13 ms·

The shutdown of library.nu

144 points by tathagatadg 15y ago

krat0sprakhar 15y ago
I totally agree with the comment on the OP's blog: "books have basically been my singular source of investment, more because of the site than in spite of it." I can't seem to remember how many books I've purchased after downloading them from library.nu. Being in India, library.nu was a gem when a substantial number of books aren't available at Rupee prices.
- acqq 15y ago
  I also bought the books which I would never had I not had library.nu. Don't tell me about the preview in Amazon, for these particular books I had to see more other pages than "legally" available to make a decision. I really mourn the loss of library.nu
pooriaazimi 15y ago
I completely agree. I would gladly pay $100 for K&R's C Programming Language, but sadly I can't do that (It's against US export laws to sell to me). Yesterday I spent almost an hour trying to find an offset copy of Dragon Book (Compilers), but I couldn't find it (there are none), so I have to bury myself in ebooks on my iPad (which is not a great experience).
- rmc 15y ago
  It's against US export laws to sell to me Really? How? why?
  - slyall 15y ago
    Because they are in Iran
    - pooriaazimi 15y ago
      yep. A few months ago I wanted to buy a Mac app (that wasn't available through Mac App Store). Obviously I couldn't buy it with credit card, so I offered the developer $15 iTunes gift credit, but he was afraid to do business with me (it is illegal, he said) :) Also, Google Code & SourceForge block Iranian IPs, so it's hard even to download free stuff!
      - rmc 15y ago
        Ah yes, Iran. For a moment, I thought there was something special about K&R C (like the crypto export regs).
      - plinkplonk 15y ago
        wow! Not being able to buy K&R is tough. If I may ask, what is the software/hacking scene in Iran really like? Do most computers use Linux? (And if trading with Iran is illegal how would you buy an Apple or Dell machine anyway?). Can you have gmail/blogger/twitter accounts or are US companies forbidden from giving you free accounts? What languages are popular? Is there a large internal market for software? Thanks in advance.
        rmc 15y ago
        I'm pretty sure you can't buy any US stuff in Iran, not just books. Some other countries (Syria & North Korea IIRC. Cuba?)
        pooriaazimi 15y ago
        > what is the software/hacking scene in Iran really like? For indie developers and those who want to use cutting edge technologies (think of a web service created on Node.js + MongoDB), pretty grim. People use those kind of services, but it's hard to make a living making them (because of lack of widespread payment systems). But the government invests heavily on software technologies (security/blocking/MITMing!), and all corporations/big businesses have to rely on home-made solutions (banks, hospitals, universities) Those areas are usually dominated by Microsoft technologies (.Net and SQL Server). > Do most computers use Linux? Absolutely no. It's easy to crack Windows, Photoshop and Microsoft Word! And many (including myself) don't consider it unethical, as you can't buy them in any other way (I buy a lot through Mac/iTunes App Store, but mainly to support fellow developers and not because I consider it more ethical for my situation). > And if trading with Iran is illegal how would you buy an Apple or Dell machine anyway? I think it's called black market (though I'm not sure if it applies to our situation or not). What I mean is that a guy buys 25 MacBooks in Hong Kong and ships them to Iran (they're all registered under his name) and then sells them independently of Apple, usually with a tasty premium (Apple products are really popular, but also more expensive than other brands. > Can you have gmail/blogger/twitter accounts or are US companies forbidden from giving you free accounts? You usually can use them, but you can't register from Iran (you have to choose another country). But in case of most social things it doesn't matter, because they are blocked by the government anyway. Stuff like sf.net, code.google.com, and like of Oracle are more problematic; as they block Iranian IPs. > What languages are popular? C#, ASP.Net, PHP, Java (for businesses). Hackers and hobbyists use whatever they feel like. > Is there a large internal market for software? For end users? No. But for corporations and businesses (those I mentioned above), I don't think it's different than other places. :)
benwerd 15y ago
Seems like there's an opportunity for some kind of middle ground. Books are emotive. Why not embrace the community's desire to make titles available in different markets, but manage it in such a way that the publisher is involved in the process and has ultimate approval over a digitized version? Active community members get books for free based on the degree of their participation. Everyone else gets to buy designated "community editions" of titles with a proper cut going back to the copyright owner. The community platform takes enough money to keep itself ticking over, including a cut for partner services that make it possible to sell in hard-to-reach global markets. Sounds crazy, perhaps, but only because publishers still want a one-way relationship. A deep participative relationship with their global community of readers would only be a good thing. And it's less crazy for the publishers / authors than not making any money from these markets at all.
- dmils4 15y ago
  I really think (and hope) open source textbooks are going to solve this. While it might be difficult for OS books to catch on in places where there are market pressures from textbook publishers, in the countries this post mentions where the information just isn't available, there's going to be very little pushback/meddling. I'm really excited to see what this open source initiatives can do outside the US. You might be right about publishers taking a smaller cut and thinking it's better than nothing- but my guess is that the publishers would rather get no cut (while shutting down anyone who monetizes by pirating their content) than let the information be available in places that can't afford it at their inflated prices (and for other reasons, I'm sure - not trying to oversimplify the complexities of this market). Publishers are already mad enough that they don't get their cut everytime Amazon sells a used version of their textbooks. But this is part of what Apple will solve in their textbook initiatives.
  - dhruvbird 15y ago
    Which is why I really like what Zed Shaw is doing and I hope his series extends to "Learning X The Hard Way", where 'X' can be anything. http://learncodethehardway.org/ http://learncodethehardway.org/
- 15y ago
altxwally 15y ago
I was a big fan of library.nu. As a student in Mexico, you just cannot get some of the books that were available in there, so it was incredibly useful. I no longer used the site so much, but I'm still grateful that this site was live when I went to university. It kind of marvels me how artificial are the limits that humans put on knowledge that can be useful to others, I hope we can solve this problem someday.
- xtracto 15y ago
  Not completely true. It is trivial to buy dead-tree books from Amazon.com (US) and send them to Mexico (books do not pay taxes when entering Mexico). I have done it for more than 10 years. The real problem is the cost. Imagine that, if people in the USA, earning it US dollars think that a text-book (http://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Management-14th-Philip-Kotler/dp/0132102927/ref=pd_sim_b_1 http://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Management-14th-Philip-Kotle...) costing USDd$168.72 is crazy. Imagine what people in Mexico (where the average yearly income is about USD$7,300) , India, China or other development countries think. Quite simply, a lot of the people who pirate books are not a market for the publishers simply because it is impossible to pay. Are they entitled to get such knowledge for free? legally, they are not. Morally... it is subjective.
okamiueru 15y ago
The article points out the valid complaint from people who do not have access to legitimate ways of obtaining books/information, and makes a point of saying he does not endorse the way library.nu operated. I'd disagree. We're presented with a technology which is slowly replacing the institutions we take for granted and made a great improvement on society. I'm thinking about both libraries and radio. As Neil Young said, piracy is the new radio. Except that it is better and easier to access. And library.nu functioned as my library, except that it is better and easier to access. If the music I was interested overlapped with the mainstream, then radio would probably be good, and if the library had the technical books I like, then that would too. Alas, they don't, and both internet and library.nu are (latter: were) my substitutions. I've downloaded all the books I've purchased after graduating a year ago (which is around 5). Even after owning a book, I've downloaded the same at work and shown it to a colleague, who also ended up purchasing it. When I look for a book on a topic of interest, I search amazon, read a few reviews, then download it on library.nu. The decision to buy it is done after going through the book and see if I like how the author writes, how the example code is, and especially how it covers my specific topic, before buying it. Usually, if it is a broad topic, I do this for about 3-5 books, and decide on which one to buy. I'm going to go further than the author, and endorse library.nu for all its worth. Both as a library and for those who cannot afford, or don't have access. As for the freeloaders, or more precisely the actual losses: I believe they are small enough that it outweighs the cost. And honestly, if they didn't, the marked would adapt.
- fbuilesv 15y ago
  The decision to buy it is done after going through the book and see if I like how the author writes, how the example code is, and especially how it covers my specific topic, before buying it You're basically saying you'd walk in to a restaurant, have a bite of every dish and then maybe decide to pay for it. I do this for about 3-5 books, and decide on which one to buy. Now you walk into three restaurants, eat a bit at every one of them and then decide to pay for the one you liked the most. I agree with the original article and I think there are times where piracy is valid, but let's not think that a valid solution is to pay for what we think we should pay and nothing else.
wisty 15y ago
IP laws exist to promote publication, not reduce it. If IP owners aren't publishing in a country, why should that country protect their IP? Oh, wait, there's an international treaties, and pro-copyright UN organization administering it. That UN can't ban the execution of children, but can enforce 70 years plus life of the author says a lot about the power of vested interests.
- JumpCrisscross 15y ago
  Agree with your sentiment but not the underling logic. If IP owners aren't publishing in a country, why should that country protect their IP Property rights don't vaporise automatically due to lack of use, e.g. in India squatters could, at one time, claim ownership to property after illegally sitting there for a certain period. This seems wrong to me. On the other end if Merck or Pfizer were to get pissed off at say Libya and deny its people certain drugs I would support suspending their property rights. I agree that this situation is ridiculous and that the black market is often a solid incentive for legislators to re-consider ridiculous regulation. But the suspension of property rights is something that should be thought out meticulously before implementation; in this case it fits into the greater debate on the nature of IP as a "true" property. Pro-copyright UN organization administering it I don't think the UN was actively involved in any of these decisions nor overtly in their enforcement any more than it is in other issues - the author was simply quoting UN statutes to underline how this is an evolving debate.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    There are a lot of intersecting rationales, but squatters' rights exist in most countries, including common-law ones like the US and UK, in part out of a desire to ensure that the legal situation of ownership doesn't diverge too far from the de facto situation of possession. Prevents the situation where someone digs up a dusty old deed from a basement showing they really own something that someone else is currently living on (and that maybe their parents were also living on); the on-the-ground facts of the past 100 years in that case trump the deed, regardless of whether it's genuine, promoting a sort of stability. Same with adverse possession and boundary disputes; if your neighbor puts up a fence and you don't challenge it, it eventually becomes the new property line, to avoid disputes always going back to ancient documents and upsetting the status quo. There is, though, an intersecting economic-use rationale, which was especially prevalent in the American west, which is more like the copyright argument: something like, if you're not helping to make America great by neglecting your land, and someone else is willing to mine or farm there, well then move aside.
chj 15y ago
Same pain, there is always times that I wanted to buy an old book from amazon, but told me it is only available in US. Then I always turn to library.nu for help. Sad it is gone. The only complaint I have about copyright protection is they should try to make their work accessible. Otherwise, there will be another library.nu given time.
slavak 15y ago
Can we just agree that it's wrong to do market segmentation for electronic goods based on geographic location? It's an anachronistic model that has no justification other than for padding BigCo's(tm) profit margins. If the big media companies actually cared about piracy they would abandon this system and see piracy drop significantly overnight. Then again I think we all know that's just an excuse to try and hang on to the overinflated profits they're accustomed to for just a little bit longer.
- rythie 15y ago
  With a 8x difference in wages [1] the price of the book in India should surely be $4 if it is $32 in the U.S. Are suggesting it should be $4 everywhere? which means it's still cheaper in the U.S. compared to salaries. [1] see top item on (Sr. Software Engineer...): http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Country=India/Salary http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Country=India/Salary and http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Country=United_States/Salary http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Country=United_States/Sa...
  - guard-of-terra 15y ago
    1) Market can figure it out. At which price would you gross more money? I guess the answer would be something like $10. Books are overpriced anyway in the USA, and there's no reason to pay $30 for an ebook. 2) You can still make promo prices for different regions, but the service should be available everywhere.
    - rythie 15y ago
      TBH, $30 and not sell it in India due to the risk of cheap imports. At $10 it's not going to sell 3x as many as at $30 in the U.S.
      - guard-of-terra 15y ago
        Okay, but then again: Making conscious choice to not sell in India and then bitching about piracy in India is immoral. You can still set the price to $30 but you have to actually sell worldwide to have any moral grounds against worldwide piracy.
f4stjack 15y ago
Whenever I read anything about piracy I often think of Gabe Newell's ubiquitous speech which underlines one single thing: Piracy is a service problem. And books are not an exception.
- rmc 15y ago
  It is a service problem with a service, not legal, not technical, solution
rmc 15y ago
Whenever anyone talks about copyright and piracy they seem to include a sop "Obviously I'm not against piracy and don't support breaking the law". Why do they always do that. I'm in favour of piracy when it's for the greater good.
- prakashk 15y ago
  Perhaps because if they don't, the discussion tends to gravitate towards "you are breaking the law if you are pirating", instead of focusing on the main point they are trying to make.
  - rmc 15y ago
    I presume that, were they to not say it, that someone could accuse them of condoning piracy and breaking the law.
joska 15y ago
I own a Kindle and indeed some books are made unavailable by the publishers, but fortunatly Amazon let you enter any shipping address so I can order any book I want to read. But its amazing that publishers are trying to enforce geographical bounderies in the e-content market that no longer exists for physical products....
joska 15y ago
I own a Kindle and indeed some books are made unavailable by the publishers, but fortunatly Amazon let you enter any shipping address so I can order any book I want to read. But its amazing that publishers are trying to enforce geographical bounderies in the e-content market that no longer exists for physical products....
sireat 15y ago
This hits closer to home than I thought it would. Let's leave aside the fact library.nu was illegal under current laws, but for many books it was the only reasonable option to obtain it. library.nu offered extreme convenience for those outside of US especially in the education sector. When I lived in US, it was quite inexpensive to order physical books. I used to order older editions of university books for a few bucks each and shipping was very inexpensive (think Amazon Prime now). Now in Europe it is quite hard to bargain shop for books. Perhaps anyone have any tips? Shopping on Amazon is physically painful, when you see how much you end up paying for extra costs. Then there is the matter of buying experience for e-books. Buying e-books on O'Reilly feels the best out of all current e-book sellers, you actually feel like an owner of the e-book(even though of course you really are not). Still the ideal would be that e-books would be inexpensive to purchase and that buying a physical book would qualify one for e-book version.
- cturner 15y ago
  > Shopping on Amazon is physically painful, when you > see how much you end up paying for extra costs. That's not my experience. I recently bought a stack of ancient machine code and assembly books and paid 2p for some, with two pounds of shipping on top of that. The books are practically free to me. > Buying e-books on O'Reilly feels the best out of all > current e-book sellers Nostarch are pretty good. You can go in and download your books when you like from them. If a book you already own subsequently gets a new electronic format release, they open up access to that to you automatically.
alecco 15y ago
I buy a lot of books in english. Currently I live in South America. Last book I bought from Amazon-US (Thinking Fast and Slow) took 2 months to arrive. I love ebooks but those cost almost the same as hardcopy and you lose the right to lend or sell. Also, the quality of the content is usually very inferior. Recently I did ebook management software so I know the ins and outs. The temptation to use unpaid electronic copies is bigger than ever. Specially after noting the higher management on publishing businesses is usually in the 55+ age range and repeat how they only want to keep the status quo until they retire.
ya3r 15y ago
We here in Iran have an extra problem. I'll explain: Apple's App store, does not work in Iran, you cannot download anything from the app store (you get the famous 1009 error). But many people like myself have iPhones and iPads. Is it okay to pirate iOS apps? Mathwork's website will not load if you try to access it from an IP address form Iran. Neither they sell their widely used software (Matlab) in academics to Iranians. I wonder am I guilty to pirate Matlab? Also many other services including Paypal, Google's Android Market and Amazon are the same. I wonder what if I want to read the famous `Art of Computer Programming`? Am I guilty if I pirate it?
- muuh-gnu 15y ago
  > I wonder am I guilty to pirate Matlab? If you otherwise support the concept of intellectual property, you are. If you believe that Matlab is MathWorks "property", MathWorks is not obliged to sell you their property, and if you take what you believe is their property against their will, you are guilty. If you dont believe in intellectual property, then everything is allright.
  - pooriaazimi 15y ago
    The world does not work like that; it's not easy to judge other people's actions unless you step into their shoes. I guess if it took you 45 minutes just to send an email, or 3 days to download Apple's new OS to develop/test on (Mountain Lion - around 4GB), then you wouldn't see the piracy issue (in countries that there are absolutely no alternatives) black and white anymore.
    - muuh-gnu 15y ago
      I am nut "judging" him. He didnt give enough information to answer his question. My answer was that whether he should feel guilty or not depends on whether he supports intellectual property or not. I, for one, do not support the concept of intellectual property at all. If you ask me, copying Matlab is perfectly OK. But if he does support intellectual property, then he should accept the fact that MathWorks doesnt want to sell to him because he is an Iranian. He can not both support intellectual property _and_ simply make the excuse to steal because they refuse to sell. If that worked, he could also argue that it is ok to pirate because they refuse to sell for $5.
regularfry 15y ago
It seems to me that, especially with India, there's a big question which nobody is asking. When foreign companies can't or won't supply the market at a suitable price, where is the local replacement? Why isn't this being fixed by local competition? India outpopulates the US four to one - is it credible that Indian engineers and publishers are somehow incapable of producing output that is to the same, or better, standard as that from the US at a price more commensurate with the local market?
- dhruvbird 15y ago
  We do have something called "Indian Low Price Edition" http://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22indian+subcontinent%22+%22low+price+edition%22 http://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22indian+subcontinent%22+%22low+pr... but not all titles are available for whatever reason. Mostly, these are books used as texts in schools & colleges. Another note: An LPE of a book that is available for INR ~500 would cost anywhere from INR ~4000 to ~6000 if the original publication is ordered. Generally the original is not stocked so there is a wait period of ~5 weeks from placing the order.
  - regularfry 15y ago
    Sure, but that's imported content again. It's reliant on the foreign publishers deigning to think it worthwhile. Is the existence of LPEs enough to prevent the growth of a market in indigenous content?
- reitblatt 15y ago
  These are non-fungible goods.
  - regularfry 15y ago
    In specific, yes. In general, I don't understand why, to pick an arbitrary example, O'Reilly gets a free pass as a go-to publisher on technical content, or why academic textbooks should be imported by default. Put another way: why isn't there yet an Indian publisher with the status of O'Reilly, whose books we're all desperate to get our hands on?
DTrejo 15y ago
List of alternatives to library.nu (see first comment): http://www.reddit.com/r/trackers/comments/hrgmv/tracker_with_pdfsebooks_of_college_textbooks/c1xrq44 http://www.reddit.com/r/trackers/comments/hrgmv/tracker_with...
urza 15y ago
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/ http://gen.lib.rus.ec/ http://en.bookfi.org/ http://en.bookfi.org/ http://pastebin.com/LTZfu2DX http://pastebin.com/LTZfu2DX

144 points by tathagatadg 15y ago

I totally agree with the comment on the OP's blog: "books have basically been my singular source of investment, more because of the site than in spite of it." I can't seem to remember how many books I've purchased after downloading them from library.nu. Being in India, library.nu was a gem when a substantial number of books aren't available at Rupee prices.

acqq 15y ago
I also bought the books which I would never had I not had library.nu. Don't tell me about the preview in Amazon, for these particular books I had to see more other pages than "legally" available to make a decision. I really mourn the loss of library.nu

pooriaazimi 15y ago

I completely agree. I would gladly pay $100 for K&R's C Programming Language, but sadly I can't do that (It's against US export laws to sell to me). Yesterday I spent almost an hour trying to find an offset copy of Dragon Book (Compilers), but I couldn't find it (there are none), so I have to bury myself in ebooks on my iPad (which is not a great experience).

rmc 15y ago
It's against US export laws to sell to me Really? How? why?
- slyall 15y ago
  Because they are in Iran
  - pooriaazimi 15y ago
    yep. A few months ago I wanted to buy a Mac app (that wasn't available through Mac App Store). Obviously I couldn't buy it with credit card, so I offered the developer $15 iTunes gift credit, but he was afraid to do business with me (it is illegal, he said) :) Also, Google Code & SourceForge block Iranian IPs, so it's hard even to download free stuff!
    - rmc 15y ago
      Ah yes, Iran. For a moment, I thought there was something special about K&R C (like the crypto export regs).
    - plinkplonk 15y ago
      wow! Not being able to buy K&R is tough. If I may ask, what is the software/hacking scene in Iran really like? Do most computers use Linux? (And if trading with Iran is illegal how would you buy an Apple or Dell machine anyway?). Can you have gmail/blogger/twitter accounts or are US companies forbidden from giving you free accounts? What languages are popular? Is there a large internal market for software? Thanks in advance.
      - rmc 15y ago
        I'm pretty sure you can't buy any US stuff in Iran, not just books. Some other countries (Syria & North Korea IIRC. Cuba?)
      - pooriaazimi 15y ago
        > what is the software/hacking scene in Iran really like? For indie developers and those who want to use cutting edge technologies (think of a web service created on Node.js + MongoDB), pretty grim. People use those kind of services, but it's hard to make a living making them (because of lack of widespread payment systems). But the government invests heavily on software technologies (security/blocking/MITMing!), and all corporations/big businesses have to rely on home-made solutions (banks, hospitals, universities) Those areas are usually dominated by Microsoft technologies (.Net and SQL Server). > Do most computers use Linux? Absolutely no. It's easy to crack Windows, Photoshop and Microsoft Word! And many (including myself) don't consider it unethical, as you can't buy them in any other way (I buy a lot through Mac/iTunes App Store, but mainly to support fellow developers and not because I consider it more ethical for my situation). > And if trading with Iran is illegal how would you buy an Apple or Dell machine anyway? I think it's called black market (though I'm not sure if it applies to our situation or not). What I mean is that a guy buys 25 MacBooks in Hong Kong and ships them to Iran (they're all registered under his name) and then sells them independently of Apple, usually with a tasty premium (Apple products are really popular, but also more expensive than other brands. > Can you have gmail/blogger/twitter accounts or are US companies forbidden from giving you free accounts? You usually can use them, but you can't register from Iran (you have to choose another country). But in case of most social things it doesn't matter, because they are blocked by the government anyway. Stuff like sf.net, code.google.com, and like of Oracle are more problematic; as they block Iranian IPs. > What languages are popular? C#, ASP.Net, PHP, Java (for businesses). Hackers and hobbyists use whatever they feel like. > Is there a large internal market for software? For end users? No. But for corporations and businesses (those I mentioned above), I don't think it's different than other places. :)

benwerd 15y ago

Seems like there's an opportunity for some kind of middle ground. Books are emotive. Why not embrace the community's desire to make titles available in different markets, but manage it in such a way that the publisher is involved in the process and has ultimate approval over a digitized version? Active community members get books for free based on the degree of their participation. Everyone else gets to buy designated "community editions" of titles with a proper cut going back to the copyright owner. The community platform takes enough money to keep itself ticking over, including a cut for partner services that make it possible to sell in hard-to-reach global markets. Sounds crazy, perhaps, but only because publishers still want a one-way relationship. A deep participative relationship with their global community of readers would only be a good thing. And it's less crazy for the publishers / authors than not making any money from these markets at all.

dmils4 15y ago
I really think (and hope) open source textbooks are going to solve this. While it might be difficult for OS books to catch on in places where there are market pressures from textbook publishers, in the countries this post mentions where the information just isn't available, there's going to be very little pushback/meddling. I'm really excited to see what this open source initiatives can do outside the US. You might be right about publishers taking a smaller cut and thinking it's better than nothing- but my guess is that the publishers would rather get no cut (while shutting down anyone who monetizes by pirating their content) than let the information be available in places that can't afford it at their inflated prices (and for other reasons, I'm sure - not trying to oversimplify the complexities of this market). Publishers are already mad enough that they don't get their cut everytime Amazon sells a used version of their textbooks. But this is part of what Apple will solve in their textbook initiatives.
- dhruvbird 15y ago
  Which is why I really like what Zed Shaw is doing and I hope his series extends to "Learning X The Hard Way", where 'X' can be anything. http://learncodethehardway.org/ http://learncodethehardway.org/
15y ago

altxwally 15y ago

I was a big fan of library.nu. As a student in Mexico, you just cannot get some of the books that were available in there, so it was incredibly useful. I no longer used the site so much, but I'm still grateful that this site was live when I went to university. It kind of marvels me how artificial are the limits that humans put on knowledge that can be useful to others, I hope we can solve this problem someday.

xtracto 15y ago
Not completely true. It is trivial to buy dead-tree books from Amazon.com (US) and send them to Mexico (books do not pay taxes when entering Mexico). I have done it for more than 10 years. The real problem is the cost. Imagine that, if people in the USA, earning it US dollars think that a text-book (http://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Management-14th-Philip-Kotler/dp/0132102927/ref=pd_sim_b_1 http://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Management-14th-Philip-Kotle...) costing USDd$168.72 is crazy. Imagine what people in Mexico (where the average yearly income is about USD$7,300) , India, China or other development countries think. Quite simply, a lot of the people who pirate books are not a market for the publishers simply because it is impossible to pay. Are they entitled to get such knowledge for free? legally, they are not. Morally... it is subjective.

okamiueru 15y ago

The article points out the valid complaint from people who do not have access to legitimate ways of obtaining books/information, and makes a point of saying he does not endorse the way library.nu operated. I'd disagree. We're presented with a technology which is slowly replacing the institutions we take for granted and made a great improvement on society. I'm thinking about both libraries and radio. As Neil Young said, piracy is the new radio. Except that it is better and easier to access. And library.nu functioned as my library, except that it is better and easier to access. If the music I was interested overlapped with the mainstream, then radio would probably be good, and if the library had the technical books I like, then that would too. Alas, they don't, and both internet and library.nu are (latter: were) my substitutions. I've downloaded all the books I've purchased after graduating a year ago (which is around 5). Even after owning a book, I've downloaded the same at work and shown it to a colleague, who also ended up purchasing it. When I look for a book on a topic of interest, I search amazon, read a few reviews, then download it on library.nu. The decision to buy it is done after going through the book and see if I like how the author writes, how the example code is, and especially how it covers my specific topic, before buying it. Usually, if it is a broad topic, I do this for about 3-5 books, and decide on which one to buy. I'm going to go further than the author, and endorse library.nu for all its worth. Both as a library and for those who cannot afford, or don't have access. As for the freeloaders, or more precisely the actual losses: I believe they are small enough that it outweighs the cost. And honestly, if they didn't, the marked would adapt.

fbuilesv 15y ago
The decision to buy it is done after going through the book and see if I like how the author writes, how the example code is, and especially how it covers my specific topic, before buying it You're basically saying you'd walk in to a restaurant, have a bite of every dish and then maybe decide to pay for it. I do this for about 3-5 books, and decide on which one to buy. Now you walk into three restaurants, eat a bit at every one of them and then decide to pay for the one you liked the most. I agree with the original article and I think there are times where piracy is valid, but let's not think that a valid solution is to pay for what we think we should pay and nothing else.

wisty 15y ago

IP laws exist to promote publication, not reduce it. If IP owners aren't publishing in a country, why should that country protect their IP? Oh, wait, there's an international treaties, and pro-copyright UN organization administering it. That UN can't ban the execution of children, but can enforce 70 years plus life of the author says a lot about the power of vested interests.

JumpCrisscross 15y ago
Agree with your sentiment but not the underling logic. If IP owners aren't publishing in a country, why should that country protect their IP Property rights don't vaporise automatically due to lack of use, e.g. in India squatters could, at one time, claim ownership to property after illegally sitting there for a certain period. This seems wrong to me. On the other end if Merck or Pfizer were to get pissed off at say Libya and deny its people certain drugs I would support suspending their property rights. I agree that this situation is ridiculous and that the black market is often a solid incentive for legislators to re-consider ridiculous regulation. But the suspension of property rights is something that should be thought out meticulously before implementation; in this case it fits into the greater debate on the nature of IP as a "true" property. Pro-copyright UN organization administering it I don't think the UN was actively involved in any of these decisions nor overtly in their enforcement any more than it is in other issues - the author was simply quoting UN statutes to underline how this is an evolving debate.
- _delirium 15y ago
  There are a lot of intersecting rationales, but squatters' rights exist in most countries, including common-law ones like the US and UK, in part out of a desire to ensure that the legal situation of ownership doesn't diverge too far from the de facto situation of possession. Prevents the situation where someone digs up a dusty old deed from a basement showing they really own something that someone else is currently living on (and that maybe their parents were also living on); the on-the-ground facts of the past 100 years in that case trump the deed, regardless of whether it's genuine, promoting a sort of stability. Same with adverse possession and boundary disputes; if your neighbor puts up a fence and you don't challenge it, it eventually becomes the new property line, to avoid disputes always going back to ancient documents and upsetting the status quo. There is, though, an intersecting economic-use rationale, which was especially prevalent in the American west, which is more like the copyright argument: something like, if you're not helping to make America great by neglecting your land, and someone else is willing to mine or farm there, well then move aside.

chj 15y ago

Same pain, there is always times that I wanted to buy an old book from amazon, but told me it is only available in US. Then I always turn to library.nu for help. Sad it is gone. The only complaint I have about copyright protection is they should try to make their work accessible. Otherwise, there will be another library.nu given time.

slavak 15y ago

Can we just agree that it's wrong to do market segmentation for electronic goods based on geographic location? It's an anachronistic model that has no justification other than for padding BigCo's(tm) profit margins. If the big media companies actually cared about piracy they would abandon this system and see piracy drop significantly overnight. Then again I think we all know that's just an excuse to try and hang on to the overinflated profits they're accustomed to for just a little bit longer.

rythie 15y ago
With a 8x difference in wages [1] the price of the book in India should surely be $4 if it is $32 in the U.S. Are suggesting it should be $4 everywhere? which means it's still cheaper in the U.S. compared to salaries. [1] see top item on (Sr. Software Engineer...): http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Country=India/Salary http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Country=India/Salary and http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Country=United_States/Salary http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Country=United_States/Sa...
- guard-of-terra 15y ago
  1) Market can figure it out. At which price would you gross more money? I guess the answer would be something like $10. Books are overpriced anyway in the USA, and there's no reason to pay $30 for an ebook. 2) You can still make promo prices for different regions, but the service should be available everywhere.
  - rythie 15y ago
    TBH, $30 and not sell it in India due to the risk of cheap imports. At $10 it's not going to sell 3x as many as at $30 in the U.S.
    - guard-of-terra 15y ago
      Okay, but then again: Making conscious choice to not sell in India and then bitching about piracy in India is immoral. You can still set the price to $30 but you have to actually sell worldwide to have any moral grounds against worldwide piracy.

f4stjack 15y ago

Whenever I read anything about piracy I often think of Gabe Newell's ubiquitous speech which underlines one single thing: Piracy is a service problem. And books are not an exception.

rmc 15y ago
It is a service problem with a service, not legal, not technical, solution

rmc 15y ago

Whenever anyone talks about copyright and piracy they seem to include a sop "Obviously I'm not against piracy and don't support breaking the law". Why do they always do that. I'm in favour of piracy when it's for the greater good.

prakashk 15y ago
Perhaps because if they don't, the discussion tends to gravitate towards "you are breaking the law if you are pirating", instead of focusing on the main point they are trying to make.
- rmc 15y ago
  I presume that, were they to not say it, that someone could accuse them of condoning piracy and breaking the law.

joska 15y ago

I own a Kindle and indeed some books are made unavailable by the publishers, but fortunatly Amazon let you enter any shipping address so I can order any book I want to read. But its amazing that publishers are trying to enforce geographical bounderies in the e-content market that no longer exists for physical products....

joska 15y ago

sireat 15y ago

This hits closer to home than I thought it would. Let's leave aside the fact library.nu was illegal under current laws, but for many books it was the only reasonable option to obtain it. library.nu offered extreme convenience for those outside of US especially in the education sector. When I lived in US, it was quite inexpensive to order physical books. I used to order older editions of university books for a few bucks each and shipping was very inexpensive (think Amazon Prime now). Now in Europe it is quite hard to bargain shop for books. Perhaps anyone have any tips? Shopping on Amazon is physically painful, when you see how much you end up paying for extra costs. Then there is the matter of buying experience for e-books. Buying e-books on O'Reilly feels the best out of all current e-book sellers, you actually feel like an owner of the e-book(even though of course you really are not). Still the ideal would be that e-books would be inexpensive to purchase and that buying a physical book would qualify one for e-book version.

cturner 15y ago
> Shopping on Amazon is physically painful, when you > see how much you end up paying for extra costs. That's not my experience. I recently bought a stack of ancient machine code and assembly books and paid 2p for some, with two pounds of shipping on top of that. The books are practically free to me. > Buying e-books on O'Reilly feels the best out of all > current e-book sellers Nostarch are pretty good. You can go in and download your books when you like from them. If a book you already own subsequently gets a new electronic format release, they open up access to that to you automatically.

alecco 15y ago

I buy a lot of books in english. Currently I live in South America. Last book I bought from Amazon-US (Thinking Fast and Slow) took 2 months to arrive. I love ebooks but those cost almost the same as hardcopy and you lose the right to lend or sell. Also, the quality of the content is usually very inferior. Recently I did ebook management software so I know the ins and outs. The temptation to use unpaid electronic copies is bigger than ever. Specially after noting the higher management on publishing businesses is usually in the 55+ age range and repeat how they only want to keep the status quo until they retire.

ya3r 15y ago

We here in Iran have an extra problem. I'll explain: Apple's App store, does not work in Iran, you cannot download anything from the app store (you get the famous 1009 error). But many people like myself have iPhones and iPads. Is it okay to pirate iOS apps? Mathwork's website will not load if you try to access it from an IP address form Iran. Neither they sell their widely used software (Matlab) in academics to Iranians. I wonder am I guilty to pirate Matlab? Also many other services including Paypal, Google's Android Market and Amazon are the same. I wonder what if I want to read the famous `Art of Computer Programming`? Am I guilty if I pirate it?

muuh-gnu 15y ago
> I wonder am I guilty to pirate Matlab? If you otherwise support the concept of intellectual property, you are. If you believe that Matlab is MathWorks "property", MathWorks is not obliged to sell you their property, and if you take what you believe is their property against their will, you are guilty. If you dont believe in intellectual property, then everything is allright.
- pooriaazimi 15y ago
  The world does not work like that; it's not easy to judge other people's actions unless you step into their shoes. I guess if it took you 45 minutes just to send an email, or 3 days to download Apple's new OS to develop/test on (Mountain Lion - around 4GB), then you wouldn't see the piracy issue (in countries that there are absolutely no alternatives) black and white anymore.
  - muuh-gnu 15y ago
    I am nut "judging" him. He didnt give enough information to answer his question. My answer was that whether he should feel guilty or not depends on whether he supports intellectual property or not. I, for one, do not support the concept of intellectual property at all. If you ask me, copying Matlab is perfectly OK. But if he does support intellectual property, then he should accept the fact that MathWorks doesnt want to sell to him because he is an Iranian. He can not both support intellectual property _and_ simply make the excuse to steal because they refuse to sell. If that worked, he could also argue that it is ok to pirate because they refuse to sell for $5.

regularfry 15y ago

It seems to me that, especially with India, there's a big question which nobody is asking. When foreign companies can't or won't supply the market at a suitable price, where is the local replacement? Why isn't this being fixed by local competition? India outpopulates the US four to one - is it credible that Indian engineers and publishers are somehow incapable of producing output that is to the same, or better, standard as that from the US at a price more commensurate with the local market?

dhruvbird 15y ago
We do have something called "Indian Low Price Edition" http://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22indian+subcontinent%22+%22low+price+edition%22 http://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22indian+subcontinent%22+%22low+pr... but not all titles are available for whatever reason. Mostly, these are books used as texts in schools & colleges. Another note: An LPE of a book that is available for INR ~500 would cost anywhere from INR ~4000 to ~6000 if the original publication is ordered. Generally the original is not stocked so there is a wait period of ~5 weeks from placing the order.
- regularfry 15y ago
  Sure, but that's imported content again. It's reliant on the foreign publishers deigning to think it worthwhile. Is the existence of LPEs enough to prevent the growth of a market in indigenous content?
reitblatt 15y ago
These are non-fungible goods.
- regularfry 15y ago
  In specific, yes. In general, I don't understand why, to pick an arbitrary example, O'Reilly gets a free pass as a go-to publisher on technical content, or why academic textbooks should be imported by default. Put another way: why isn't there yet an Indian publisher with the status of O'Reilly, whose books we're all desperate to get our hands on?

DTrejo 15y ago

List of alternatives to library.nu (see first comment): http://www.reddit.com/r/trackers/comments/hrgmv/tracker_with_pdfsebooks_of_college_textbooks/c1xrq44 http://www.reddit.com/r/trackers/comments/hrgmv/tracker_with...

urza 15y ago

http://gen.lib.rus.ec/ http://gen.lib.rus.ec/ http://en.bookfi.org/ http://en.bookfi.org/ http://pastebin.com/LTZfu2DX http://pastebin.com/LTZfu2DX