[HN Gopher] Z-Library admins "escape house arrest" after judge a...
___________________________________________________________________
Z-Library admins "escape house arrest" after judge approves U.S.
extradition
Author : mrzool
Score : 160 points
Date : 2024-07-08 19:19 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (torrentfreak.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (torrentfreak.com)
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| Why is it that Russian citizens are the most important preservers
| of Western culture now? %-/
| jasonjayr wrote:
| That's easy: Russia is leaning pretty hard anti-west right now,
| and if any of it's citizens are doing anything to annoy
| anything from the west, they will cheerfully let it continue so
| long as it doesn't cause them problems at home.
| sampa wrote:
| it must be comfortable to have such a simplistic view on the
| world
| daedrdev wrote:
| As opposed to your alternate view that is...?
|
| I feel like its objective fact that Russia is doing
| whatever is can to undermine the west, considering that
| they are currently committing industrial sabotage in Europe
| on a large scale.
| sampa wrote:
| as if industrial sabotage was invented in Russia
| lesuorac wrote:
| Very unclear how this is related to the previous comments
| about why Russia would be preserving Western culture.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Because it's also part of their culture.
| exe34 wrote:
| we should send them agile.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Russian playbook is exactly that. Cause any tiny bit of
| damage you can. I remember reading a 'playbook' and some
| of the steps were: 'introduce bureaucracy and obstacles
| in every aspect of life of business you can', 'everything
| that can slow _them_ down, do it.
|
| So, giving away thousands/millions of books is causing
| financial damage to bookstores, etc. On the other hand,
| people reading books is a great thing for a society, so
| on _this_ specific topic, I fear their plan is not
| helping them :)
| waffleiron wrote:
| Thats a CIA playbook you are referring to: https://www.ci
| a.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/...
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| They were doing this from argentina, not russia.
|
| I think the OP's comment is meant that the view everyone
| aligns to a "Nationstate" is simplistic.
|
| The fact that the press release specifically mentions
| their russian is some kind of political doublespeak.
|
| The true lesson here is that hackers can come from every
| nationality and that individuals who are trying to
| enlighten and enrich society will be persecuted by the
| powers that be. It's a story as old as history itself.
| kevinh wrote:
| They were vacationing in Argentina, not living there.
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| Heavy quotes when a hacker says that i'm sure. Proper
| opsec in that line of work requires alot of
| "Vacationing". Also, your comment still completly ignores
| the main point; Regardless of the local, the merits of
| extradition here are wild. How can you charge someone for
| copyright law when the infridgment was never conducted in
| the united states?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Book piracy is an old Russian movement to evade
| censorship, called samizdat, and these shadow libraries
| have their roots in that movement. It is an anti-soviet
| tradition, and probably has nothing to with wanting to
| cause economic harm to publishers.
| Dudelander wrote:
| I must admit it is rather comfortable to have an accurate
| view of the world. It's much more profitable than being
| enmeshed in a bunch of conspiracy theories.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| It's actually super uncomfortable realizing just how
| effective this is at destablizing things. As a network guy
| watching how much bad activity to my US-based servers comes
| from regions that are not friendly with the US right now,
| it's downright upsetting.
|
| We should be all working together and not against each
| other. But the world is not simple, and people have
| complex, and sometimes selfish motivations.
| throwup238 wrote:
| I don't think it has much to do with that. Before the
| collapse of the Soviet Union, bootleg tapes copied from
| friend to friend was the only way my parents had to share
| banned music. After the collapse, we were priced out of
| Western content by a weak economy so that black market
| morphed into a state-tolerated industry selling pirated tapes
| and eventually CDs and DVDs. Any time I'd go back to visit in
| the last few decades, I'd buy movies, entire discographies,
| and video games for a few dollars a piece from market stalls
| and specialized stores that sold nothing but pirated content.
|
| Ignoring foreign copyright was a survival mechanism and by
| this point, it's almost culturally ingrained.
| qball wrote:
| >I don't think it has much to do with that.
|
| Sure it does; Russian police do nothing about credit card
| theft because (and to the point that) that money is
| ultimately coming out of Western pockets
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Chp12sEnWk).
|
| Same as the North Koreans with their industrial-level
| counterfeiting of USD (to name one example), for the same
| reasons.
|
| Might as well be an unofficial letter of marque.
| nullindividual wrote:
| Windows 95 bootlegging was extremely prevalent. Piracy in
| Russia is nothing new.
|
| From the AP Archive -
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR3wtulOJWU
| kelipso wrote:
| 20 years ago you could find physical bootleg markets in
| almost every big Asian city. Nowadays it's probably all in
| torrents, Telegram, etc. I think copyright stuff is only
| really enforced in western countries.
| generationP wrote:
| The Eastern European (not just Russian) book scanning scene
| seems to have started in the early 2000s, back before the
| anti-Western turn. Z-Lib is newer, from the 2010s(?),
| definitely predating the current meaning of Z.
| xnyan wrote:
| I don't have any data to back it up, but I've never seen as
| strong a reading culture as I did in my two years living in
| Russia and East Ukraine. Very strong cultural respect for books
| and the written word.
|
| Also, zero enforcement of western copyright law, or at least
| that's what I've observed.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Is it because the West has been heading full-tilt into a mish-
| mash of every dystopia we were ever warned about for decades?
|
| Whatever reason Russians have to preserve humanities culture,
| it is entirely the West's fault that we are not looking after
| it ourselves. That wasn't Russia, or China; it was the yacht
| class and their hirelings in law, politics and media.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Throughout the cold war, the Russians/USSR had to obtain/steal
| books and scientific articles from the US and its allies to
| keep up. This probably created the culture that copyright
| doesn't matter. Plus communism is about sharing with your
| community.
|
| It's probably still very hard for Russians to get these
| materials, so the culture and will of stealing and sharing is
| still there.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >Plus communism is about sharing with your community.
|
| Adding on to this, my impression of Russian culture,
| observing both historically and today, is that Might Makes
| Right(tm) is a core tenet.
|
| That is to say, if you can do it and get away with it you are
| justice. The two mentioned in the article clearly are (were)
| getting away with it, so as far as they are concerned they
| are right and everyone else is wrong.
|
| Russians don't care about ink on paper unless it can
| literally pickup an AK-47 and shoot them.
| crest wrote:
| Because Russian "offerings" are lacking in comparison, but they
| don't have access to a lot of it.
| keb_ wrote:
| Yeah, especially films from that Andrei Tarkovsky guy. I
| mean, yawwwwwn, right?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Russian literature is considered part of the best in the
| world. As for scientific papers, I don't think they're behind
| either.
| generationP wrote:
| If I am to guess:
|
| - large academic population and high general education
|
| - a tradition of collecting banned and bootlegged content,
| particularly Western (samizdat, magnitizdat)
|
| - lack of resources to get things legally (e.g. university
| subscriptions)
|
| - a culture of hacking and tinkering (the best known book
| scanning middleware, like ScanTailor and ScanKromsator and
| various djvu tools, comes from Russian hobbyist programmers).
|
| Also applies to adjacent countries like Ukraine.
| matrix87 wrote:
| > According to a 2016 OECD estimate, 54% of Russia's adults
| (25- to 64-year-olds) have attained tertiary education,
| giving Russia the second-highest attainment of tertiary
| education among 35 OECD member countries. [0]
|
| Wonder why, was it a thing before the Soviets?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Russia
| krasin wrote:
| > Wonder why, was it a thing before the Soviets?
|
| Before Soviets, Russian population was largely uneducated;
| could not read or write. Soviets immediately started a
| country-wide educational campaign, Likbez:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likbez
|
| Soviets did many things, some good and some very bad. But
| their push for free & universal education has been good.
| generationP wrote:
| I consider the wide-scale and fairly high-quality
| scientific education system to be the only genuine upside
| of Soviet communism. Admittedly, part of its success was
| the fact that it offered many people the only way to the
| middle or upper class (the Soviet Union was an extreme
| class society, with peasants forced to stay on their
| collective farms and non-Muscovites banned from settling
| in Moscow unless they took up professions that were
| currently desired by the system). Another caveat is that
| it was STEM-only, and excluded computer science (which
| the Soviet system was unconducive to for various reasons)
| until the 80s. The SU was particularly unwilling to teach
| anyone foreign languages, unless one chose (and was
| cleared) to work for intel.
| braincat31415 wrote:
| The last statement is completely wrong; there were many
| avenues to study foreign languages, either for adults or
| children. Children could attend schools that specialized
| in foreign language instruction, and extracurricular
| classes were also available. Same went for adults that
| could study languages full-time students, or attend
| after-work classes, or participate in a directed self-
| study. Private tutoring was easy to find in major metro
| centers. I have to mention though that the quality of
| foreign language education in regular schools was dismal.
| While in school, I participated in an after-school study
| group that studied Spanish under a guidance of a
| university professor (for free), and a part-time job that
| I took over the summer allowed me to pay for French
| tutoring. My school had an exchange program with schools
| in Manchester, with plenty of opportunities to become
| fluent in English.
|
| Speaking of a middle class, it was not unusual that a
| factory worker's salary exceeded that of a high-school
| teacher with a university diploma.
| chx wrote:
| No, this is definitely a Soviet thing. The 1897 census
| found 79 million peasants out of 93 million, these people
| basically had no chance of getting a tertiary education.
| Only the remaining 15% and not that many of those either
| had even a chance.
|
| Indeed, while the Stalinist rule was not a particularly
| popular one, the elderly certainly appreciated how their
| children became engineers, doctors and such. I mean, I
| heard my own grandmother saying this about my father often,
| she was a devout communist all her long life (96 years...)
| even after the Soviet Union fell apart.
| johanvts wrote:
| Russia was(is?) an important contributor to western culture.
| broken-kebab wrote:
| There are plenty of unrelated factoids thrown here in attempt
| to answer, but the real reason is that DIY, software,
| engineering, scientific communities in most of former USSR
| countries have been depending on freely downloaded (or $3 CD
| compilations) stuff because few people could afford as an
| example even a legal installation of Windows for a long time.
| Even if economic difference is not as wide as it used to be,
| cost of many books, subscriptions, and software tools looks
| prohibitively high there still. It just became so commonly
| accepted, and up until very recent times weren't really
| prosecuted, so a kind of culture emerged where any attempt to
| uproot this practice feels like an attack against natural
| rights.
| wortelefant wrote:
| I wish the publishing industry would create a flatrate model for
| books and magazines, I would gladly pay for it. With the current
| business model, digital versions are often more expensive than
| the printed one. Shadow libraries like z-lib, scihub or Annas
| Archive are just a symptom: we have a near unlimited demand for
| digital knowledge, but the supply logic still based on the idea
| of paper and scarcity.
| dublinben wrote:
| Digital products are also worse than physical ones, because the
| content cartels have used DRM to trample on your first-sale
| rights like resale and lending. It's no coincidence that
| digital books are often more expensive than paper books,
| because the publishers have killed the second hand market.
| numpad0 wrote:
| There has to be aligned interest and feedback mechanisms for
| that to work. Otherwise there will be no reasons for publishers
| to not take 99% cuts for the subscription.
| alecco wrote:
| Publishers are resisting tooth-and-nail a flatrate model. See
| previously:
|
| "A 'Netflix of Books' would put publishing houses out of
| business"
|
| https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40119958
| matwood wrote:
| It's important not to lump all 'publishers' in a single
| bucket here. The big 4-5 fight new models, but many outside
| of those are happy to try different models. See the many
| publishers who deliver DRM free files or work with libraries
| using flat rate models.
| nine_k wrote:
| Indeed, most movies make most of the money in the first few
| weeks of showing. Were it not for the physical limitation of
| having to go to a theater, much of that money won't be made.
|
| Same with books: were it not for the need to buy a book
| before it shows up on libgen, or the need to have a physical
| book, book sales would plummet. Actually this is exactly what
| some of the anti-copyright activists proclaim as the goal:
| removing most of the need to buy a book, at least from the
| publisher.
|
| Of course, there is the counter-example of music: people who
| pirate music also buy a lot of music, when the price is below
| the impulse buy threshold; see Bandcamp or Apple Music. The
| lack of copy protection does not incite them to pirate the
| same material, because they want to support their favorite
| bands. Those bands which did not sign up with major labels,
| of course, because the major labels earn and pay a
| significantly different amounts of money.
| csande17 wrote:
| O'Reilly has had a subscription platform for technical books
| for a long time now. Used to be called "Safari Books Online",
| now it's "O'Reilly Online Learning". It's become a pretty
| standard benefit for public libraries and large workplaces.
| artninja1988 wrote:
| If operating z library is their only "crime" I wish the couple
| luck and thank them for their service. Hard to say what the money
| laundering charges are about though
| voxic11 wrote:
| Apparently z-library received user donations and at some point
| used that donated money to make purchases intended to promote
| the carrying on of unlawful activities, probably buying
| hardware or services relating to the operation of z-library,
| which qualifies as money laundering. Even though it doesn't fit
| the normal conception of money laundering (hiding the source of
| illegal money) it still falls under the same law.
|
| > In or about and between January 2018 and November 2022, both
| dates being approximate and inclusive, within the Eastern
| District of New York and elsewhere, the defendants ANTON
| NAPOLSKY, also known as "Anton Napolskiy," and VALERJIA
| ERMAKOVA, together with others, did knowingly and intentionally
| conspire to conduct one or more financial transactions in and
| affecting interstate and foreign commerce, to wit: deposits,
| withdrawals and transfers of funds and monetary instruments,
| which transactions in fact involved the proceeds of specified
| unlawful activity, to wit: criminal copyright, as alleged in
| Count One, in violation of Title 17, United States Code,
| Section 506(a)(1)(A), and wire fraud, as alleged in Counts
| Three and Four, in violation of Title 18, United States Code,
| Section 1343 (collectively, the "Specified Unlawful
| Activities"), knowing that the property involved in the
| transactions represented the proceeds of some form of unlawful
| activity, with intent to promote the carrying on of the
| Specified Unlawful Activities, contrary to Title 18, United
| States Code, Section 1956(a)(l)(A)(i).
|
| https://torrentfreak.com/images/z_library_indictment_0.pdf
| beeboobaa3 wrote:
| That's absolutely fucked. Literally just piling on crimes
| with the intent of ruining someone's life.
| dmvdoug wrote:
| Welcome to federal prosecution!
| belter wrote:
| It's amazing how much the Feds work to catch up some
| internet pirates. Maybe when they catch all of them, they
| will have time to investigate Epstein client list....
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| They work to protect businesses... which explains these
| priorities
| vundercind wrote:
| Ever watched The Wire?
|
| Discussing federal prosecutions, specifically, they talk
| about something known in slang as "the head-shot" for
| federal investigators and prosecutors: finding that someone
| took a loan from an associate, then used that money to
| secure a bank loan (a mortgage, say) while misrepresenting
| the loaned money as their own, then later paid the money
| back (making it clear, in the paper trail, that it was in
| fact a loan).
|
| It's very easy to understand, easy to prove beyond a
| reasonable doubt, it's fraud, and it's a great entry to
| comb through the books looking for more crimes.
|
| "Something every kid does with their parents to buy their
| first home", one Baltimore cop observes.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| That might've happened here:
|
| http://loginzlib2vrak5zzpcocc3ouizykn6k5qecgj2tzlnab5wcbqhem.
| ..
| pzh wrote:
| Probably for collecting donations and moving them through the
| SWIFT banking system.
| localfirst wrote:
| Wouldn't this just force future operators of z-library and
| similar services to accept donations in crypto only, making
| it even harder to shut down?
|
| I mean imagine if you took donations for some mundane fan art
| patreon website that ends up violating US copyright laws and
| you used the proceeds to buy yourself Subway sandwich and a
| new laptop to create copyrighted art, you are labelled a
| money launderer.
|
| doesn't such draconian ruling end up driving these type of
| services deeper underground and closer to actual money
| laundering which only leads to more proliferation and
| opacity?
| skissane wrote:
| > Hard to say what the money laundering charges are about
| though
|
| US federal prosecutors use a very expansive definition of
| "money laundering". Basically, any financial transaction made
| with funds considered to be "proceeds of crime" can result in a
| money laundering charge. Contrary to the traditional definition
| of "money laundering", there doesn't need to be any attempt by
| the defendant to obscure the origin of the funds. All that is
| required is the defendant knew (at times in a rather loose
| sense of "know") the connection between the funds and the
| underlying crime
| beaeglebeachedd wrote:
| Basically all money in circulation is prior proceeds of crime
| (and also will soon be going back to crime) and all
| reasonable lukewarm IQ people know this. It's such a chicken
| shit law.
| voxic11 wrote:
| He is actually wrong, that isn't what the law says. The
| reason its illegal in this instance is because their
| transactions related to carrying on a crime (they used user
| donations to pay for maintaining the site). Per the
| indictment they are charged under Title 18, United States
| Code, Section 1956(a)(1)(A)(i) which states:
|
| > (a)(1) Whoever, knowing that the property involved in a
| financial transaction represents the proceeds of some form
| of unlawful activity, conducts or attempts to conduct such
| a financial transaction which in fact involves the proceeds
| of specified unlawful activity--
|
| > (A)(i) with the intent to promote the carrying on of
| specified unlawful activity;
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1956
|
| You can read the entire code but it criminalizes 2 main
| categories of conduct. Knowingly using the proceeds of a
| crime to promote the carrying on of a crime. And knowingly
| using the proceeds of a crime in a transaction that
| attempts to conceal the source of the proceeds. So even if
| you assume all money is the proceeds of a crime this law
| would not apply to you as long as you don't use it to
| commit any crimes yourself and you don't attempt to hide
| where you got it.
| romwell wrote:
| It's absolute bullshit because the crime (copyright
| violation) had not been proven at the time of the
| transaction, and without that, how does one _know_ they
| 're violating copyright vs. exercising fair use rights?
|
| It's almost circular logic.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Agreed. The world needs a global free library whether or not
| the law permits it. People deserve access to knowledge first
| and foremost.
| dark-star wrote:
| Same here. If they should ever show up at my doorstep (very
| unlikely though) I would gladly hide them for as long as they
| need to.
|
| This is laughable, there are killers, syndicate bosses, drug
| dealers and human traffickers out there on the run, maybe the
| prosecutors should get their priorities a bit in order...
| HenryBemis wrote:
| I don't think I ever used or bumped into the z-library. Did they
| have a subscription/paying type of account? Did they have ads
| running?
|
| If they made any kind of revenue from that size, which they used
| to fund the domains/servers/etc, and their living expenses, that
| would be a reasonable accusation.
| m348e912 wrote:
| Z-library is (still) available via a Tor link which can be
| found via a google search or reddit.
|
| Five ebook downloads a day and if you want to do more you need
| to donate via crypto which increases your download cap
| depending how much you donate.
|
| No ads or subscriptions.
| openasocket wrote:
| > if you want to do more you need to donate via crypto which
| increases your download cap depending how much you donate
|
| That doesn't really sound like a donation. That sounds like
| paying for a service. Unless that donation is going to some
| third party charity?
| m348e912 wrote:
| They describe it as a donation, but I think your
| description is more accurate. It doesn't go to charity.
| jbm wrote:
| This is a legal semantic argument so you're right; but
| giving books away for free is of far greater charitable
| value than most legal charities.
|
| I think the eventual historical lesson we will learn 100
| years in the future is that "Intellectual property" is
| not real.
| root_axis wrote:
| I don't think the authors of the books would agree. Of
| course intellectual property is not real, but it's no
| less real than "property" of any kind, so if you don't
| object to the idea of property rights, it's not clear to
| me why people who create digital products are less worthy
| of economic protection than those who create physical
| ones.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Because lighting your candle from mine doesn't diminish
| my candle's brightness.
|
| We grant limited monopolies on created works to
| incentivize the creation of the works, but that's it.
| There's no deeper moral grounding. Words you put out into
| the world don't belong to you anymore; they created
| impressions in the minds of other people and those
| impressions belong to those other people, by natural
| right.
|
| You're right that it's just as sound a property right as
| every other, but it's one that cuts remarkably against
| the grain of the underlying natural rights (for a
| specific perceived societal benefit), and it should
| always be evaluated as such.
|
| Every generation should be asking "Does the current
| copyright regime create more good than harm?" And every
| generation should correct if the answer is 'no.'
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >Words you put out into the world don't belong to you
| anymore
|
| Literally everyone from the richest of commercial
| interests to the kumbaya-est of libre interests will
| disagree.
| root_axis wrote:
| > _Because lighting your candle from mine doesn 't
| diminish my candle's brightness._
|
| So are you saying authors don't deserve any compensation
| for their work unless they produce books in physical
| form?
| User23 wrote:
| So you are saying people don't deserve the right to build
| on public ideas without, ultimately, having armed men use
| violence to take money from them or forbidding them
| altogether?
|
| Because remember when you say an author "deserves" to be
| paid you are saying the state should use its monopoly on
| violence to make that happen.
|
| Perhaps it's best not to use straw men and loaded terms
| designed to emotionally appeal to five year olds when
| discussing enclosure of the intellectual commons?
| DEADMINCE wrote:
| They absolutely deserve compensation, just not nearly as
| much as they think they do.
| prewett wrote:
| I believe most authors do not earn out their advance of
| $5k - $10k. I'm not sure how long it takes to write a
| book, but I'd be willing to be that ends up being less
| than minimum wage. If you enjoy reading, but don't think
| they deserve even that amount, well...
| Dalewyn wrote:
| I agree, though with one semantic nitpick:
|
| The digital nature of a work doesn't matter. It says
| right there on the tin, _intellectual_ property; a la any
| work ( "property") that is a product of human intellect.
| root_axis wrote:
| Actually I agree with you, but I refer to the digital
| aspect because people don't seem to have any difficulties
| understanding why its problematic to steal physical
| books.
| crtified wrote:
| Which contains its own irony, as the trees providing the
| primary material the physical books are made from would
| probably have a thing or two to say about the notion of
| being stolen from.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| As an author of books, I can tell you this just prevents
| me and other authors from creating new books.
|
| I dare you to take the same position about not paying
| workers for any other career. Who pays you? Should they
| be able to take your work without paying you or your
| company?
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Should they be able to take your work without paying
| you or your company?
|
| If this were the beginning and end of the issue, you'd be
| arguing from a strong position. However, holding up
| theoretical harms by Z-Library (*=lost sale) while
| omitting the actual, massive and continual harm done
| against creators (against everyone really) by predatory
| publishers - it's cursing the puddle while ignoring the
| tsunami.
| jbm wrote:
| > As an author of books, I can tell you this just
| prevents me and other authors from creating new books.
|
| I am not impressed by the quality of literature I get
| from people who are purely fiscally motivated.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| But somehow I feel like you're here to argue for the
| right to pay nothing for the labor of these people.
|
| If it sucks so much, why do you care if they lock it with
| DRM?
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > I dare you to take the same position about not paying
| workers for any other career.
|
| Everyone deserves to get paid for their work. Once.
|
| Past that requires a bargain with the public.
|
| The bargain was that the public would yield their rights
| for 14 years, for works that promoted the progress of
| science and the useful arts. The public could gift
| another 14 years to the creator.
|
| The bargain has been altered. Prayers to not alter it
| further are never answered.
|
| More and more years have been taken from public - almost
| entirely without the public's consent, typically as
| quietly as possible and always in response to piles of
| campaign cash from massive IP interests.
|
| And if it were creators that were the ~sole (or even
| primary) beneficiaries of purchased and ever-ratcheting
| copyright extensions, _maybe_ the public would be willing
| to forgive the immoral methods used to arrive here.
|
| But creators didn't buy modern IP laws and most of that
| wealth is not flowing into creator's pockets. If we're
| looking for bad behavior to be angry at, there are a lot
| of deserving recipients.
|
| I'd even argue that some blame should go to creators that
| remained silent while corrupt copyright laws were
| purchased in their names.
| matwood wrote:
| > Everyone deserves to get paid for their work. Once.
|
| Interesting way to look at it. If you write a piece of
| software should you only get a single sale and then it be
| free for use by the entire world?
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| What does "once" mean here? Book sellers use a business
| model where the cost of creation is split between all of
| the purchasers. If "once" means that piracy can begin
| after the first sale, well, that first sale is going to
| cost a fortune or the book won't be created.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Or if you buy a legit version, some of the money will
| actually go to the people responsible for producing the
| work. This will allow them to eat and produce more art.
|
| Sending money to the pirates, though, will only produce
| more piracy.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > some of the money will actually go to the people
| responsible for producing the work.
|
| As a gatekeeping entity that barricades taxpayer-funded
| docs behind paywalls (from the taxpayers who funded their
| creation), the thing Elsevier produces is unethical rent-
| seeking behavior.
|
| > Sending money to the pirates, though, will only produce
| more piracy.
|
| Until meaningfully ethical alternatives emerge, folks
| work with what they got.
| observationist wrote:
| Or you can identify the actual creator/s, send them _all_
| the money, and let the money grubbing middlemen wither on
| the vine.
|
| Run the numbers on how much money you've given the
| publishing industry and the entertainment industries in
| your lifetime. I did this; I'm not giving them a red cent
| more. A surprising number of authors and artists have
| bitcoin, nearly all have some web presence and means of
| donating. Be generous pirates.
| DEADMINCE wrote:
| Actually, pirates consistently spend the most on content.
| Go figure.
| DEADMINCE wrote:
| > That doesn't really sound like a donation. That sounds
| like paying for a service.
|
| I agree, but this is common. Look at EFF 'donations' at
| conferences, for example, where they are just selling a
| product for a set price and call it a donation.
| underseacables wrote:
| Library Genesis has no limitations.
| mistercheph wrote:
| Freeing literature and knowledge is no excuse for violating
| federal copyright laws
| OutOfHere wrote:
| How is it even a violation if it's outside the US? Argentina is
| an independent country. US laws do not apply there.
|
| I'm sure the random person violates a number of laws of Iran
| and/or other autocratic countries with one's online comments.
| Should these countries serve up extradition papers for them?
| ranger_danger wrote:
| You seem to already know what an extradition treaty is, so
| why is this even a question?
| OutOfHere wrote:
| What I'm saying is that there was no law of the US that was
| even violated within the jurisdiction of the US. This is
| different from incidents of hacking where US assets get
| attacked. As such, the I.P. charges seem entirely baseless
| to me.
|
| The extradition treaty applies only if a crime is actually
| committed in a jurisdiction where it is a crime. I do not
| see this here.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Countries have treaties with each other to recognize and
| protect each other's copyrights.
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| What if those laws hold back the society at large?
|
| There is no evidence that the availibilty of Tor decreases
| sales in the works themselves. Quite the contrary, while i
| don't use z library specifically, i often use the open librarys
| to speed read through certain sections before i decide to buy
| the print, or through kindle just because the experience is
| that much better.
|
| The powers that be offer us a contract where all our data is
| open and available for selling, training, marketing and general
| manipulation but yet when someone maintains a decentralized
| directory of books they get punished by the full extent of the
| law.
|
| In this particular case, the United States can't even provide a
| list of copyrights that are being violated and the judge was
| removed for collusion. This is where my taxpayer dollars are
| going?...
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| > There is no evidence that the availibilty of Tor decreases
| sales in the works themselves. Quite the contrary, while i
| don't use z library specifically, i often use the open
| librarys to speed read through certain sections before i
| decide to buy the print, or through kindle just because the
| experience is that much better.
|
| Seriously.
|
| If you're an author, do you know how much it costs to have
| your book distributed, for free, via NetGalley? The answer is
| anywhere from $700 to $1500.
|
| It costs anywhere from $1500 to $6000 to have an "Open
| Access" scientific paper published.
|
| As an author, I love to see my stuff available on free
| platforms. To me, there's no downside. I've even paid open
| access fees out of pocket.
| nullindividual wrote:
| As an author of two technical books, it cost me $0 to
| distribute because that was the publisher's job.
|
| I got paid a pittance for the amount of time put into the
| works. I wouldn't have seen any more or less if someone
| pirated the books.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| To add to this, I pirate books to see if it's worth me
| buying the physical copy.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > It costs anywhere from $1500 to $6000 to have an "Open
| Access" scientific paper published.
|
| Of course it doesn't. It costs just as much for you to
| publish any material as it cost you to publish this
| comment. If you need to pay up to $6000 in industry bribes
| for some career reason, that's some cost. But it isn't a
| cost of publishing.
| localfirst wrote:
| you are being downvoted because you are implying that US
| copyright laws is moral and just, it is not.
|
| it extracts rent at the behest of those few that makes bulk of
| the profits not the actual creators who doesn't want peoples
| lives ruined for simply consuming their content from everyone
| that seeks privilege for something by on its own cannot place
| any sort of control on the viewer.
|
| its only because the threat of violence and draconian enforcers
| who think someone sharing an episode simpsons is a national
| security threat that we "respect" US copyright laws.
|
| It's nothing short of digital colonialism
|
| ex) Megaupload was raided by tier 1 new zealand special forcese
| at the behest of President Biden and the MPAA lobby that put
| him in power in direct violation of NZ's sovereignty
| devwastaken wrote:
| The U.S. fed spends more money and political capital going after
| open libraries than the numerous and destructive violent
| offenders. Federal corruption is now so common it's a base
| expectation of life. That's how we know cyberpunk isn't fiction.
| leobg wrote:
| Maybe OpenAI should pay for their lawyer.
| openasocket wrote:
| For those curious, here's some info about the U.S. case:
| https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65760207/united-states-...
|
| This seems to be the indictment:
| https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65760207/14/united-stat...
|
| This is the motion to dismiss (filed July 12th 2023):
| https://torrentfreak.com/images/momodismiss.pdf
|
| And this is the prosecution's response (filed August 14th 2023):
| https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65760207/17/united-stat...
|
| Apparently the defense filed a reply to the response on September
| 11th 2023, but I can't find it without having to pay for it.
|
| There doesn't seem to be any additional information, it doesn't
| seem like there's been a hearing on the motion.
| DEADMINCE wrote:
| No one deserves the dehumanizing hell that is a US prison simply
| for making copies of information available.
|
| God speed to the admins, and may justice prevail so they go free.
| batmaniam wrote:
| Most author's don't even make money from their books. Publishers
| take a massive chunk out of any profits they make, leaving them
| with barely anything.
|
| So even if you buy the book, the author isn't really getting that
| much, they're probably still starving. The truth is it's the
| publishers that's not getting paid, and that's why all these
| lawsuits are happening. The political power one needs to even get
| someone extradited alone implies it's not just random authors
| banding together to sue, it's powerful rich publishers, someone
| with political connections. And prosecutors are going all out it
| seems, piling on BS charges of money laundering??
|
| I hope the zadmins win. Maybe the ACLU can get in on this to drop
| the case, but they generally only take open-shut cases in their
| favor sadly.
| ianburrell wrote:
| That is not how publishing works. Publisher produces the book,
| sells to book stores, and pays royalties to the author out of
| their portion. The author gets 10-15% for every book sold. The
| whole point of going traditional publishing route is to put the
| risk of producing the book on the publisher. Self-published
| authors get bigger cut, but have to pay for editing and
| promotion.
|
| There are advances where publishers give money to the author
| before the book is even completed. The royalties first pay off
| the advance before author gets royalty checks. Most authors
| never pay off the advance, but they don't have to pay it back.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-07-08 23:00 UTC)