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Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

software.annas-archive.gl

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Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#221

Post by pruppy »

__rito__ wrote: post #186
zerobees wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Knowledge should be free. It was never created in a vacuum. This is a common perspective on HN, but it's so jarring. Someone violates an open-source license and we grab our pitchforks. Someone pirates books and it's fine - really, the authors should be thanking us. Good books are incredibly challenging to write, more so than good software. It's not like you grab Harry Potter and say "I'm just gonna change character…

If this is not bad faith argument, then I don't what is. When someone is violating an OSS licence, they are doing it for commercial gains and monetary profit. Nobody is angry at someone using FOSS software for himself with no money getting involved. As opposed to that, books, movies are pirated for personal consumption. Not monetary gains. If someone bought a $30 book, and then ran a BaaS with millions of VC money in…

Now that AI is decimating a lot of bullshit jobs we need a basic income of some kind. A universal one.

That would enable the authors, activists and hackers to pursue what's meaningful, instead of the profit of the multinational leeches that do not need to adhere to laws, borders or taxes.

If a zillion dollar corporations (Meta and the likes) can torrent Annas Archive and decimate the copyrights I see it a moral imperative for the people to do the same and spare the pennies that would profit the publishing / media / ... industries to support the authors directly, instead of the trickle up method, where majority goes in to the hands of the dystopican narcissist zillionaire.

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#222

Post by jezzamon »

DeepYogurt wrote: post #24

Anyone afraid of being laid off at google right now? Perhaps this is a backup :)

If you want to get fired / sued for leaking internal info, you should at least aim for 1 million (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/27/google-employee-polymarket-i...)

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#223

Post by Javantea_ »

john-titor wrote: post #161
whycome wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re saying your entire current life is because of the proceeds of crime?! I’m kidding. Knowledge should be free. It was never created in a vacuum. It belongs to us all

> Knowledge should be free. It was never created in a vacuum. It belongs to us all Imagine you're a professional writer and it's your main source of income. How would you feel if someone said this to you? Would you still want to write books?

Obviously yes. While I have the privilege of earning money from services instead of products, I still think that producing creative works is important and should be done whether the motive is profit or not. Many things are not profitable. Should we leave them unwritten? Leave them to those who have the time to spend. For those who have chosen the life of producing products that are easily copied, it is part of _reality_ that those things will be copied when copying benefits the copier. That doesn't mean I think all books should be free. So many books I buy because I don't have another choice or because I want to support the author. But expecting everyone to be in the same situation as me is nonsense.

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#224

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

zerobees wrote: post #159
whycome wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re saying your entire current life is because of the proceeds of crime?! I’m kidding. Knowledge should be free. It was never created in a vacuum. It belongs to us all

> Knowledge should be free. It was never created in a vacuum. This is a common perspective on HN, but it's so jarring. Someone violates an open-source license and we grab our pitchforks. Someone pirates books and it's fine - really, the authors should be thanking us. Good books are incredibly challenging to write, more so than good software. It's not like you grab Harry Potter and say "I'm just gonna change character…

> Someone violates an open-source license and we grab our pitchforks

we grab pitchforks because you violate the licence by making knowledge NOT free?

what exactly is the contradiction?

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#225

Post by A1kmm »

fastball wrote: post #130
FpUser wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet was a bubble, so was telecom etc. at some point. Being bubble does not mean that when 90% of investments go down the drain the remains are not useful.

"The Internet" was not a bubble. Companies with no long-term business model / sufficient product-market fit that were riding hype were the "dotcom bubble". But when those companies crashed, nobody said "I really want to get my hands on their IP", because it wasn't valuable – an important pre-requisite to the the bubble popping. Seems to be a different case here if people actually want the SOTA models.

A bubble just means it is overvalued beyond it's true fundamentals due to speculation on speculation. The underlying asset can still have value, just less than the market price.

Consider Cisco. On the 31st of March, 2000, it was valued at US$77.31 / share, which in inflation adjusted terms is $150.46 (above the current price over 26 years later). This valuation was on the basis of speculation that the price would continue to go up and Cisco would get a large cut of the industry profits. Cisco's business is still valuable, it was just treated as overvalued by the market.

Similarly, if we go back to one of the classic examples of a bubble - consider Dutch tulip prices in 1636; speculation drove future contracts high. But tulips still have value to people today, it's just the price was higher than was sustainable.

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#226

Post by Cider9986 »

NavneetKr wrote: post #220
jagged-chisel wrote: post #175

> Plead read [this] carefully before working on a bounty. [this] appears as a link to a .li address, and that goes bad places. Should be https://annas-archive.gl/volunteering#bounties

I went to that link and almost ran a malicious script in my terminal for a supposed reCAPTCHA verification. Just before pressing enter, I verified it with gemini and it said it was a ClickFix script designed to steal passwords and other sensitive information. Because of all the weird things we have to do for CAPTCHA verification these days, I almost believed it was legitimate and went with the steps. It is really fri…

Trying to follow that link I have to go past multiple security warnings in my browser and the final destination blocks me for using a VPN.

It won't even open in Brave.

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#227

Post by dartharva »

OriginalPenguin wrote: post #149
boca_honey wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just cultural elitism. I hope you meet someone in your life who finds absolute joy in reading young adult romance novels or D&D fantasy books so you can understand how irrelevant "good" literature is. I love Dostoevsky and Verne (and D&D novels, especially those written by R.A. Salvatore), but I would never judge the modern "IPs" that got my daughter into reading. > best literature What does that even mean?

Everyone has their own opinion as to what the best literature is, just like what the best music is. But there is also some consensus. For music it would be Beethoven, Mozart, the Beatles, etc. For literature it would include Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dickens, Austen, Tolkien, and many more. I would bet it will eventually include Stephen King but it's too early to make that call now.

I know many (including myself) who would never agree to this "consensus"

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#228

Post by andai »

whycome wrote: post #147
ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #19

I live in a country where the selection of available books, especially in English, is very limited. Buying online from foreign markets comes with a long list of administrative hurdles and limits. If it were not for Anna's Archive and Z-Library, I would've never been able to read the books that shaped who I am today, or keep my passion for learning alive. Thanks, AA and ZLib! (Also, thank you to the authors whose book…

So you’re saying your entire current life is because of the proceeds of crime?! I’m kidding. Knowledge should be free. It was never created in a vacuum. It belongs to us all

https://xkcd.com/1228/

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#229

Post by andai »

zerobees wrote: post #159
whycome wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re saying your entire current life is because of the proceeds of crime?! I’m kidding. Knowledge should be free. It was never created in a vacuum. It belongs to us all

> Knowledge should be free. It was never created in a vacuum. This is a common perspective on HN, but it's so jarring. Someone violates an open-source license and we grab our pitchforks. Someone pirates books and it's fine - really, the authors should be thanking us. Good books are incredibly challenging to write, more so than good software. It's not like you grab Harry Potter and say "I'm just gonna change character…

> It's just "lol, why pay when you can download for free".

Well for starters because the research shows that reading on a screen literally makes you retarded.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-36256-4

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/691462

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05605-0

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#230

Post by altmanaltman »

__rito__ wrote: post #186
zerobees wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Knowledge should be free. It was never created in a vacuum. This is a common perspective on HN, but it's so jarring. Someone violates an open-source license and we grab our pitchforks. Someone pirates books and it's fine - really, the authors should be thanking us. Good books are incredibly challenging to write, more so than good software. It's not like you grab Harry Potter and say "I'm just gonna change character…

If this is not bad faith argument, then I don't what is. When someone is violating an OSS licence, they are doing it for commercial gains and monetary profit. Nobody is angry at someone using FOSS software for himself with no money getting involved. As opposed to that, books, movies are pirated for personal consumption. Not monetary gains. If someone bought a $30 book, and then ran a BaaS with millions of VC money in…

Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta: yeah totally, personal consumption only
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