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Z-library is used for steeling author's work. Does IPFS want to support it ? z-library is not equivalent to sci-hub.
by chmike 4y ago
Z-library is used for steeling author's work. Does IPFS want to support it ?
z-library is not equivalent to sci-hub.
- bheadmaster 4y agoCopying is not stealing. Stealing removes the original, copying leaves the original intact.
- numlock86 4y agoTaking all your fiat money technically doesn't "remove" it either, just relocation. Gets even better if we talk about virtual funds.
- bheadmaster 4y agoWhen all my fiat money is taken, I cannot use it anymore, therefore it's removed. If you make an exact copy of my fiat money, yet I can still use it, nothing is stolen.
- hippich 4y agoLet's go down the rabbit hole... When governments make exact copy of existing fiat money (i.e. engage in money printing) they increase supply of fiat money and as a result cause inflation, which decrease the value of fiat money existing before the money printer was turned on. So while such a copy did not completely eliminate your ability to use your money, it did in fact decreased its utility. And indeed can be a valid case of "stealing".
- bheadmaster 4y ago> And indeed can be a valid case of "stealing". It's not stealing, government didn't steal anyone's money, they just devalued it. In a similar sense, gold miners are increasing the supply of gold and lowering its price, but they still aren't stealing anyone's gold - they're making more. The fact that fiat money is completely fictional does make it more prone to systemic abuse - but even in that case, what the government is taking away from people is value and labor, not money itself, and those two are a little more abstract and harder to reason about. The word "stealing" has a specific meaning related to physically taking something away from someone else, let's not use it in contexts where it doesn't apply. Especially when the use of the word is mostly perpetuated by copyright holders who want to persuade the public that not giving money to them is equal to stealing from them. That's bullshit, and it will always be bullshit. To me, it sounds horribly similar to narcissistic abuse: "How could you not give money to me? Do you have any idea how much that hurts me?".
- numlock86 4y ago> When all my fiat money is taken, I cannot use it anymore, therefore it's removed. Ok, so if your intellectual property is stolen ... err, sorry, "copied" of course, how do you get monetized for those "copied" copies? By your initial statement it's not removed, now you tell me it is? Weird.
- bheadmaster 4y agoThere's no such thing as "intellectual property". If you don't want other people learning the information your mind has come up with, don't release it into the public where it can be easily shared. > but I want money! I don't care if everyone else loses their right to sharing information! Not my problem.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- numlock86 4y agoI wasn't sure if you are serious or just a troll. I get it now.
- bno1 4y agoCopying is privacy and piracy is still an issue for the host.
- bno1 4y ago*piracy sorry
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dartharva 4y agongl your point made more sense in the original sentence. Using an untethered copy is indeed more privacy-friendly than using most garbage publisher portals and offerings. And yes, piracy can be a problem for the host if she has insufficient opsec.
- bheadmaster 4y agoPiracy is a misnomer used to make people feel like unauthorized copying is "stealing", since "piracy" traditionally refers to people who perform armed robbery on high seas. Copying can be unauthorized, but when you say it as it is, "unauthorized copying" sounds a lot less terrible then "stealing" and "piracy", and is more precise in meaning.
- yreg 4y agoEveryone calls it piracy, including the people who are active in the 'unauthorized copying' community. I'm not sure what's your objective in this discussion.
- bheadmaster 4y agoMy objective is to get people to argue precisely why copying is bad. Calling it "stealing", "piracy" and other ugly words is a strawman argument - we all agree stealing (physical items) and piracy (on high seas) is bad, so that would imply that copying is bad, too, since "copying is stealing and piracy". It's not, and additional arguments are needed.
- pyinstallwoes 4y agoSo when you copy answers on a test, that is seen as valid by the teachers because the other person's answers are intact; correct?
- snvzz 4y agoCheating on a test is not stealing either. It's cheating.
- angio 4y agoAs you said, you "copy" the answer, you don't "steal" it.
- chmike 4y agoYou steal the author's investment in time and effort to write the book and conceive it's content. How you steal (making a copy) doesn't affect the fact that you prevent the author to get his share or reward from it.
- bheadmaster 4y agoI invested the time and effort to write this comment. I want you to pay me. I'll be expecting a cheque in my mail soon. If you don't pay me, you're stealing from me.
- chmike 4y agoI'm obviously talking about ebooks downloaded from commercial platforms like KDP Amazon, and distributed for free on Z-library without permission from the author. Comparing this to your comment is whataboutism. Comments on hacker news are free to read. If you want to be payed for your writing, use a platform that support this. However, you do have an automatic copyright on everything you write and I would need your permission (eventually by paying you a fee) to republish it in a book or somewhere else. Fair use is an exception to that, but the amount of text we can reuse without permission is limited. These are rules.
- 4y ago
- boredemployee 4y agolet's just be adults here and face it. unless using rhetoric, we still dont know how to deal with piracy in 2022
- bheadmaster 4y agoLet's be adults and call "piracy" by its real name: unauthorized copying. Let copyright holders deal with unauthorized copying, why should any layman care about it?
- boredemployee 4y agowell, that's not how I would address it. Remember here in HN you have many people interested in that subject (experts or not): app makers, artists, lawyers and what not. remember spotify was done based in a whole piracy movement/situation.
- swayvil 4y agoOn one hand, authors need to pay their bills. On the other hand, free exchange of information benefits humanity immeasurably. In terms of amount-of-benefit, the second vastly outweighs the first. But if the author can't pay his bills then there is no author. Does that cover it? Would UBI fix this?
- pentachoron 4y agoHonestly, merely limiting drastically the maximum copyright term would probably cover it. (Not just by making things public domain more rapidly, but also by presumably providing pressure on the business models of companies currently relying on the existing duration of copyright.) Back in 2006, the UK commissioned a report recommending how to revise the copyright system (the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property), and it particularly recommended against any further increases in copyright terms - contra pressure from the music industry - and essentially only didn't argue for decreases because of international obligations. On pages 52 to 55 of the Review, however, there's quite a lot of evidence suggesting that most producers of creative works would not be meaningfully harmed in earning power if the term of copyright was as short as 10 to 20 years after production. A 10 year copyright term, renewable for a further 10 on application, would do a lot to redress the balance you mention here.
- shubb 4y agoIPFS is a protocol like http or bittorrent, rather than a platform like Twitter. It is a federated file storage, so although individual contributors can choose not to host z-lib or allow it through their gateway, there is not single authority that can ban content. A better question is - is this a sensible technology for hosting legally dangerous material, and the answer has to be no. It is censorship resistant not anonymising. Like bittorrent but kind of worse. It is trivial for an enforcement agent to find all the servers in the world hosting a particular e.g. book and go after them. I am sympathetic to your ethical question, but I'm just answering you on the technical side which is - your question doesn't really make sense but this is a bad idea.