[HN Gopher] How to become a pirate archivist (2022)
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How to become a pirate archivist (2022)
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 222 points
Date : 2024-03-07 23:06 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (annas-blog.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (annas-blog.org)
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| In case anyone's wondering what this relates to:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna%27s_Archive
|
| > Anna's Archive is a search engine for shadow libraries.
|
| > It describes itself as a project that aims to "catalog all the
| books in existence"
|
| May they succeed at their noble goal.
| prirai wrote:
| While they did start as search engine, it seems the goal
| changed midway.
| mistyq wrote:
| Doing something highly illegal and finding a "community" and
| sharing it with a "friend" would be a stupid move. Don't ever
| disclose your name if you do something like this, unless you are
| in a safe country.
| lukan wrote:
| Depends what you want in life. If you build the walls around
| you so high, that no one can pass, you might be secure, but
| also alone and imprisoned, if you build no door in, to let
| others come in.
|
| "That secrecy, however, comes with a psychological cost. Most
| people love being recognized for the work that they do, and yet
| you cannot take any credit for this in real life. Even simple
| things can be challenging, like friends asking you what you
| have been up to"
|
| So sure, it is more safe, to always keep it a secret. But it is
| more fun to do things together, we are social beings after all.
| But yes, if the "together" gets too big and the whole project
| more popularity, getting caught is only a question of time. The
| licence holding companies do work with (private) undercover
| investigators. At least for music and movies. Not sure if the
| book rights companies are playing in the same league.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| I have my own written SOPs for how I make personal back ups of
| commercial media I own (purchased licensed instance because you
| never really own it even after paying for access). In this case
| I enjoy maintaining a media archive but my choice of words
| provides a fully legal context.
|
| What I find interesting is the wildly differing approach to
| piracy between the RIAA and the MPAA. The music industry's
| current approach is to make their product as available
| everywhere as much as possible so that it requires far greater
| effort to pirate the media than to otherwise consume it. As a
| result piracy is rarer than it used to be and they are making
| more money than they used to. The movie industry still acts the
| way the music industry did in the 90s.
| madduci wrote:
| > As a result piracy is rarer than it used to be and they are
| making more money than they used to. The movie industry still
| acts the way the music industry did in the 90s.
|
| Exactly this. And not only they do more money with digital
| content, see how concerts are always full and prices
| skyrocketed due to the demand!
|
| The movie industry has surely more costs that music one,
| _but_ they act like children who lost their toys. And the
| book industry isn't that far away too.. a lot of content is
| behind stupid DRMs and what happens if the license server
| disappears one day?
| dns_snek wrote:
| > what happens if the license server disappears one day
|
| Minor nitpick, " _when_ " the license server disappears one
| day. They have no reason to do right by their customers
| when they go out of business, break old infrastructure that
| "only a small percentage of users were using", or just feel
| like they can get away with it and sell you the same
| product again on their new platform.
|
| It has happened before and it will happen again, modern
| video games are notorious for this, while you can still
| play multiplayer games from the early 00s.
|
| And let's not get started with content being outright
| ripped from our digital products, such as soundtracks being
| removed from video games after their opaque licensing deals
| expire, even though you supposedly "own" them in your
| digital library. Or old movies & TV episodes being removed
| because they're politically incorrect in the current age.
| CatchSwitch wrote:
| Is this true? From what I've read musicians are hardly making
| anything off of streaming whereas they used to make much more
| prior to the popularization of Spotify. And AFAIK Spotify has
| never had a profitable quarter.
| ghaff wrote:
| I assume "they" in the parent refers to the labels.
|
| Almost certainly one of the things that allows streaming to
| be priced in a range that's palatable for consumers is that
| most artists make less money than ever. At $50/month, it
| presumably wouldn't fly. As it is, it's probably priced in
| about the range that a lot of people spent on physical
| media in pre-Napster days. (And streaming seems not to be a
| money printing press for at least some of the streaming
| services either.)
|
| ADDED: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-
| revenues-by-...
|
| Paid streaming is somewhat lower than peak CD but about the
| same as peak vinyl (inflation adjusted). There are peaks
| and valleys but consumer music spend hasn't changed _that_
| much over time.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| Musicians are not the owners.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| I've heard this a thousand times, but it begs the question:
| Why do they then put their music on Spotify?
| ghaff wrote:
| Because streaming in pretty much _the_ distribution
| channel today. Even if they sell a few CDs at live shows,
| increasingly younger people don 't even have a CD player.
| And very few people buy MP3s.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| When the artists only get a couple hundred dollars per
| year from their streams, why even bother putting the
| music on Spotify? If your listeners don't want to buy
| your mp3s or CDs when that's the only option, then what's
| the point?
|
| Compare it to any other profession. Let's say a
| bricklayer decides to go work for a company. He works the
| entire year and builds houses for many people. Then he's
| paid a hundred dollars. He'd be an idiot to keep doing
| it. And he says that if he started his own brick laying
| business he wouldn't get even a single client. Okay, but
| why keep doing this?
| bloak wrote:
| Perhaps some musicians are using Spotify as a way of
| advertising themselves for live gigs.
| ghaff wrote:
| Discovery is one important reason. Not that that's
| guaranteed to work. You probably need to do your own
| marketing--including playing at local bars etc. for
| pennies and tips. Of course, the same things is mostly
| true these days for writers with a publishing contract.
|
| People pursue creative pursuits for a lot of different
| reasons, including personal fulfillment. But you pretty
| much have to win the lottery to make a decent full-time
| living off of it. People may somewhat enjoy laying bricks
| --but it's a job they expect to make a living at. If they
| can't, they'll try to do something else.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| I get it, but I just think it's strange. Like it would be
| wrong for a brick layer to let himself be taken totally
| advantage of, even if he enjoys laying bricks.
|
| If it's for personal fulfilment, artists can be happy
| with the sales they can make on their own, even if the
| numbers are small. Or even give their music away for
| free, if they want to get as many listeners as possible.
| But what is the sense in letting a billion dollar company
| exploit you and make bank on your work, while paying you
| almost nothing in return?
|
| Imagine if other professions were like that? "Just keep
| laying the bricks for free for my company, and maybe one
| day you'll be a famous bricklayer and I'll pay you
| millions".
| al_borland wrote:
| It's advertising to drive people to concerts and merch.
|
| Of course, generally people make music because they like
| making music, and streaming is a way to share it. If it
| connects with people, and they blow up, great. But if
| that's the only drive they'll probably have a bad time.
|
| The same could be said about GitHub... why would anyone
| put their code up there for free, or work on these hobby
| projects, when they aren't making money from it, or just
| get $100 in donations per year? It's fun, the people
| enjoy it, they want to share the work they've done, and
| for some it's a way to advertise themselves and what they
| can do.
|
| Not everything needs to make someone a multimillionaire,
| especially in the arts.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Okay, but why does the artists have to make Spotify
| multibillionaires with their art?
|
| I'm talking specifically about the artists that are
| complaining about getting a raw deal from Spotify. And I
| agree 0% with your assessment that just because they are
| not happy with a hundred dollars per year means that they
| demanded to be multimillionaires. Maybe people just
| should to get their fair share for their work?
|
| I am friends with some career musicians and I am forced
| to pirate their music if I want to listen to it, because
| they refuse to sell their music online and only have it
| on streaming services. Which gives them almost nothing in
| return.
| danaris wrote:
| > Okay, but why does the artists have to make Spotify
| multibillionaires with their art?
|
| ghaff already covered why: because Spotify is _the_
| distribution channel.
|
| 40 years ago, they would've put their music on the radio.
| Today, they put it on Spotify. Why? Because if they
| don't, very few people are ever going to even know they
| exist.
|
| And if you think the fact that Spotify is giving them a
| terrible deal means they shouldn't engage with them, then
| I'll point to any of a dozen other examples today of
| massive corporations profiting excessively off of people
| who have very little choice but to engage with them.
| Being able to choose to do otherwise, and remain in the
| music business, is a very privileged position to be in.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > remain in the music business
|
| If you're not getting paid, you're not doing "business".
|
| Yes, there are many other examples of companies having
| exploratory practices the same way as Spotify. That still
| does not explain very well why people put up with it.
|
| If a farmer exploits a migrant worker, the migrant worker
| gets paid enough for shelter and food. He is depending on
| that job for surviving. When artists are exploited by
| Spotify, the money they usually receive is nowhere close
| to paying for shelter or food, so they have to survive by
| other means anyway. Keeping their music on Spotify or
| removing it from Spotify doesn't make any difference for
| their livelihood.
| danaris wrote:
| Because the other thing Spotify gets them is exposure.
| Whether or not it's worth what they have to deal with
| from Spotify, I have no idea--but I can absolutely see
| many artists putting up with it in hopes that being heard
| on Spotify will get people to buy their merch, come to
| their concerts, etc.
| ghaff wrote:
| Musicians/DJs/etc. also often do corporate gigs to eat.
| I'm sure they'd often much rather be playing for
| passionate fans in a bar than playing at some event where
| half the time the attendees are largely ignoring them
| except to wish they would turn down the volume so they
| could have a conversation.
|
| Somewhat different situation than the Spotify case which
| is arguably mostly an advertising channel while corporate
| gigs actually pay directly. But creatives of all stripes
| doing things they'd rather not do so they can live, do
| what they want to do, and have a sliver of a sliver of a
| chance to breakout is extremely common.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'd say _streaming_ is _the_ distribution channel. Apple
| (especially because their bundles) and maybe Amazon
| probably have opinions about Spotify specifically being
| _the_ distribution channel. But that 's probably being
| pedantic because the deals are almost certainly similar.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Maybe they should start a patreon, a kickstarter for an
| album or something.
|
| They clearly need new business models. Selling copies of
| infinitely abundant data in the age of networked
| computers just isn't gonna work out.
| rjbwork wrote:
| I've seen a lot of concerts that I wouldn't have gone to
| if they didn't have their music on Spotify.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The music industry's current approach is to make their
| product as available everywhere as much as possible so that
| it requires far greater effort to pirate the media than to
| otherwise consume it.
|
| You consume it by going to youtube and playing the video.
|
| You "pirate" it by saving the youtube video.
|
| Passing the -x flag to youtube-dl will ignore the video and
| save just the audio.
|
| It's very little additional effort.
| dpassens wrote:
| Regarding youtube-dl specifically, it's only very little
| additional effort if you're already comfortable using a
| terminal.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| yt-dlp now. youtube-dl is dead. :p
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| True, but its much more intuitive name lives on.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| The difference is that music labels and artists are making up
| the difference with other streams of revenue, like live show
| ticket sales, merch, and sync licensing, all of which have
| gone up as recorded music revenue has flatlined or gone down.
|
| Movies are not doing well with any alternate revenue streams
| yet. Ticket sales and merch are way down.
| 3abiton wrote:
| Define a safe country. I highly doubt there are any, after what
| happened to Aaron Swartz.
| sourcecodeplz wrote:
| Asia, Middle East....
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| Russia is currently the preeminent power that lies beyond the
| reach of US law while still having functional internet
| infrastructure. If you stay reasonably low-profile and stay
| out of the way of domestic interests, you should be safe.
| janmarsal wrote:
| do not fear the autocrats
| rmbyrro wrote:
| I understand the psychological need, but I agree this is going
| to bite them at some point.
|
| A "community" is the weakest link in their chain, it seems.
| Even if you get your OpSec 100% tight (very, very hard, if not
| impractical), the human factor is never securable.
| crtasm wrote:
| While I know they need to fund servers somehow, the approach and
| wording of their download page doesn't sit right with me:
|
| >Fast downloads - Become a member to support the long-term
| preservation of books, papers, and more. To show our gratitude
| for your support, you get fast downloads.
|
| >[3 "Fast Partner Server" links]
|
| >Refer a friend, and both you and your friend get 50% bonus fast
| downloads!
|
| >[3 "Slow Partner Server" links]
|
| $5/m gets 20 fast downloads a day.
|
| I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on this.
|
| edit: I should have said that the donations page is important
| context too: https://annas-archive.org/donate
| vintagedave wrote:
| Why doesn't it sit right? Providing a higher level of service
| reward for those who support provides an incentive, yet those
| who do not support are no worse off than they already were.
|
| What surprises me is the need for fast downloads. Books are
| small. 20 fast small downloads doesn't seem much of a reward.
| crtasm wrote:
| That the first thing it says on every download page is a push
| to sign up for a monthly subscription. Then it continues with
| a push to refer friends to do the same.
|
| From some testing there seems to be a built in delay, and
| then as some scanned books can easily be 20-100MB a download
| time of 5-10mins isn't uncommon. (I not complaining about
| this)
|
| I support their goals of open access, FWIW.
|
| edit: the call for people to run mirrors is interesting to
| see: https://annas-archive.org/mirrors
| devsda wrote:
| Anything else of value with exclusivity like an additional
| catalog or early-access would go against their stated goal.
|
| So, I guess this is similar to buying official physical
| merchandise like t-shirt or mug at a higher than market price
| which they cannot ship (legally) due to the nature of their
| service. Both parties know that the benefit they get doesn't
| match the costs and it is about showing support.
| crtasm wrote:
| >additional catalog or early-access
|
| Yes, I wouldn't suggest or support anything like that.
|
| One way this feels different to me is that while somewhere
| able to sell merchandise may have a range of items
| including some very expensive it generally wouldn't be
| suggesting I buy something every month and then offer an
| increasing % discount for paying 3/6/12/24 months up front.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| There's an enormous difference between spreading stolen
| information for free or selling stolen information for
| profit. If you don't understand this, you have to investigate
| your moral compass a bit. There's a reason why purchasing
| stolen goods is a crime in most of the world.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| From the FAQ, https://annas-archive.org/donation_faq
|
| >If you don't like how we operate our project, go run your own
| shadow library! All our code and data are open source, so
| nothing is stopping you. ;)
|
| Or be more specific what doesn't sit right with you.
| crtasm wrote:
| I'm unsure what quoting that to me achieves? What are your
| thoughts on their approach to getting donations (monthly
| subscriptions)?
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| If you don't like their approach, you can host your own
| shadow library. It's all open source. :)
| crtasm wrote:
| I can also discuss it here, as far as I'm aware.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| They need to fund the operation somehow, if you think you
| can fund it without aggressively pushing for donations
| you're free to create your own library.
| lukan wrote:
| "Or be more specific what doesn't sit right with you."
|
| What's not right with me, is that a donation is different
| from buying something, yet here it seems mixed in together.
| DANmode wrote:
| Can you think of any legal mandates that might influence
| that decision?
| lukan wrote:
| Right now, no. What do you mean?
|
| The whole site is illegal anyway. Is there a legal
| difference in "donating" and getting benefits. And
| "buying" for benefits, when the benefits are illegal in
| both cases?
| pjerem wrote:
| Words don't have the same significations around the
| world. It's not about the legal meaning in the US but
| about the cultural (not legal) meaning of the word from
| where the author comes from.
|
| For me (not in the US), donating have a different meaning
| than buying. When I buy, I become a customer and it
| establish a business relation and the organization owe me
| a bunch of things (the product/the service, my customer
| rights ...).
|
| When I donate, it's mainly to support a cause and I know
| I'm not tied to anything in return. Even if there are
| promised perks, the structure doesn't owe me anything,
| the perk is just a mean to thank me for my donation.
|
| Again, it's not the legal definition from my country (or
| maybe, I really don't know), it's just what those words
| means culturally here.
|
| Also, using << buy >> which implies a business
| relationship (even an illegal one) when the project is
| explicitly about freeing knowledge from businesses would
| be pretty ironic.
| DANmode wrote:
| Tax collection, business licenses, etc
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| So what are your thoughts about NPR totebags? Getting perks
| if you donate isn't unusual.
| lukan wrote:
| "Getting perks if you donate isn't unusual."
|
| Small perks usually and I am critical of those as well,
| as they blurry the line. But here it rather looks like a
| usual subscription model to buy.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Faster access seems like a small perk, even without
| donating you can get books far faster than you'd be
| capable of reading them
| necovek wrote:
| How would you prefer it they collected more money?
| DymistAlarm wrote:
| The free external providers work for a user who requires a
| small number of downloads.
|
| I don't see an issue with charging users who would cause large
| amounts of traffic. It is a subscription model described as
| donations but this is common for many piracy sites.
| dang wrote:
| Discussed at the time:
|
| _How to become a pirate archivist_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33240701 - Oct 2022 (99
| comments)
| fsflover wrote:
| Why don't they mention a possibility to do torrenting in I2P,
| which is truly anonymous and safe (although slow)? It seems like
| a very dangerous thing to do in the clearnet.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| A lot of people will argue about the morality and legality of
| this sort of thing within the system, but I think this sort of
| thing is truly the result of rising pressures on society to be as
| efficient as possible in the domain of capitalistic activities.
|
| Of course, as a content creator myself, I do believe that there
| should be some sort of reward and protection for creating
| content. However, I also know that we have become a ruthless
| world where inequality is enormous. And I don't just mean
| inequality in the traditional sense: even the middle and upper
| class are forced to live in a world where they are absolutely
| dependent on the upper tech elite for basic things, and costs are
| rising.
|
| Thus, piracy of this sort is inevitable. It should not just be
| those who can pay who should have access to knowledge and ideas.
| Everyone should have that. In a fair world where there were
| limits to corporate power and technological development, there
| would be more equality and piracy would not be necessary.
|
| So as much as I want to make money myself on my own content, I
| also support piracy simply because it's the only solution within
| the capitalistic system for some sort of equality in terms of
| access to knowledge.
| beeboobaa wrote:
| The thing is that countless of lives have been ruined by
| bigcorps for doing "piracy".
|
| But now the bigcorps see it as a way to gain more money and
| control over other's lifes, so suddenly doing piracy is totally
| fine and for the greater good!
|
| The worst part is that these individuals whose lives have been
| ruined weren't even harming anyone. Their operations were on
| such a small scale that it barely had any impact.
|
| But these bigcorps are looking to reshape society, destroy many
| jobs and industries, rewrite social contracts, and it's all
| just hunky dory.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| That is right. The near sole determiner of whether an idea
| flourishes these days is whether it greases the wheels of
| capitalism. Sometimes, those ideas are in line with our
| morality and greater good, but most of the time they are not.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > But now the bigcorps see it as a way to gain more money and
| control over other's lifes, so suddenly doing piracy is
| totally fine and for the greater good!
|
| I'm definitely about as anti-corporation as you're going to
| find on HN, but I'm not sure I'm seeing what you're
| describing. It seems like bigcorps are definitely still
| fighting against piracy. At the moment, players like Anna's
| Archive appear to be winning because they've largely figured
| out technical means to bypass the legal problems, but I've
| been in this sphere for long enough to know you never really
| "win" this war--all you ever can do is carve out a temporary,
| limited space where knowledge is preserved and liberated. In
| fact, there are some pretty glaring weaknesses to stuff like
| Anna's Archive (which I'm not going to share here because I
| don't want to give anyone ideas) and I expect someone on the
| wrong side will figure those out in a decade at the most, and
| services like this will disappear.
| beeboobaa wrote:
| > It seems like bigcorps are definitely still fighting
| against piracy
|
| Microsoft with OpenAI is leading the race, but all of the
| AI orgs are basically just laundering copyrighted material
| they do not have the rights to.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > Of course, as a content creator myself, I do believe that
| there should be some sort of reward and protection for creating
| content.
|
| This is often the framing of the debate around piracy, but I
| think it's fundamentally incorrect. Numerous studies over the
| years have shown that pirates spend _more_ money on media, not
| less. Media companies want to frame this as a debate about
| money because it seems logical that we should reward content
| creators, but it 's fundamentally not a debate about money
| because if it were, content creators would have no reason to be
| unhappy about piracy.
|
| In reality, the real issue is _control_. Media companies want
| to control how and when you consume media, and pirates want to
| control how and when they consume media. This war isn 't just
| being fought in the piracy space either--it's part of the
| motivation behind the move to subscription streaming services
| and streaming protocol changes that no longer serve up video
| files.
|
| Personally, that's _exactly why_ I spend more money on media
| than my friends: I have an extensive CD collection (and a
| somewhat less-extensive BluRay collection) and if you do the
| math on that it 's very clear that it would be cheaper for me
| to pay for literally every music streaming service than what I
| spend on CDs each month. I'm not going to give exact numbers,
| but the amount of money isn't even in the same ballpark. But my
| CDs don't disappear, I can rip them and play them on any of my
| devices, I can leaf through my CDs and rediscover something I
| had forgotten instead of having some algorithm push me toward
| the latest dictated hotness, etc.
|
| And to be clear, I'm saying "media companies" here, not
| "content creators", because almost universally the content
| creators aren't the ones trying to exert control over the
| content they create. On the contrary, my #1 tip for pirating
| academic papers is to email the author and ask them for the
| paper--I've literally never received a "no" to literally
| hundreds of such emails I've sent. Music and movies are
| different because they're usually less of a one-person product
| and more of the money actually makes it to the content
| creators, but generally musicians I've talked to are not the
| ones restricting their media to one streaming platform or
| refusing to allow MP3 downloads, or refusing to release on
| physical media--that only ever happens when big media companies
| get involved.
| gosub100 wrote:
| > even the middle and upper class are forced to live in a world
| where they are absolutely dependent on the upper tech elite for
| basic things,
|
| paradoxically, we are all super dependent on the poor and low-
| income earners as well. If everyone was as well-off as the
| average HN poster, things would get expensive and services
| would become scarce. I don't say this to disagree with you, but
| rather to support the fact that we need to have a middle and
| lower class for our economy to function. the cost increases in
| basic goods (including books and entertainment), but especially
| housing, is destroying the middle and lower class. why would
| someone participate in an economy where the lowest-paying jobs
| don't even pay enough for a place to live?
|
| > it should not just be those who can pay who should have
| access to knowledge and ideas.
|
| I've thought a lot about this and particularly for prisons,
| where by definition there isn't a market for them to buy much
| of anything. They should make prisons, and perhaps hospitals,
| copyright-free zones because even if they brazenly "steal"
| content, its not really possible for the consumers to pay for
| it anyway. And prisons could use premium IP materials as an
| incentive to reward good behavior or placate them, without
| technically stealing anything.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| What kind of resources would it take to make a search index /
| crawl the content of the books and papers in Anna's Archive? This
| would be the most important project for information technology of
| this decade. They have torrent files of a few hundred gigabytes.
| Could crawling be done piece by piece on these files?
| criddell wrote:
| I'm not exactly sure what you have in mind, but even a laptop
| should be able to index a terabyte in a day or two.
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