[HN Gopher] Zshelf: Z-Library books downloader for reMarkable ta...
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Zshelf: Z-Library books downloader for reMarkable tablet
Author : markMacLean
Score : 103 points
Date : 2021-03-05 11:47 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| caractacus wrote:
| Yeah, those damn authors don't deserve any money for their hard
| work writing. Let's make piracy easier and pretend we're doing
| nothing different to a lending library!
| michaelmrose wrote:
| The amount of money someone is paid usually has zero
| correlation with what they are paid. See Cigarette execs vs
| school teachers.
|
| Some of us see the virtue in authors getting incentivized in
| theory but think copyright at least as practiced is a net
| negative for society because it stops the free spread of
| information that would otherwise better enlighten the world.
| This way of thinking actually dates back to some of the
| founding fathers.
|
| Nobody "deserves" to be paid because someone has arranged a
| pattern of bits in a way that they "own". Different laws have
| different up sides and down sides and we ought to pick the set
| of rules that results in the highest benefit/lowest cost to
| society. This unlike ownership of imaginary property has moral
| force. By choosing to treat the current rules as given good you
| have missed out on the opportunity to make a useful argument
| about the relative utility of different strategies.
|
| Arguably the current dynamic where piracy is technically easy
| but practically discouraged might be far more optimum than one
| in which copyright was actually maximally enforced because the
| people who have plenty of money value convenience and pay out
| at a substantive portion of what they would pay in a maximum
| enforcement scenario whereas those who would otherwise go
| without are able to.
|
| On net you end up with multiple times the positive effect of a
| maximum enforcement scenario while still funding authors having
| a decent life.
|
| For myself I think artificial scarcity of any variety is an
| attempt to preserve a business model based on actual scarcity
| that doesn't make much sense in modern context. Ultimately it
| wasn't the VCR inventors job to justify to the copyright
| industry that home video industry made sense. The logical step
| towards phasing out copyright would be limiting it to a sane
| time frame like 7 years wherein most of the money is actually
| made in the first place.
| [deleted]
| an_ko wrote:
| I'm uninformed, as I'm into neither piracy nor libraries. What
| are the differences between the two from an author's financial
| perspective? My initial impression is that they sound
| equivalent; both are used to get your book for free, by people
| who don't want to buy it.
| cooperadymas wrote:
| Libraries buy the e-book legally and loan it out to a single
| person who then returns it. Libraries are often forced to buy
| ebooks at a much higher than consumer price, supposedly to
| offset the cost of customers who would buy the book
| themselves if libraries didn't exist. The author/publisher
| get paid for every copy purchased by every library and no
| more than 1 person can be reading that copy of the book at a
| given time. If someone wants to permanently add it to their
| collection they must purchase it themselves.
|
| It's the functional equivalent of someone buying the book and
| then passing it on to the next person who wants to read it.
|
| With pirating, perhaps one person bought the book originally
| and then it gets sent to an infinite number of people who
| permanently have it in their collection. The author gets paid
| practically nothing.
| cygx wrote:
| In Germany, libraries pay 3-4 Cent per lending to _VG Wort_ ,
| the relevant copyright collecting society, which in turn pays
| royalties to the authors.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Libraries who purchase books for a much smaller discount than
| other bulk buys drive more sales than they cost. For a new
| release which is when most sales are made the library only
| buys n copies when n * x copies are simultaneously desired by
| readers who want to read your book now not after a 12 week
| waiting list. This is to say they drive more sales than they
| cost.
|
| Here is an interesting answer on the topic.
|
| https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-library-pay-royalties-to-
| th...
|
| They also provide a net benefit to society by encouraging
| knowledge and literacy. There is a social expectation that
| physical goods are sold in most cases without expectation
| that seller will retain contractual control in order to
| derive maximum profit. Example nobody liked when Keurig sold
| coffee pots that wouldn't work with generic or indeed even
| older official pods via electronic tags in pods.
|
| Also keep in mind that that we all exist in a society there
| is no reasonable expectation that you have a moral right to
| be able to use societies apparatus to maximize profit if its
| at societies expense. Limits are the norm.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _What are the differences between the two from an author 's
| financial perspective?_
|
| The short answer is that libraries buy books, pirates don't.
|
| In regards to physical books, a good place to start is
| understanding "first sale doctrine"[1], which allows both
| libraries and you to do what you want with a book once you're
| purchased it.
|
| First sale doctrine does not apply to DRM-encumbered ebooks,
| so libraries must buy as many licenses as they wish to loan,
| paying three-to-five times the retail price for each limited-
| time license, and re-purchasing those licenses when they
| expire (typically after two years).
|
| [1] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-first-sale-
| doctr...
| wedn3sday wrote:
| Just as movie pirates are also the sort of people who spend a
| lot of money on movies, I would bet (with no proof of any kind)
| that the kind of person who pirates books is also the kind of
| person that buys a lot of books. My library has an ebook
| section, but they make it extremely difficult to actually work
| with the ebooks because of all the DRM, so Ive started browsing
| their catalog, and then using libgen to get the actual book
| since it lets me actually read the darn thing. I also have
| filled every wall in my house with floor to ceiling book
| shelves, I really dont think any authors losing money on my
| book piracy.
| bradstewart wrote:
| Seconded. I always buy a book in print first, read it, and
| then acquire a digital copy for things I want to re-read or
| take notes on. If I could get eBooks some other way onto my
| Remarkable, I would. But the DRM makes it extremely
| difficult/impossible.
| fullstop wrote:
| I have mixed feelings on z-library. I don't condone book piracy
| but will admit that I've used it in the past in these situations:
|
| 1. I have the book in print but want the convenience of reading
| while traveling without a bunch of books in tow. This one is,
| IMO, a morally grey area.
|
| 2. I have put books on my daughter's Kindle which she checked out
| from the local library through overdrive. Far too many e-books
| from the library require Adobe Acrobat with some DRM garbage
| which realistically allows you to read it on a PC or an iPad.
| TrueDuality wrote:
| I mostly feel the same way. I definitely do not condone book
| piracy, but I don't have any qualms about getting a digital
| version of a book that I have purchased. My favorite technical
| book publisher NoStarch Press (unaffiliated) provides eBook
| versions for free with purchase of a physical copy and I wish
| that was more common.
|
| I do not feel the same way about audiobooks, even if I own the
| book, there is additional cost and value added to producing
| audiobooks and I can't justify pirating those even if I already
| own the physical book.
| Loughla wrote:
| Thank you for that second statement. Too many people that I
| know personally justify pirating audiobooks because they
| already own a physical copy. A well-done audiobook (for
| example, Hyperion) is a production all on its own. It's an
| experience above and beyond the actual printed text.
|
| I don't know if that adds to the conversation or not, but I
| did want to thank you for that distinction!
| dominotw wrote:
| Yes agree with this sentiment here. This is only reason I buy
| books almost elusively from manning. Would be interesting to
| see how they estimate they loss of value from non-drm ebooks
| vs gain in customers like me who are buying books for no drm.
| websites2323 wrote:
| Similar to your use case #2, I use Z-Library (and others) to
| get DRM-free versions of books I bought on Apple Books. Reason
| being: I can't trust that Apple won't go ebook-bankrupt like
| Microsoft did a few years back.
| blakesterz wrote:
| I've had a reMarkable2 for a while, and just started using it. It
| does just want I want it to do (which isn't all that much). I use
| it to take notes while I'm studying. The handwriting recognition
| is surprisingly good (my hand writing is terrible).
|
| Somehow I missed there are a bunch of things out there written
| for these tablets!
|
| https://github.com/topics/remarkable-tablet
| spullara wrote:
| My daughter uses it for drawing and really likes it.
| Loughla wrote:
| I've been using the two for a month or two now for work notes
| (everything I do has to be documented in case of Freedom of
| Information requests). It's really good, but the lag between
| screens is just enough to be annoying.
|
| I tried the Boox Air, and it felt like trying to write on an
| overhead projector (for you youths, it felt like writing on a
| piece of stiff plastic). The one thing the remarkable does
| extremely well is simulate the actual feeling of writing on
| paper. That is very, very nice.
|
| I wish I was able to modify my tablet, because there are so
| many super handy things you can do with it!
| tw04 wrote:
| I still don't understand why they don't add native onenote
| integration. I would buy one in a heartbeat if they did. The
| whole "well just email it to yourself" workflow is horrible and
| a non-starter. It seems like such an oversight that I can't
| quite wrap my head around it. I have no doubt MS would be
| willing to work with them and it should be entirely do-able
| given the linux underpinnings of the tablet.
|
| Maybe by the time there's a reMarkable3.
| blakesterz wrote:
| Totally agree with you on that one. OneNote would be a great
| thing to have on those things for sure. It's a nice little
| device, but doesn't do all that much.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| I personally am very glad that nothing related to MS is
| anywhere near it. The device is pretty much perfect. Would be
| nice if they supported Japanese handwriting recognition
| though.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| If you're a power-user sshing the framebuffer over +
| tesseract-jpn (or tesseract-jpn-vert) works splendidly for
| me. You can get it working in 100 lines of python from mix-
| matching existing scripts.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Thanks, I'll check that out.
| wedn3sday wrote:
| There's a nice 3rd party python library for reading/writing
| files to/from the tablet, so really you can do anything you
| want with it. The tablet is very much just a linux computer
| with an e-ink display attached, and they make it very easy to
| ssh in and do whatever you want.
| nsomaru wrote:
| How are you dealing with the jagged line issue and the other
| issues like no custom templates, no bookmarks etc.?
|
| I was pretty sold on RM2 but then I read about the slow
| development pace, the apparent nonsensical lockdown of the
| device etc (yes I know it's less locked down than an iPad) and
| I just think about getting a boox device.
|
| Edit: see https://youtu.be/QoVIpCSpaFs
| blakesterz wrote:
| Either I don't see them or just don't care about the jagged
| line issue? Doesn't seem to happen to mine at least. The
| other stuff would be nice, but I am not a power user. I agree
| with the other things, though I don't care much about those
| things.
|
| I use it for some notes, and that's about it, so it's fine
| for what I use it for.
| AlanYx wrote:
| The jagged line issue seems to have largely affected batches
| shipped in late 2020. Judging from the device serial numbers,
| it looks like there may have been four hardware revisions to
| the RM2. I have a more recent RM2 (early-February) and don't
| have the jagged lines issue or the wavy lines issue.
|
| Custom templates are possible without modifying the device at
| all, using free tools online. Bookmarks you can get using the
| DDVK hack (but they aren't anywhere as slick as the
| implementation on the Supernote).
|
| I'm not sure what you mean about the lockdown of the device.
| There's a thriving third-party community, including a package
| manager (Toltec), you get a SSH password out of the box, and
| you can even install a full Linux desktop environment on it
| (Parabola-RM).
|
| I'm pretty satisfied with mine. My biggest gripes are: (i)
| PDF searching is poorly implemented; (ii) no searching of
| handwritten notebooks apart from metadata; (iii) although you
| can get bookmarks with a hack, there's no way to bookmark
| notebooks like you would with paper notebooks, e.g., with
| several different style sticky notes that are easy to find
| and access. The built-in eBook reader functionality is poor,
| but since it's so easy to install KOReader, that's not an
| issue for me.
| spijdar wrote:
| I don't have a remarkable 1 or 2, but I did some digging
| when considering buying one before, and I'd call it locked
| down because the primary UI and software stack were very
| locked off. Yes, you can get an SSH connection to it, but
| past that point 3rd party development feels more like
| jailbreaking an iphone, just with the jailbreak freely
| provided.
|
| It's clear the developer intends for the device to be
| heavily restricted by default in an attempt to mimic a
| notebook as closely as possible. You are given a free
| escape hatch, but that's it.
| AlanYx wrote:
| >the primary UI and software stack were very locked off
|
| Nothing's really locked off. The filesystem is fully
| accessible, the file format is not obfuscated in any way
| and was easily reverse-engineered (there are several
| libraries for reading/writing the format now), and it's
| possible to interact with the main "xochitl" UI by
| intercepting/simulating events and drawing to the
| framebuffer after the main UI draws.
|
| It is true that they haven't opened the UI framework
| behind "xochitl", but I'd guess that it's probably pretty
| rudimentary and not particularly general given how simple
| "xochitl" is. Most third party apps for the device just
| use QT or draw directly to the framebuffer. (And why not
| use QT?)
|
| >It's clear the developer intends for the device to be
| heavily restricted by default
|
| They want the UI for average users to be fairly
| restricted, but IMHO they're intentionally leaving it
| open to people to hack on it. The CTO even has a
| crosswords app up on Github.
| asdf123wtf wrote:
| It's actually one of the least locked down devices out there.
| It's proprietary apps aren't open source, but otherwise you
| have free reign over the device.
|
| All it takes to side-load is ssh.
| netfl0 wrote:
| None of what this guy is saying is a problem for me. I have
| no idea what this jagged lines issue is.
|
| I would say this is radically not locked down. You can ssh
| it!
|
| If they tried to accommodate custom "mods" it could crash
| their updates. I don't want them spending dev cycles on such
| an accommodation.
|
| Besides my desktop computer, this is the best technology
| purchase I've ever made. I continue to use it for practical
| things.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| I had a original nook which had truly awful software. Even
| the library function where you select books was truly
| painful to use and couldn't even search both books you had
| downloaded and those you had paid for electronically so I
| jailbreaked it with a tool that relied on loading a url
| with an exploit in its browser and gained in addition to a
| library app that worked everything from a twitter client,
| to dictionaries, to pandora.
|
| Ultimately the functionality didn't interfere with the
| built in reader software or OS because it was entirely
| orthogonal the extra functionality was more icons on the
| launch screen. It didn't need the developers to create much
| in the way of extension points save for the expectations
| that the launch screen wasn't hard coded but rather it
| would let you select from whatever apps were installed.
| Something pretty common in basically every OS.
|
| If your work doesn't have some degree of natural separation
| between A and B I don't know how you can possibly have made
| it work in the first place.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I had never heard of "Z-Library" before, so I followed the link.
| The z-library front page copy requires serious reading between
| the lines to tell that it's a piracy site.
|
| > Here you can always find the relevant information on the
| available domains for your region.
|
| Was the only tip-off for me, and that's quite subtle. While I
| have conflicted thoughts on piracy, I could see casual users
| using this site without knowing it was piracy, which definitely
| seems off to me. Maybe if I click through further it becomes more
| obvious?
| michaelmrose wrote:
| The entire online ebook market revolves around paying money per
| digital copy licensed exclusively for you often with DRM,
| paying a subscription for temporary access to a number of books
| for the duration with DRM, and electronically borrowing from a
| finite number of simultaneous copies held by a library.
|
| If you had never interacted with any of that over the last 20
| years then you could be forgiven for not knowing that a site
| offering unlimited downloads of millions of drm free books
| without limit, payment, or even login was piracy.
|
| Otherwise its every bit as obvious as napster or the pirate
| bay.
| Epitom3 wrote:
| It should be obvious to anyone who reached the site. They have
| listed popular books on the front page. And the website itself
| isn't indexed if you don't explicitly search the name.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| >It should be obvious to anyone who reached the site. They
| have listed popular books on the front page.
|
| Not true for me. The front page had 3 links (Books, Articles,
| Sign up). I had to click Books before I could see content and
| _then_ it was obvious.
|
| > And the website itself isn't indexed if you don't
| explicitly search the name.
|
| Most people aren't going to know what that even means.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| My local public library _also_ has popular books listed. I
| didn 't explicitly search the name, I got to it from a link
| on github, which I got to from a news aggregator. None of
| these links mentioned anything about piracy.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Mentioning piracy on the front page would be legally
| disadvantageous as piracy is illegal. Drug dealers also
| don't have signage, price lists, and hours except for that
| one guy they busted in the south with a drive up window in
| his mobile home.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I guess I remember a time when bookwarez.net was the go-
| to site for book piracy. Simpler times I suppose.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| I remember issuing query commands to bots on IRC and
| shared FTP sites where you were expected to collect
| interesting things on other sites and upload them
| painfully over dial up in order to achieve the proper
| ratio to not get kicked off.
| utrack wrote:
| <shameless self-promotion>
|
| There's another tool for rM that fetches articles by URI and
| sends them to reMarkable as PDFs:
| https://sendreadable.utrack.dev/
| blakesterz wrote:
| Looks really interesting, am I missing the code on GitHub?
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Nope, there doesn't appear to be any.
| avel wrote:
| Remarkable's chrome extension does the same, no? And I have
| full control in the print dialog to adjust the output.
|
| There's a value if you provide a CLI tool for that, for
| automation.
| wedn3sday wrote:
| The github link on the site takes you to your personal github
| page, not the page for the sendreadable project. One downside
| of the way remarkable handles this sort of thing, is that I
| assume I have to give you my API key, which would let you
| read/write anything you want to the tablet. Its a lot easier to
| trust that you're not doing anything fishy if you provide the
| code to the project.
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