptable to treat borrowed things badly.

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#162

Post by bawolff »

jrm4 wrote: post #22

As a lawyer, I can't recommend it, but I absolutely cannot discern any moral difference whatsoever between reading a library book for free and purchasing it later if I like it, and doing the same first thing by downloading the ebook from somewhere "unapproved." It's all very silly.

The difference is we had the library debate back in the 1800s, which is so long ago that people have forgotten it was once as controversial to publishers as ebooks are now.

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#163

Post by Wowfunhappy »

lxgr wrote: post #121
nicolas_t wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they do but it's extremely hard to find drm free books.

Interestingly, all German language e-books have been DRM free for a couple of years now. I have no idea how that happened, but at one point, all major publishers have pivoted from mandatory DRM to DRM-free (but watermarked) ePubs. The notable exception is Amazon: Kindle books are almost always DRMed from the same publishers.

I really love watermarking as a solution for DRM-Free media!

Watermarks can of course be stripped, but so can DRM--the goal is just to add an extra barrier, which watermarks do without inconveniencing legitimate customers. I actually kind of feel it adds value--it gives my purchase an authenticity a pirated copy wouldn't have.

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#164

Post by thayne »

jonp888 wrote: post #118
thayne wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So essentially, we have a system where a public entity (public libraries) is compensating authors for creating works that are popular. But going through a middle man (the publisher, and possibly one or more distributors) that takes a considerable cut. In the digital age, why not cut out the middle man? Have a publicly funded e-library that pays authors directly based on how often their content is downloaded.

The publisher will have signed an agreement with the author, and also spent plenty of money on editing, typesetting, marketing. You can't just arbitrarily decide that only one party "deserves" to make money from the book, and doing so would probably lead to a lawsuit.

ok, so don't bypass publishers for existing works, but set it up in a way so that authors can publish books in this library themselves if they so desire (and pay for editing, marketing, etc. themselves).

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#165

Post by czhu12 »

The mental gymnastics happening in this thread to justify pirating books is pretty disappointing.

Especially on HN, where I think a lot of our livelihoods depend on writing and charging for closed source code that can technically be infinitely distributed.

How many of us would be happy to open source all our code, provide easy ways for people to download and deploy, and then leave a PayPal link in the footer asking for donations? Why should authors be any different?

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#166

Post by klodolph »

hutzlibu wrote: post #141
midoridensha wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like with so many physical possessions, it really varies from person to person. Some people have libraries full of books they've read, and all their books are in pristine condition. Look at their other possessions and they're all in excellent condition. Other people, you loan them one paperback book, and when you get it back it looks like it's been dropped off a highway overpass bridge and run over in rush-hour traff…

"Some people are just destructive for some reason, and it's entirely from carelessness, not malice. " And then some people simply consider books as objects for use, and not sacred reliques to be touched only with glothes. (unless we are talking about historical books) I mean, books or rather the information in them is kind of sacred to me. But the physical objects are just paper, that can be printed out again, if it…

> (unless we are talking about historical books)

You should not touch historical books with gloves. It is generally correct to use your bare hands. The reason why you would wear gloves while handling a book is to protect you, perhaps because the book has been contaminated with hazardous chemicals or something.

Anyway.

It is also my experience that some people completely destroy their books. I don't know how it happens. I don't think of myself as careful with books. I shove them in backpacks, insert random objects to remember my place, take them outdoors, etc. Yet somehow, the books look much the same afterwards.

Part of this is just knowing how to pack books to avoid damaging them. Simple stuff like putting the spine down. If I'm going outside in the rain, keep the book out of the water. If I'm shoving something in my backpack and there's already a book inside, just check to make sure I'm not shoving something directly into the book.

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#167

Post by mysecretaccount »

dfxm12 wrote: post #55
jrm4 wrote: post #22

As a lawyer, I can't recommend it, but I absolutely cannot discern any moral difference whatsoever between reading a library book for free and purchasing it later if I like it, and doing the same first thing by downloading the ebook from somewhere "unapproved." It's all very silly.

If a book (even an ebook) is in the library, it's already bought and paid for so the author gets whatever compensation they get as if it is a normal sale. I don't think arguing morals makes sense because of how subjective one's morals are, but, by using libraries, you are supporting the arts, whether you liked the book or not, and this is not a silly distinction.

> I don't think arguing morals makes sense because of how subjective one's morals are

[not related to OP] I have a similar feeling every time someone moralizes in any discussion: we could argue about morality, but we need to start with a common moral framework and define what "good" and "bad" are first. Everyone assumes these are generally agreed upon but the devil is in the details when discussing something like the OP.

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#168

Post by Normille »

lxgr wrote: post #105
kazinator wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's already bought and paid for Three copies, for the a metropolis of several million. :)

Not my experience at all. I regularly lend e-books from my city's public library, and they usually have hundreds of "copies" available for popular titles, and even for less popular or even niche titles I rarely have to wait more than one week. It is a bit ridiculous that "buying copies" and then imposing artificial scarcity on these is the best mechanism that libraries and publishers have figured out to compensate co…

  >I regularly lend e-books from my city's public library...
No. You 'borrow'. The library 'lends'

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#169

Post by runjake »

z-lib.org is responsible for me buying more books in the past couple years than I’ve ever bought.

It essentially acted like an in-person bookstore for me that allowed me to browse a book to determine whether it was worth buying.

Before z-lib, I generally tended toward avoiding wasting money. I guess I’m back to that again.

(I like paper copies of tech books and Kindle copies of novels so I can sync reading and highlights between devices)

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#170

Post by sgc »

fortran77 wrote: post #147
majjgepolja wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some technical books are too costly for students, especially in third world countries.

So they steal them. Sometimes you need to do what you need to do in order to survive. I'm just saying you shouldn't try to argue that it's "not stealing" if you decide the reward is greater than the risk, or the net benefit exceeds the transgression.

It's obviously not exactly the same as stealing, since you are only denying the person one very specific use of their "property" (which only recently has been artificially made property, through copyright laws). That specific use you are denying them is not the right of sale even, but the right of a monopoly on distribution. Of course, if it starts materially affecting the person's capacity to live a reasonable lifestyle, then it becomes a different moral issue, and there is still a moral judgment to be made regardless, but that is not the same thing at all as conflating unauthorized copying, which widens possession in a way that could potentially have averse effects, and the absolute of theft, which changes it in a zero sum way, and necessarily has averse effects.

As one example, I know a guy who pays for online streaming subscriptions, but still pirates to not be forced through a crappy experience because people are attempting to extract the last penny and get as rich as possible through spying and ads, tiers of resolution, device restrictions, etc. I see no reason why there is any moral issue with bypassing their chosen distribution monopoly, especially because they are not starving. I strongly disagree with the tenet that extreme capitalistic gain is a right, and thus cannot consider intellectual property rights as such an absolute. Now, if one is to download something that someone earning a modest living made, and which has a real material impact on them providing for a reasonably comfortable life for themselves and their family, personally I consider that a problem, but that is quite rare (not least of all because smaller content producers are usually being exploited and making very little from distribution). It's not the likely case even with just a modicum of awareness in what and when you decide to download something.

Post reply on HN