8 ms·

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 o

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  > 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 2y ago
    They describe it as a donation, but I think your description is more accurate. It doesn't go to charity.
    - jbm 2y ago
      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 2y ago
        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 2y ago
        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 2y ago
        >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.
        shadowgovt 2y ago
        And in the context of natural rights, they'd be wrong. Natural rights are fairly easily thumbnail-sketched by "What are your rights if you're on a desert island?" Out of the context of any preexisting society, what rights would you have? On a desert island, if I find some words scrawled ten feet high on a cliffside, I may do with the ideas in those words what I will: copy them, change them 'round, claim they came from me, claim they came from god. Similarly if I hear some mountain hermit shouting them from their cave. The natural rights as apply to ideas are very, very liberal. We in modern societies (and only recently) have taken up the experiment of constraining those rights with temporarily and contextual monopolies to incentivize creation of more ideas via property law. This works, but in a clunky, hackish way; it is a strange kind of "theft" that leaves us with more of something than when we started. And like all good wild hacks, it deserves to be considered for refactoring frequently.
  - xhkkffbf 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      > 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 2y ago
      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 2y ago
      Actually, pirates consistently spend the most on content. Go figure.
      - trogdor 2y ago
        I have seen this claim many times, but I have never seen anyone produce evidence to back it up. Why do you believe that what you wrote is true?
        DEADMINCE 2y ago
        > Why do you believe that what you wrote is true? Because I've seen this claim many times over more than a decade, and have seen evidence multiple times. I've also been able to search for it when I was curious and find it without issue. Here's the first search result, a Vice article from 2018: https://www.vice.com/en/article/evkmz7/study-again-shows-pirates-tend-to-be-the-biggest-buyers-of-legal-content https://www.vice.com/en/article/evkmz7/study-again-shows-pir...
  - DEADMINCE 2y ago
    > 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 2y ago
  Library Genesis has no limitations.

m348e912 2y ago

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 2y ago
> 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 2y ago
  They describe it as a donation, but I think your description is more accurate. It doesn't go to charity.
  - jbm 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      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 2y ago
        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 2y ago
        >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.
        shadowgovt 2y ago
        And in the context of natural rights, they'd be wrong. Natural rights are fairly easily thumbnail-sketched by "What are your rights if you're on a desert island?" Out of the context of any preexisting society, what rights would you have? On a desert island, if I find some words scrawled ten feet high on a cliffside, I may do with the ideas in those words what I will: copy them, change them 'round, claim they came from me, claim they came from god. Similarly if I hear some mountain hermit shouting them from their cave. The natural rights as apply to ideas are very, very liberal. We in modern societies (and only recently) have taken up the experiment of constraining those rights with temporarily and contextual monopolies to incentivize creation of more ideas via property law. This works, but in a clunky, hackish way; it is a strange kind of "theft" that leaves us with more of something than when we started. And like all good wild hacks, it deserves to be considered for refactoring frequently.
- xhkkffbf 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    > 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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
    Actually, pirates consistently spend the most on content. Go figure.
    - trogdor 2y ago
      I have seen this claim many times, but I have never seen anyone produce evidence to back it up. Why do you believe that what you wrote is true?
      - DEADMINCE 2y ago
        > Why do you believe that what you wrote is true? Because I've seen this claim many times over more than a decade, and have seen evidence multiple times. I've also been able to search for it when I was curious and find it without issue. Here's the first search result, a Vice article from 2018: https://www.vice.com/en/article/evkmz7/study-again-shows-pirates-tend-to-be-the-biggest-buyers-of-legal-content https://www.vice.com/en/article/evkmz7/study-again-shows-pir...
- DEADMINCE 2y ago
  > 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 2y ago
Library Genesis has no limitations.