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

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

#201

Post by dane-pgp »

notch656a wrote: post #73
bytm3 wrote: post #25

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service supports and protects the U.S. Postal Service and its customers by enforcing the laws that defend the nation’s mail system from illegal or dangerous use. What do they have to do with ebooks???

The federal government increasingly is finding interesting nooks and crannies to shove enforcement into. Customs and Border Protection is now larger than the FBI, and ICE which houses "homeland security investigations" is almost half their size. These, and other arms of government, are increasingly being used to clamp down on activity by citizens deep within US borders (such as the recent Portland riots).

Another interesting example of the phenomenon you describe is that until 2003, the Secret Service was part of the Department of the Treasury, as the agency was founded in 1865 to combat the then-widespread counterfeiting of U.S. currency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service

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

#202

Post by brnaftr361 »

friendlypeg wrote: post #50
collegeburner wrote: post #10

bookszlibb74ugqojhzhg2a63w5i2atv5bqarulgczawnbmsb6s6qead.onion still up on TOR. fuck them i aint paying for my textbooks. never had a book bill higher than $50 and not about to start now.

Am I the only one who believes the high textbook pricing are reasonable given the small consumer base?

No, their content is shit and everything I've touched has 90's era VHS to digital transcriptions or half-assed attempts at interactive stuff which isn't integrated into the core. They're also limited to textbook format even when you have the ebook/online version, and the latter comes with absolutely atrocious UIs.

I can get college lectures at various levels for free, I can get a variety of interactive programs for free (or make them myself). Not to mention for a lot of the classes I've had, the textbook was not necessary at all - but I was dumb enough to buy a couple before I got wise.

They have a market cornered and it's bullshit and their service is repugnant, they need the air taken out of them.

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

#203

Post by endorphine »

books-r-free wrote: post #195
runjake wrote: post #169

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 highli…

I too like to buy books to have a physical copy. I almost always buy them used though, which probably doesn't help the copyright holder at all either. There are plenty of other sites to find books to skim before buying.

It helps the trees though.

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

#204

Post by Shorel »

cuteboy19 wrote: post #33
night-rider wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want to purchase ebooks, but I want to own what I purchase! Without a DRM mechanism it can be easily shared on warez sites. They really don't want books easily disseminated DRM free on warez sites. Alongside this they can track what pages you read and even know how 'fast' you are at reading. Welcome to 1984.

Warez means specifically software piracy. So pirating ebooks is not warez

What is the term for books then?

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

#205

Post by dane-pgp »

alsetmusic wrote: post #38
cuteboy19 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warez means specifically software piracy. So pirating ebooks is not warez

> Warez means specifically software piracy. So pirating ebooks is not warez Warez sites often link to more than just software. Software may or may not be the primary focus. Terminology evolves.

As an example of how far the terminology has come, consider the purported line “Let me taste your wares”[0] from the nursery rhyme "Simple Simon", which possibly dates back to the 17th century.[1]

[0] https://songswithsimon.com/simple-simon/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Simon_%28nursery_rhyme%...

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

#206

Post by czhu12 »

books-r-free wrote: post #186
czhu12 wrote: post #165

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 f…

> How many of us would be happy to open source all our code, provide easy ways for people to download and deploy I would, as, in most cases, code alone doesn't really make money.

I don't think thats true. Obvious example would be offline desktop apps like photoshop, any single player game, etc.

Less obvious but just as relevant would be Snowflake, Clickup, etc letting me just deploy and host their software in our data center instead of relying on their cloud.

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

#207

Post by skissane »

bytm3 wrote: post #26

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service supports and protects the U.S. Postal Service and its customers by enforcing the laws that defend the nation’s mail system from illegal or dangerous use. What do they have to do with ebooks??

> What do they have to do with ebooks??

I think legally they can investigate whatever (alleged) crimes they want – subject to the outcome of any turf wars with other government agencies. Their official purpose may be to investigate one particular category of crimes, but it is unlikely any court is going to throw out a prosecution because the "wrong" agency gathered the evidence. Government agencies are frequently trying to expand their empires, move into new areas, prove their continuing relevance when faced with technological changes that undermine their original reason for existence.

At the extreme, you end up with agencies whose names are purely historical and have nothing to do with their current functions. A good example of that is the Railroad Commission of Texas, which no longer has anything to do with railroads–now it is the Texas state regulator for the oil and gas industry (and also surface mining for coal and uranium). I don't know why they don't just change their name to "Texas Oil and Gas Commission" or something like that. One reason, of course, is that they don't actually control their own name, the Texas State Legislature does, and it seems it likes their name just the way it is.

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

#208

Post by 1dry »

bawolff wrote: post #160
sixtyfourbits wrote: post #48

Fortunately someone had the foresight to make a backup: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32972923 Z-library were in it for commercial gain (you could access a certain number of books but to get more you had to pay for a subscription). They started out as a fork of library genesis, whose mission has always been strictly non-commercial and about providing free access to everyone without limits. Hopefully this will…

> Z-library were in it for commercial gain (you could access a certain number of books but to get more you had to pay for a subscription). They started out as a fork of library genesis, whose mission has always been strictly non-commercial and about providing free access to everyone without limits. Ick. I'm sympathetic to piracy, but the moment people start to make money off of pirated works it starts to feel much mo…

No post body was provided.

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

#209

Post by JumpCrisscross »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #189
Rimintil wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The relationship between physical book checkouts and author/publisher revenue is less direct Indeed. The publisher charges universities etc. a one time lump sum to purchase N copies of a book. The author gets next to nothing. Source: am an author of technical books. Royalties will buy me a few cardboard boxes.

why do we need "publishers" in today's market?is not like you have to have 4 intermediaries to sell on amazon or even digital copies? i'd be more forthcoming to pay $10 for a book that i know 50-70-90% proceeds go to the author than 2-4-5% which the rest take up? publishers, printers, yada yada must've been important to sell books 50 years ago but are they really necessary today?

> why do we need "publishers" in today's market?

Distributing and marketing a book still takes expertise.

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

#210

Post by Blackthorn »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #192
Blackthorn wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

koreader also works on my Kindle. This used to belong to my wife, and got passed to me, and got rooted by me, and koreader installed on it, thus keeping it out of a landfill or generating more e-waste.

Good for you then. Kindle devices have decent hardware but is crippled by the dystopian Amazon firmware on it. It forces upgrades, with no way to opt out, and Amazon have the ability to remotely wipe your books for no reason.

Yeah, the upgrades were why it ended up in my possession in the first place. The "upgraded" software required capabilities that the device did not have, making it super slow.

The point though, was that koreader works there too.

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