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You missed Gigapedia (library.nu [1]) , which preceded most of the others. Although I partially applaud what Anna's Archive is doing, I like their model the le

by xtracto 1mo ago

You missed Gigapedia (library.nu [1]) , which preceded most of the others. Although I partially applaud what Anna's Archive is doing, I like their model the least (they want to CHARGE to download while doing Copyright infringement?). In any case, I strongly believe that Anna's Archive is the wrong approach, as it has a single point of failure. We have been doing massive P2P sharing for more than 26 years; we have the algorithms for fully distributed file sharing and databases. Why are we still depending on HTTP/DNS based interfaces that are easily taken down by people wanting to limit knowledge? I'm glad and thankful that the people behind Anna's Archive dedicate their time maintaining the huge base of human knowledge (Encyclopedia Galactica Asimov would say), but we (the people) should make it really distributed, really infallible and accessible (no, downloading 10TB torrent files doesn't make sense, except for archiving purposes). We should have something like Popcorn Time but for knowledge. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library.nu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library.nu

squidbeak 1mo ago
> Although I partially applaud what Anna's Archive is doing, I like their model the least (they want to CHARGE to download while doing Copyright infringement?). This is bollocks. AA gives users a means of paying to enjoy faster speeds as a means of contributing to costs, but the downloads are free to anyone who doesn't want to pay, and very often quick enough.
- tentacleuno 1mo ago
  Whilst it pays for the service (and, in that respect, may be a necessary evil), it's morally questionable (at minimum) to charge for things that, by law, aren't yours in the first place.
  - dessimus 1mo ago
    Less morally questionable than claiming to users they are "buying" access to media that can be revoked at any point in the future with no recompense, of course referring to Sony and Amazon.
    - tentacleuno 1mo ago
      I do think the language around that needs to change, yes -- misleadingly labelling renting as buying is wrong and deliberately confusing. The previous physical ownership model was a lot more secure, though the implementation of DVDs does seem to be diminishing throughout the gaming sector. PlayStation recently sent out emails regarding this, effectively reminding people that they did not, in fact, own what they purchased[0]. It's very confusing - someone here would have a much higher chance of knowing that it's not a direct purchase or right to ownership, though I'll bet most of the general public do not. [0]: https://windowsreport.com/sony-emails-playstation-users-to-remind-that-digital-games-are-licensed-not-owned/ https://windowsreport.com/sony-emails-playstation-users-to-r...
  - insane_dreamer 1mo ago
    they're not charging for the content -- they're charging for the extra bandwidth if you want faster access
    - tentacleuno 1mo ago
      They are inherently charging for access to copyrighted content that they don't have the rights to distribute (even after being served with lawsuits), though. I'm not explicitly disavowing it, but I can see why it would raise questions and why it would give litigators a much stronger case - once you start accepting money, a lot of things change. I will say, however, that they've gone up against some very scary people with very large teams of lawyers, and for that I salute them.
orbital-decay 1mo ago
BBSes were the first, of course. In particular, Libgen, Sci-Hub and others can be traced back through several generations of libraries to the SU.BOOKS FidoNet echo conference created in the early 90's.
- wolvoleo 1mo ago
  Yes and I remember a thriving community of IRC DCC file servers. I used them back in the day to read books on my palm pilot before wink existed.
dessimus 1mo ago
> Why are we still depending on HTTP/DNS based interfaces that are easily taken down by people wanting to limit knowledge? Those are arguably the hardest protocols to block on the open Internet without causing major issues for all other sites, forcing those trying to take them down to play "whack-a-mole". If they were to create a new "AATP" for distributing data, it would make it trivial to block on every ISPs firewalls.

by xtracto 1mo ago

squidbeak 1mo ago

> Although I partially applaud what Anna's Archive is doing, I like their model the least (they want to CHARGE to download while doing Copyright infringement?). This is bollocks. AA gives users a means of paying to enjoy faster speeds as a means of contributing to costs, but the downloads are free to anyone who doesn't want to pay, and very often quick enough.

tentacleuno 1mo ago
Whilst it pays for the service (and, in that respect, may be a necessary evil), it's morally questionable (at minimum) to charge for things that, by law, aren't yours in the first place.
- dessimus 1mo ago
  Less morally questionable than claiming to users they are "buying" access to media that can be revoked at any point in the future with no recompense, of course referring to Sony and Amazon.
  - tentacleuno 1mo ago
    I do think the language around that needs to change, yes -- misleadingly labelling renting as buying is wrong and deliberately confusing. The previous physical ownership model was a lot more secure, though the implementation of DVDs does seem to be diminishing throughout the gaming sector. PlayStation recently sent out emails regarding this, effectively reminding people that they did not, in fact, own what they purchased[0]. It's very confusing - someone here would have a much higher chance of knowing that it's not a direct purchase or right to ownership, though I'll bet most of the general public do not. [0]: https://windowsreport.com/sony-emails-playstation-users-to-remind-that-digital-games-are-licensed-not-owned/ https://windowsreport.com/sony-emails-playstation-users-to-r...
- insane_dreamer 1mo ago
  they're not charging for the content -- they're charging for the extra bandwidth if you want faster access
  - tentacleuno 1mo ago
    They are inherently charging for access to copyrighted content that they don't have the rights to distribute (even after being served with lawsuits), though. I'm not explicitly disavowing it, but I can see why it would raise questions and why it would give litigators a much stronger case - once you start accepting money, a lot of things change. I will say, however, that they've gone up against some very scary people with very large teams of lawyers, and for that I salute them.

orbital-decay 1mo ago

BBSes were the first, of course. In particular, Libgen, Sci-Hub and others can be traced back through several generations of libraries to the SU.BOOKS FidoNet echo conference created in the early 90's.

wolvoleo 1mo ago
Yes and I remember a thriving community of IRC DCC file servers. I used them back in the day to read books on my palm pilot before wink existed.

dessimus 1mo ago

> Why are we still depending on HTTP/DNS based interfaces that are easily taken down by people wanting to limit knowledge? Those are arguably the hardest protocols to block on the open Internet without causing major issues for all other sites, forcing those trying to take them down to play "whack-a-mole". If they were to create a new "AATP" for distributing data, it would make it trivial to block on every ISPs firewalls.