4 ms·

Upload it to Libgen! More information's always better, especially if even the author isn't getting it legally.

jhallenworld 9y ago
Libgen is useful and should figure out how to be legitimate. They could go down the youtube route: sell subscriptions or include ads and just pay the copyright holders royalties.
- saint_fiasco 9y ago
  Even Google Books couldn't pull that off. Publishers believe, maybe correctly, that a youtube for books would destroy their business.
  - ericd 9y ago
    You might be interested to read about what happened with that, I was pretty surprised when I read the full story. Basically, publishers started off by suing Google, until they realized that it would probably generate a lot of new revenue for sales on books that were out of print, and that weren't currently generating money. With that in mind, they continued in their lawsuit, but started trying to use the lawsuit as a way to help Google instead of stop them - by using the mechanics of the class action suit, they could default opt in all authors, with the onus being on the authors to opt out, and then they would settle with Google for a nominal amount, thereby getting the permission of all the authors of those out of print works to be included in Google Books without going through the nearly impossible task of getting each author's explicit permission to participate. This was looking like a great legal hack until Amazon and Microsoft complained to the Federal government (the FTC IIRC) that it would be unfair if this was allowed to happen, because only Google would get this permission. So, counterintuitively, it wasn't really the publishers that stopped Google Books.
13of40 9y ago
I totally would, since it no longer generates any royalties, but I don't own all of the rights to it.
- Mononokay 9y ago
  If you don't mind answering, what book did you write? I love reading things by HN users.
  - 13of40 9y ago
    I do mind, but I'll buy you TotalFark if you can figure it out from my posts. :) (Besides, it's niche and technical.)
    - Mononokay 9y ago
      Game on! (Also, the Punycode in your profile is missing a domain extension)
    - Mononokay 9y ago
      I think you win, ha. If I'm right, I found your brother's thesis, but other than that I can't find a thing close to a book. (Unless you published it in Britain for some reason during the 70's, in which case, possibly?)
      - 13of40 9y ago
        You should know that my brother and I both changed our last names, and I spent more than half of the 70's dead.

Libgen is useful and should figure out how to be legitimate. They could go down the youtube route: sell subscriptions or include ads and just pay the copyright holders royalties.

saint_fiasco 9y ago
Even Google Books couldn't pull that off. Publishers believe, maybe correctly, that a youtube for books would destroy their business.
- ericd 9y ago
  You might be interested to read about what happened with that, I was pretty surprised when I read the full story. Basically, publishers started off by suing Google, until they realized that it would probably generate a lot of new revenue for sales on books that were out of print, and that weren't currently generating money. With that in mind, they continued in their lawsuit, but started trying to use the lawsuit as a way to help Google instead of stop them - by using the mechanics of the class action suit, they could default opt in all authors, with the onus being on the authors to opt out, and then they would settle with Google for a nominal amount, thereby getting the permission of all the authors of those out of print works to be included in Google Books without going through the nearly impossible task of getting each author's explicit permission to participate. This was looking like a great legal hack until Amazon and Microsoft complained to the Federal government (the FTC IIRC) that it would be unfair if this was allowed to happen, because only Google would get this permission. So, counterintuitively, it wasn't really the publishers that stopped Google Books.

13of40 9y ago

I totally would, since it no longer generates any royalties, but I don't own all of the rights to it.

Mononokay 9y ago
If you don't mind answering, what book did you write? I love reading things by HN users.
- 13of40 9y ago
  I do mind, but I'll buy you TotalFark if you can figure it out from my posts. :) (Besides, it's niche and technical.)
  - Mononokay 9y ago
    Game on! (Also, the Punycode in your profile is missing a domain extension)
  - Mononokay 9y ago
    I think you win, ha. If I'm right, I found your brother's thesis, but other than that I can't find a thing close to a book. (Unless you published it in Britain for some reason during the 70's, in which case, possibly?)
    - 13of40 9y ago
      You should know that my brother and I both changed our last names, and I spent more than half of the 70's dead.