7 ms·

It's disappointing to see how they cannot see what it means for libgen to exist in the broader sense. Books should be free for all, and we should encourage and

• JonChesterfield 2y ago
  Do you have thoughts on persuading people to spend years of their lives writing books for zero compensation?
  • emaro 2y ago
    I think a UBI could be a good start.
    • readthenotes1 2y ago
      I'm willing to receive that. How much will you be giving me?
      • __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
        Iirc the current rate is 120 CRC per month. Sign up here: https://circles.garden/welcome/onboarding https://circles.garden/welcome/onboarding The real question is: are you willing to build a community around accepting it? Otherwise it's just numbers.
  • ndileas 2y ago
    Lots of people already do, in essence.
  • k_roy 2y ago
    The people who are using libgen, are probably also not the people who would pay an author for a book anyway. Not saying I agree or disagree one way or another, but that's really probably the reality.
    • littlestymaar 2y ago
      > The people who are using libgen, are probably also not the people who would pay an author for a book anyway Quite the opposite: as with all piracy, the ones who pirate stuff are also the ones who spend the most money buying the stuff they pirate. (For books there's the obvious reason that paper is still by far the best reading experience, but it was also true of DVD, video games, music CDs etc. but these people wouldn't have spent more money if piracy was impossible).
      • catlikesshrimp 2y ago
        The only med books I bought were atlases (histology, anatomy, etc) Everything else I borrowed, photocopied or bought second hand. Many of my classmates did the same. In our group, very few rich students ever photocopied or bought second hand If books weren't sold for profit, we would have better books, only released less often. Back then, we didn't have so many yearly releases, and I honestly think that isn't needed. Why would we have better books you say? Similar to how open source projects draw very good programmers. Some do it for prestige, and some weird ones do it for the joy o f doing true quality work. IMHO
      • k_roy 2y ago
        > Quite the opposite: as with all piracy, the ones who pirate stuff are also the ones who spend the most money buying the stuff they pirate. (For books there's the obvious reason that paper is still by far the best reading experience, but it was also true of DVD, video games, music CDs etc. but these people wouldn't have spent more money if piracy was impossible). you take a few interesting leaps in a failed attempt of.... trying to turn opinion into fact? > the ones who pirate stuff are also the ones who spend the most money buying the stuff they pirate. Uhhh, wot?? Please provide ANY source for this. Really. Like even if it's a blog you wrote and was a creative writing experiment for you, publish it. Just so I can mock you. > (For books there's the obvious reason that paper is still by far the best reading experience, but it was also true of DVD, video games, music CDs etc. but these people wouldn't have spent more money if piracy was impossible). So at this point, I hope it's clear that you are a bit silly. But... > For books there's the obvious reason that paper is still by far the best reading experience This level of intellectual dishonest is horrible, especially if it's legitimate.
  • littlestymaar 2y ago
    Wait until you discover that researchers aren't compensated by publishing corporations for their papers. Or that most book authors get ridiculous royalties in their publishing contract (a few percent of the price, including for ebooks that are being sold at the price of paper copies) unless they are already famous.
    • Sebb767 2y ago
      > Wait until you discover that researchers aren't compensated by publishing corporations for their papers. Yes, but most researchers are compensated by either the state, universities or companies hoping to profit of their research. Little high-level research is done for the fun of it.
      • littlestymaar 2y ago
        Given how low the pay can be when not working on hot topics, one could argue that most research is in fact done for the fun of it.
    • JonChesterfield 2y ago
      ACM charged me to publish. After I'd written the paper and after their peer review process which was not convincingly value adding, but it was something like $100 so I paid it. Overall experience makes it likely I'll just post to arxiv instead next time. (In fairness that fee did nominally grant access to read other papers by them as well, but the credentials they sent out didn't let me log in and I didn't bother contacting them to resolve it)
  • jazzyjackson 2y ago
    They should find a patron or grant making institution that values the production of knowledge, not publishers who seek property to license out.
  • dleeftink 2y ago
    Many have done so, and will continue to do. No one has to be persuaded if they have thoughts on their mind. Compensation is the side-effect. [0]: https://monoskop.org https://monoskop.org [1]: https://www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/ https://www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/ [2]: https://computerhistory.org/collections/ https://computerhistory.org/collections/ [3]: https://oapen.org/ https://oapen.org/
    • yreg 2y ago
      I dislike copyright as much as the next guy, but the people who want to write and share free books can (and do) do that now as well.
    • BobaFloutist 2y ago
      So, that creates a world (not too dissimilar to our own, but notably so) where only the independently wealthy can ever afford to produce art full time. Can you see any downsides to that world?
      • pksebben 2y ago
        I'd be more on board with this take if it were artists engaging in these lawsuits. Elsevier doesn't elicit the same sympathy, though. 'Stealing' from a company with 2B in profit (much from publicly funded research), LibGen is looking a lot like Robin Hood to Elsevier's Prince John.
        • johnnyanmac 2y ago
          It's the same issue. If writers could meaningfully get an audience who buys their work independently, they wouldn't need a publisher. Publishers offer support and printing, but ultimately an author needs a publisher to spread reach (i won't say "make money", because authors sure won't make much). Becsuse it's all about being loud and publishers have resources to be loud. Much better odds compared to a grassroots community paying a fair price when the author is ready to release.
          • 2y ago
  • amelius 2y ago
    This is like saying that no great software would exist if people didn't get paid for developing software.
  • hotspot_one 2y ago
    Do you think books which are written by people who had to be persuaded to write them are worth reading?
    • visarga 2y ago
      Yes, the second order effects of money incentive. Internet and movies also suffer from enshittification.
    • daedrdev 2y ago
      I think the chance of financial success can incentivize the author to make a better work. Let the authors who are willing to write for free release their work for free.
  • visarga 2y ago
    > Do you have thoughts on persuading people to spend years of their lives writing books for zero compensation? Most books make very very little income for the author. So it is already the case.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • daedrdev 2y ago
      I don't think we should make it even worse for them. They are at least going to make some money for their long months or years of work with a chance to make it big.
  • nanna 2y ago
    I buy most of my books second hand. The author doesn't get anything from that either. Should it be illegal?
    • johnnyanmac 2y ago
      I think a used market exchange where someone had to buy each product is a different scale from one buyer who uploads infinite copies to the internet. It's a tragedy of the commons. Not a commons of the product tho, of the ability to keep the creations flowing.
    • shiroiushi 2y ago
      The secondhand market helps the firsthand market: people are more likely to buy something at the offered price if they know they can resell it on the secondhand market later. Can you imagine what the automobile market would look like if you couldn't trade-in or sell your car and just had to trash it? New cars sales would plummet.
  • mullingitover 2y ago
    Yes: we can pay authors nothing. It works. In fact we can make them grovel to get something published, and even get them to pay for the privilege of being considered for the publishing we're offering zero compensation for. We can give ourselves a cool name. "Elsevier" has a nice ring to it.
• didgetmaster 2y ago
  Do the same people who think that every line of code ever written should be free; also think that every book, article, or painting should also be free? Or are there people who draw lines and say that one type of work product should always be free while it is OK to charge for another?
  • littlestymaar 2y ago
    Maybe get back to the original 20 years of copyright protection instead of the insane “70 years after death of the author” that has been made solely for the interest of the IP holders?
  • jazzyjackson 2y ago
    they might suggest various other revenue models aside from royalties. For instance, taking on production of art as a commission or pre-sale, releasing a book once a fundraising goal has been met, but not attempting to sue people for unauthorized copies after the fact
  • BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    Eh idk but books should definitely be free. We can talk about the rest once the books are free.
    • didgetmaster 2y ago
      So if authors refuse to spend the time and resources needed to get a work ready for publication because they will be denied any compensation for doing so; should they be forced to write them anyway so that you can have your free books?
      • Dylan16807 2y ago
        What's the purpose of this question? Their answer is almost certainly "no", and that doesn't contradict anything they've said in this conversation.
      • BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
• BobaFloutist 2y ago
  How should authors get paid? What about editors?
  • saulrh 2y ago
    Unconditional basic income. Grants for the arts. Stipends. Unconditional basic income. Sponsorships. Unconditional basic income. Donations. Maybe even unconditional basic income. Look, no artistic endeavor needs to make a billion dollars. Even when something does take a billion dollars in revenue, none of it goes to the artists anyway! Music labels and movie studios and book publishers are infamous for creative accounting and bogus contracts and outright lies to fuck over almost every person that actually contributed to the art. They're worse than politicians. It's all there to funnel even more money to people who are already rich. If you put artists on basic income you're not paying them any less, you're not losing anything, 99.9% of them come out ahead of where they would've been if they'd sold their work for money. Maybe add a couple more nines to that list. For every multimillionaire movie star or generation-defining author there are literally hundreds of thousands of artists just barely scraping by. Capitalist art only benefits the leeches.
    • daedrdev 2y ago
      If the UBI is high enough for people to live on with no other income, then I think it will be too expensive for the state to avoid going bankrupt as millions of people stop doing productive work to live easy lives. If it is not enough to live on, then only the independently wealthy can do art, which goes against the exact goal you stated.
      • dwallin 2y ago
        That's clearly a false dichotomy, even the post you are replying to outlined a number of ways which an artist might supplement their income. Also the idea that a significant UBI would lead to people just coasting seems patently false. Every bit of evidence shows that when given the opportunity the majority of individuals are driven to improve the quality of their lives; and also, that quality is measured in relative and not absolute terms.
• readthenotes1 2y ago
  What it means for libgen to exist in the broader sense is that we are used to pilfering what we value but cannot afford.
• lucb1e 2y ago
  > donate back the value they received from them Maybe this is not the topic you were going for but this triggers me because I've long wondered how to do pricing fairly in general. If you're a monopolist or in a highly competitive market, what strategy could you use regardless to arrive at a fair price? I think the answer is cost + a little bonus because nothing else really works. If I had to pay the value it brings me for everything in life... what are my glasses worth, half my salary? The work computer (as an IT person) is maybe three quarters of my salary? That already does not add up and I still haven't paid for the food I need or my office chair The person who makes it knows the cost price and needs to set a price for money to work, I think. Which is not to say that donations can't work, you can always feel free to make an exception and give the author a good day, but it wouldn't work as a general payment model I don't think
  • BadHumans 2y ago
    There is no pricing that would satisfy the person you are responding to other than free.
    • Dylan16807 2y ago
      "Price" is not being used in a completely literal sense here. The core of the comment is how to calculate "value they received", and neither person involved would say it's $0.
      • BadHumans 2y ago
        I fully understand what they are saying. I'm saying it doesn't matter. There is a group of people that believe anything above free is too much. For both software and books.
        • Dylan16807 2y ago
          If you're talking about people that think nothing should be paid, then kundi is not one of those people, and you're responding in the wrong place. If you're talking about people that think payment should be optional but encouraged, then your "There is no pricing that would satisfy the person" "it doesn't matter" argument is incorrect. It does matter to those people and you can have a productive discussion about the correct amount.
• daedrdev 2y ago
  I think the creator of a book should be able to charge for their work if they desire to do so for a reasonable amount of time, actually, especially considering most authors don't make a lot of money form their works.
• zozbot234 2y ago
  > Books should be free for all Most books that are in the public domain today (hence with no legal hindrances whatsoever) are still not meaningfully free or available to all. Copyright turns out to be simply a minor issue when viewed in a larger perspective; actually making works meaningfully available whenever this can be done free of legal issues is actually a lot more important. Note that this encompasses discovery and findability (e.g. through detailed cataloging) as well as practical access (e.g. through availability in a variety of open formats). It's a hard problem and one that's far from being comprehensively addressed.
• DarmokJalad1701 2y ago
  I agree with the sentiment. Also, interesting username.
• johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Books are ideally free for all as is. That's the goal of a library. But we know how that's going...
• mistrial9 2y ago
  >Books should be free for all yes certainly, thank your local library.. your country has them? > we should encourage and educate people yes certainly, but many people have had income from a book economy. Some certain books of great quality might increase in price. How can people wish for no-book economy so quickly?
• goochphd 2y ago
  I don't even mind paying up front anymore. I'm in a position where I can afford it now, though for most of my adult life I've relied on sites like this to make ends meet. However the only thing I want from publishers is DRM-free e-books (same for music). If you offer a way for me to actually own the digital property I'm buying, I'm going to buy it. If you make it hard or impossible to transfer between my devices, or share with my wife and kids (i.e. how physical media works), you're not getting my money and I'll find another way to get the book.