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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)

#261

Post by ornornor »

tangenter wrote: post #113

Anna’s came clutch for me yesterday. I spent a few days trying to find a zip file of a CD that came with an old book from early 2000s on programming. One of those Thomson Publishing slap jobs that I actually enjoyed. I checked used copies all of them said does not come with CD. I tried googling around, nothing. LLMs couldn’t find it. ChatGPT kept saying it is on the archive (no it isn’t you useless piece of shit). An…

Consider putting them on archive.org then, they have a section for that and it helps spread sources

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

#262

Post by ilikegreen »

pseingatl wrote: post #243

Micropayments (charged in mills, not cents) is the solution. Downloading books remains essentially "free" for the individual but the Internet scale is such that authors would receive compensation for their work. The Spotify model is better than downright piracy. It is very difficult to compete with free.

I would argue precisely that downright piracy is better than the Spotify model. It is based in micro-micropayments, so much so that even at internet scale very few artists outside of the uber-macro-Taylor-Swift size get proper compensation. Sending a single dollar through Bandcamp amounts to hundreds of listens on Spotify.

It really sucks, but I'd rather pirate and know I'm at fault with the artist – maybe I'll buy some tracks off Bandcamp to make up for it – rather than let Spotify cover the transaction with a legal blanket, while the artists get almost nothing in return.

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

#263

Post by rbanffy »

TFNA wrote: post #170
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…

> Someone violates an open-source license and we grab our pitchforks. If you look back through the annals of Free Software, one often encounters the claim that the GPL was a way to use copyright against itself, and if there were no more copyright, there would be little need for these licenses.

> there would be little need for these licenses.

The GPL ones explicitly disallow the removal of user rights from work derived from GPL software. That wouldn’t be possible without copyright.

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

#264

Post by rbanffy »

bigiain wrote: post #200
nzeid wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taken out of context, you're right. But the parent comment couldn't buy these books even if they wanted to. I'd say there's a consensus that the primary motivation for piracy is hurdles to access having nothing to do with payment.

I think iTunes Store and Netflix both showed 15 or so years back that if you give people and easy and convenient way to pay a reasonable price for music/movies - a huge number of people will willingly choose to pay and support the artists/creators, instead of hanging out on Bittorrent trackers and paying for seedboxes and sharing with friends. And the siloing of movies by Netflix nd all the other streaming services,…

BitTorrent is one form of collective archive for things that either have restricted or no commercial availability. I wish more cultural artifacts were archived this way.

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

#265

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

bruce511 wrote: post #256
Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think it can happen in the US (for cultural reasons) Cultural reasons are just a matter of spindoctoring/propaganda. Nixon almost implemented a form of UBI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Assistance_Plan In Alaska there's already a form of UBI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund

The reason I think it is hard in the US is because there is a very strong "work or die" ethic in the US. Everything is driven by money. Even basic things like healthcare are driven by money. Your life after retirement is determined by how much money you accumulated. The word-association between "poor" and "lazy" is strong. Taxation should be light. Each man should keep what he accumulates. BI by contrast values peopl…

I have an Irish friend that got a Ph.D, while on the dole.

That would never happen, in the US. We have a strong “Why do they get special treatment?” thing going on.

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

#266

Post by PaulRobinson »

ALittleLight wrote: post #233
TFNA wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AA compiles from everywhere; LibGen and Z-Lib served as the major sources of books. This has unfortunately led to search results for a particular book containing multiple versions of that book, and it is not readily clear which one is the highest-quality version. A real library would have librarian staff who carefully curate everything, but in the pirate world this isn’t realistic so it just gets all thrown together.…

Surely this is realistic now (or soon) in the form of LLM curation. A few auto-librarians reading everything, looking at different versions side by side, making choices, etc.

Donate your tokens then.

LLMs are many things, but one thing they definitely are not is cheap/free to run at scale.

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

#267

Post by rbanffy »

whycome wrote: post #148
Salgat wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a genius way to farm ebooks while providing a useful service. I personally just use Google drive though.

Lol it never occurred to me that they might just save every single upload

I’d hope they do file or block deduping.

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

#268

Post by squigz »

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…

What's frightening is that you almost ran a script in your terminal for a captcha.

Good thing you have Gemini though.

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

#269

Post by pbhjpbhj »

sucrosesucrose wrote: post #244
pruppy wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 imper…

Universal basic income is dystopic. It's a way of finally making everyone completely dependent on the government. It's a Brave New World kind of dystopy.

Interesting perspective.

To me it makes you more dependent on the other people in your society - only if you don't earn more than the BI of course.

That is true under Western Capitalism too, you're already dependent on your society, unless you filter and pump your own water; grow your own food; generate your own power; make your own devices; school your own children; do your own healthcare, etc.

For those reliant on BI, instead of greed being the moderator through which your income is determined, it is determined through the democratic processes of state.

Now, if your have an oligarchic dictatorship like USA and Russia, sure you'd need to be particularly worried if you were relying on BI. If you've got a strong democracy (probably true of any country with state-run services that are competitively priced) then BI should work if there's enough total income that it can be redistributed.

I think there are problems with BI though.

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

#270

Post by bornfreddy »

rbanffy wrote: post #260
NeutralCrane wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If knowledge is to be free, that means there should be no restrictions on how it is used. Even an open source license misses the point, because the implication is still that one person can dictate how another person can make use of knowledge. It’s still premised on the same dystopian view that a person can own an idea.

> Even an open source license misses the point, because the implication is still that one person can dictate how another person can make use of knowledge To be considered open source software, the license cannot impose any restrictions on how the software is used. You are free to use the software for whatever purpose you want.

Absolutely not. Go read e.g. GPL license before spreading such falsehoods.
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