4 ms·
Looks like the publishers are doing their best for libgen/ipfs to succeed. Makes you wonder: Do they even have data on their business growth factors? I don't b
by hbbio 2y ago
Looks like the publishers are doing their best for libgen/ipfs to succeed.
Makes you wonder: Do they even have data on their business growth factors? I don't but I'd guess that:
1. nobody is printing downloaded books
2. instead, people like me _buy_ printed books after browsing through them online
- crazygringo 2y agoThey're actually pretty different sets of books. LibGen/IPFS is heavily biased toward books from the past ~3 decades, especially books that are cracked EPUB's and PDF's. IA seems to be much more scans of library books from ~1930-1980, many of which are out of print and probably only available to you via interlibrary loan, which you might wait a month for. IA is a huge boon for academic research when you need to go back to midcentury books. I don't know which 500K the IA is being required to remove, but I'm very worried.
- hbbio 2y agoExtremely grateful for IA indeed, and as you say they have more scans that for sure are super useful for research, LLM training, etc. Like this: https://archive.org/details/landau-and-lifshitz-physics-textbooks-series/Vol%201%20-%20Landau%2C%20Lifshitz%20-%20Mechanics%20%283rd%20ed%2C%201976%29/ https://archive.org/details/landau-and-lifshitz-physics-text... Where LibGen only has the first volume in French and Portuguese only...
- kjkjadksj 2y agoEven being good for it I can’t stand how most books are like $19.99, knowing I can find it in very good condition on ebay for $6 and get it from the library for free. If they want to sell a lot more books out of the little shops at the airports or wherevers left that books are sold today, make them cheap enough to be a spontaneous purchase again. I have some old paper backs that were like 99 cents new.