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Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

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Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#441

Post by josho »

aquariusDue wrote: post #280
connorgutman wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am absolutely genuine, and I think you do not understand the average American. The rest of the world may dream about our wages but it's still putting lipstick on a pig. Most the people I know can't even feed their families right now, let alone buy a book for pleasure. I'm not sure where you are getting your information from but the lives of college-educated middle-class Americans and above are not representative of…

I agree with you, even if it is unethical to pirate books I'd make the case that pirating books you can't afford to buy is what helped a non-trivial amount of people escape the generational cycle of poverty. In this particular case, stealing knowledge for a chance at a better career, the end might justify the means. Programmers from poor countries and poor backgrounds are were they are today making a good living from…

Just a minor clarification, nobody is stealing. Rather they are infringing on the author’s copyright.

The distinction is important. Stealing is taking something from someone else. Infringing copyright is a legal construct.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#442

Post by ykonstant »

gameshot911 wrote: post #406
connorgutman wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your sentiment, and trust me I really do want to support people like your friend, but no I literally do not have any money for recreational activities (and if I did I would buy a videogame or boardgame because it would last longer). I make $13.50 / h (which is above minimum wage here in Arizona) and go to school full-time. Rent is $1,000 (absolute cheapest I have found in my college town), groceries are…

If you can't afford to purchase it, and you can't acquire it by alternative legal means, then (ethically) you just don't get to enjoy it. Sorry. There are lots of things I want that I can't afford, either.

> If you can't afford to purchase it, and you can't acquire it by alternative legal means, then (ethically) you just don't get to enjoy it.

That is absurd.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#443

Post by dmitriid »

kgwgk wrote: post #382
dmitriid wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time and again it has been shown that pirating doesn't hurt sales because it is rarely if ever done by people who would've paid for the stuff anyway. Moreover, making stuff easily accessible (e.g. Steam, Nerflix) reduces piracy by orders of magnitude.

> pirating doesn't hurt sales because it is rarely if ever done by people who would've paid for the stuff anyway. > making stuff easily accessible (e.g. Steam, Nerflix) reduces piracy by orders of magnitude. So it's rarely done by people who would've paid for the stuff but it's mostly done by people who would have paid (just not as much)? Schrödinger's pirates: none of them would pay - but all of them would.

> So it's rarely done by people who would've paid for the stuff but it's mostly done by people who would have paid (just not as much)?

No. People who would pay actually pay for stuff, and very few of those people pirate.

People who pirate would not pay for that stuff anyway.

The "omg pirating makes it impossible for people to sell their works" has been proven to he false many times over.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#444

Post by OmarAssadi »

zinekeller wrote: post #424
whimsicalism wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia is out. Some books on the platform directly contradicts government ideals, and it seems that the operators aren't willing to filter it out. Any source on this specific claim (ie. not Russian censorship writ large)? I get that Russia is unpopular right now, but is this just conjecture?

Good question. It's not really about the war, it's more its negative perception of LGBT+ ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gay_propaganda_law ). This is not speculative, it is currently applicable to children, and as of this comment the Duma is working to expand this to even adults. Also, generally information critical to the government, information on suicide, information on banned substances (this is the offi…

Has anything changed over the last six months or so regarding piracy, though?

The last thing I had paid attention to was the Russian government lifting the blocks on RuTracker, the most popular Russian-language torrent site, in reaction to the sanctions—to which RuTracker responded back by blocking Russia on their end [1].

But yeah, in that sense, it would seem that keeping people happy, having access to entertainment, scientific material, etc., and retaliation is more important than the ridiculous anti-LGBT laws right now. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I would think Russia does not pose a massive threat to Z-Lib and LibGen right now.

---

[1]: https://torrentfreak.com/rutracker-found-itself-unblocked-in...

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#445

Post by b215826 »

The third-rate university (with a $1.81 billion endowment) where I am unfortunately studying for a PhD, closed its libraries in August 2021 for "renovation". If LibGen also shuts down (and becomes unavailable on Tor), it'll be hard for me to do research.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#446

Post by nickkell »

connorgutman wrote: post #142
null_object wrote: post #9

I know this won't be a popular take on HN, but while I can understand and to a certain extent sympathize with pirating movies (the intentional friction and arbitrary geographic limitations on access imposed by the multinational movie-industry conglomerates), I can't see stealing some poor author's work in the same light. Sure, people get hung-up about DRM (which can easily be removed by widely-accessible tools), but…

It's very simple actually. You (and most of HN) live in a tech industry bubble. Living wages in the U.S are terrible and disposable income is non-existent. I work a 9-5 just like everyone else but when it comes down to it I don't have the money to buy new books. I can either buy used paperback from a second-hand store, go to the library, or pirate an epub. None of these options pay the original author and are effecti…

Renting from a library does in fact pay the author, at least in the UK

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#447

Post by PartiallyTyped »

Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #414
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pledge - which wasn’t signed was for 2% - nobody is afraid of Russia at this point and Poland alone could very well handle any Russian army if this war is any indication. Of what the US spends on NATO, very little goes to smaller nations. In exchange, the US has legal bases and troops deployed in other countries without fear of retaliation, do you grasp how much power the US gets to project through this? Probably…

>decided to invade Middle East for oil You mostly had me until this point. Did you know there is more oil in the US than Iraq and Afghanistan combined? Do you have any data on the number of oil rigs set up during the invasion? Who gets this oil by the way? Do you know how many trillions were spent in Afghanistan and Iraq? More than it's GDP of the entire period the US was there. Please provide some source for this cl…

The oil in the continental US is hard to extract [1]. The oil in Middle East is trivial and cheap to extract [1,2].

There is a reason oil price is up there, because the US and Saudi Arabia have setup a cartel, aramco has iirc > 70% profit margins. The cartel ensures that the U.S. can be “competitive” on pricing, that’s it. It ensures private interests are protected.

As for who gets it and whatnot, it’s all about private interests funding politicians who ensure no crisis is lost.

The money spent there is not to Iraq or Afghanistan per se, but also to the troops. You should look into how much the US is paying for the food supplies.. we are talking thousands per meal.

[1] https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Why-the-US-cannot-Extr...

[2] https://www.enverus.com/blog/saudi-arabia-oil-need-know/

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#448

Post by franga2000 »

gruez wrote: post #182
akudha wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was looking for a book a while ago, it was something like $150 in the U.S. Out of curiosity, I looked up the price in other countries. It was 150 times the exchange rate. 150$ for a book is a lot of money even in the U.S. How do publishers expect other countries to pay the equivalent of 150$ (in local currency)? In many places $150 might be half the monthly salary or worse. I understand publishers and authors need…

>But at the same time, their customer base in most cases are college kids. How do they expect them to pay? Student loans. When you flood an entire sector with money, it's only logical that prices go up.

> When you flood an entire sector with money, it's only logical that prices go up.

Is it? The costs haven't increased and the value of money hasn't decreased. The only "logic" here is "the publishers are assholes".

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#449

Post by franga2000 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #388
hggh wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Z Library is still alive, as a TOR Hidden Service: http://zlibrary24tuxziyiyfr7zd46ytefdqbqd2axkmxm4o5374ptpc52...

How long that remains the case with at least two of its principals arrested may be somewhat uncertain. Any present operator(s) and site(s) would have to remain outside the reach of US or other Western jurisdiction and extradition treaties.

On Tor, the location of the the servers and the identities of the operators are protected. No way for the feds to find them even if both are well within their jurisdiction. Unless the operators make a big mistake, the site should stay up and even if it goes down, there are plenty of other pirates around the world with full copies of the data that could replace the site.

Re: Z-library founders arrested in Argentina

#450

Post by josh_fyi »

harshreality wrote: post #348
josh_fyi wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I signed away rights to the President and Fellows of Harvard College (the legal name in this context for Harvard). That was not a problem as it was clear to me that this would not be a money-maker for anyone. The business-side was handled by Eisenbrauns, a small publisher. When the owner retired, the business sold to Penn State. Later, the Harvard Semitic Museum (the part of Harvard in charge of the series) sold the…

Is that contract valid? What did you receive of value in exchange for signing away your copyright?

It was 25 years ago, so I don't remember. However, even if today I could get all my rights back -- indeed, if I could get compensated for a reasonable author's royalty going back to the start -- the amount of money would not be worth noticing.
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