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.
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.
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?
I think the eventual historical lesson we will learn 100 years in the future is that "Intellectual property" is not real.
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.'
So are you saying authors don't deserve any compensation for their work unless they produce books in physical form?
I think they shouldn't be attached to that old business model in a world where self-publishing is possible.
I also think generous UBI should exist, but I guess that's another issue.
The key point is remembering that copyright isn't some divine right stemming from the muses blessing the author with their own exclusively-owned words; it's a right societies fabricate because we believe it will incentivize people to build new knowledge that eventually benefits everyone. It's that incentivization that's the goal.
I do think UBI should be a minimum, and people should still receive compensation for work they produce that people enjoy. Just not exclusive rights and perpetual royalties and all this nonsense.
Because remember when you say an author “deserves” to be paid you are saying the state should use its monopoly on violence to make that happen.
Perhaps it’s best not to use straw men and loaded terms designed to emotionally appeal to five year olds when discussing enclosure of the intellectual commons?
Yes, that's how property rights - and in fact all rights afforded through civilized society - are enforced. If you have a problem with that take it up with literally the entirety of recorded human history.
You are confusing rights that are created by the threat of violence, such as copyright, and rights that are protected by the threat of violence, such as the right to not be killed for no reason.
Needless to say there is no inherent right for an author to profit from copyright. It is a wholly constructed right. They do not "deserve" it. Perhaps a society chooses to organize itself that way and perhaps it doesn't. On the other hand, innocent people really do deserve to not get murdered.
I don't much care to get into who deserves what when we're talking about a property right constructed to create general societal benefit. I will instead observe that you haven't gone after anybody at Hacker News for the money they're not paying you to write comments.
Do you think you deserve compensation for these writings? Why not?
Literally everyone from the richest of commercial interests to the kumbaya-est of libre interests will disagree.
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.
The digital nature of a work doesn't matter. It says right there on the tin, intellectual property; a la any work ("property") that is a product of human intellect.
For an example I'm sure most people can relate to, you probably know that "cut grass smell" when you mow your lawn? That's the grass throwing out chemical signals telling other grass "Hey! Something cut me down! Be warned!".
While whether this can count as intelligence or sentience is worthy of further debate, to say that trees don't feel anything is a gross mistake.
Actually, I'm not categorically opposed to the notion, but I think you need to bring a lot to the table to explain why things without nervous systems feel pain. If the default assumption is that all complex systems feel pain then I wonder if you think things like jetstreams, economies and the internet feels pain.
> that "cut grass smell" when you mow your lawn? That's the grass throwing out chemical signals telling other grass "Hey! Something cut me down! Be warned!".
So is it immoral to cut grass?
Note that I didn't say they feel pain, just that they can feel what is done to them by the environment around them and respond appropriately.
The fact trees don't speak human plays a big role in us not understanding them, but they do clearly feel and express things whatever they may be.
>So is it immoral to cut grass?
Considering most of it is done for purely aesthetic purposes to satisfy human egos, arguably yes.
Note that whether it's moral or not is tangent to whether it can be done or not. We humans do plenty of immoral things without a care in the world.
Well, I never said "they feel nothing", but if you're saying plants have a right to life because they feel "something" I'm wondering where you draw the line. If you're something of a panpsychist I'm actually ok with these conclusions in terms of metaphysical consistency.
And people who say they don't almost always are roleplaying that they don't for the sake of argument and can be immediately exposed as holding a contradiction in their values with the most basic pressure/consistency tests.
That's not a comparable argument because your belongings have a material effect on at least one sentient entity.
Instead what if you were given the power to expunge everything in the universe outside of our solar system. Would that be acceptable?
That's not a comparable argument because you haven't been properly compensated as authors of the printed word are. If you received a dime for every snuffed-out star, would it then be acceptable?
Of course if you were to argue that downsizing the universe represents an intangible loss to humanity as a whole, we are have returned to ground zero in which it is ironic that exterminating trees provides a net benefit to humanity.
I dare you to take the same position about not paying workers for any other career. Who pays you? Should they be able to take your work without paying you or your company?
I am not impressed by the quality of literature I get from people who are purely fiscally motivated.
If it sucks so much, why do you care if they lock it with DRM?
Everyone deserves to get paid for their work. Once.
Past that requires a bargain with the public.
The bargain was that the public would yield their rights for 14 years, for works that promoted the progress of science and the useful arts. The public could gift another 14 years to the creator.
The bargain has been altered. Prayers to not alter it further are never answered.
More and more years have been taken from public - almost entirely without the public's consent, typically as quietly as possible and always in response to piles of campaign cash from massive IP interests.
And if it were creators that were the ~sole (or even primary) beneficiaries of purchased and ever-ratcheting copyright extensions, maybe the public would be willing to forgive the immoral methods used to arrive here.
But creators didn't buy modern IP laws and most of that wealth is not flowing into creator's pockets. If we're looking for bad behavior to be angry at, there are a lot of deserving recipients.
I'd even argue that some blame should go to creators that remained silent while corrupt copyright laws were purchased in their names.
Interesting way to look at it. If you write a piece of software should you only get a single sale and then it be free for use by the entire world?
>> Everyone deserves to get paid for their work. Once.
I'll restore the context you omitted.
>> Everyone deserves to get paid for their work. Once.
>> Past that requires a bargain with the public.
Someone else can write the same code and sell that labor to their clients and get the same result. This is good and holy and what is right with the world.
If I want to write code and deny every other person possible their right to develop and deploy that tool - Ok, well, there's a good chance I can't.
The plain and obvious nature of computer instructions puts a lot of healthy limits on whether code can be copyrighted. Not enough and like everything tied to copyright it's a convoluted mess of industry-built pitfalls.
As far as it relies on purchased copyright law, it will be a corrupt bargain. But the bargain does have to exist.
Let's go back to the goalposts.
> I dare you to take the same position about not paying workers for any other career.
You asked about not paying workers for any other career. They work once, they get paid once. That's the nature of labor.
If you're now asking about onerous agreements within some purposefully convoluted industry then you are remolding the question into a wholly different scope and at that point we have moved on.
Having moved on, we can consider the question about paying workers closed. It's been a pleasure.
If this were the beginning and end of the issue, you'd be arguing from a strong position. However, holding up theoretical harms by Z-Library (*=lost sale) while omitting the actual, massive and continual harm done against creators (against everyone really) by predatory publishers - it's cursing the puddle while ignoring the tsunami.
> The fact that they willfully sign away large percentages just reflects the reality that printing, design, editing, distribution and sales are expensive.
You can try to paint academic, research, technical and professional papers authors with that brush. I think you'll find they strongly disagree with that characterization and are fairly tired of pushing back on it.
They publish where their careers mandate. The publishers who own those journals know those authors don't have any meaningful choice. Not that that stops the flow of industry talking points and mischaracterizations.
Personally I use these services like a public library too. I buy most of the books I'm sure I want but I use public libraries and download sites alike to explore more. Once I actually dive into a book I buy it but many I don't.
Of course this depends on a honour system as you could easily download everything. But books are cheap for the amount of time you spend on them and it's a nice thing to buy.
Note: for technical books that equation can be very different and I could be more likely to download yes. Though i don't usually consume technical content in book form anyway. I tend to explore by doing and learning as I go.
Sending money to the pirates, though, will only produce more piracy.
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.
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-pir...
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.
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.
> In or about and between January 2018 and November 2022, both dates being approximate and inclusive, within the Eastern District of New York and elsewhere, the defendants ANTON NAPOLSKY, also known as "Anton Napolskiy," and VALERJIA ERMAKOVA, together with others, did knowingly and intentionally conspire to conduct one or more financial transactions in and affecting interstate and foreign commerce, to wit: deposits, withdrawals and transfers of funds and monetary instruments, which transactions in fact involved the proceeds of specified unlawful activity, to wit: criminal copyright, as alleged in Count One, in violation of Title 17, United States Code, Section 506(a)(1)(A), and wire fraud, as alleged in Counts Three and Four, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343 (collectively, the "Specified Unlawful Activities"), knowing that the property involved in the transactions represented the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, with intent to promote the carrying on of the Specified Unlawful Activities, contrary to Title 18, United States Code, Section 1956(a)(l)(A)(i).
http://loginzlib2vrak5zzpcocc3ouizykn6k5qecgj2tzlnab5wcbqhem...
Discussing federal prosecutions, specifically, they talk about something known in slang as “the head-shot” for federal investigators and prosecutors: finding that someone took a loan from an associate, then used that money to secure a bank loan (a mortgage, say) while misrepresenting the loaned money as their own, then later paid the money back (making it clear, in the paper trail, that it was in fact a loan).
It’s very easy to understand, easy to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, it’s fraud, and it’s a great entry to comb through the books looking for more crimes.
“Something every kid does with their parents to buy their first home”, one Baltimore cop observes.
The parts of the show I have some real-world understanding of are remarkably observant and accurate. I’m inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt for parts I’m less familiar with.
My point was simply that financial crimes, including some really common ones that often go un-prosecuted until suddenly it matters, are often components of federal cases. Piling on stuff like that, or using them for early charges to secure warrants for further investigation or to gain leverage, is fairly normal. I chose a high-quality pop culture reference to illustrate that because… that’s an effective way to communicate.
When it’s passed off as a gift.
> What percent of kids do you estimate receive such fraudulent loans from their parents?
I dunno, but it’s pretty common. Maybe unknown in SES levels either too low (no money to loan) or too high (no fraud, because it’s actually a gift) but it’s common.
I’m entirely baffled at the pushback on this, incidentally. Do folks just really not want this to be true, for some reason?
[edit] to clarify what may be a point of confusion:
Rich parents are often in a position to comfortably gift their kid(s) tens of thousands of dollars for their first down payment.
Non-rich parents are more often in a position to somewhat-uncomfortably “gift” that money. It’s a gift on paper, but it’s actually a loan and they need the money back eventually (maybe for the next-oldest kid to borrow for the same purpose, lol). That’s when it’s fraud.
“Here are bank records showing the defendant received $5,000 dollars. Here are further records that show payments back to the person who sent the original $5,000. They occur over a span of eleven months. Eight transactions are for $500, one is for $450, and a later one is for $550, totaling $5,000. Only one month in this otherwise contiguous span—December—is skipped, with no payment occurring. Mr. [defendant], was this $5,000 in fact a loan?”
You’d have reasonable doubt?
As nobody reads more then 10 books each day, it was effectively free.
After the 10 downloads you'd have to pay, but get effectively unlimited access after.
I mean imagine if you took donations for some mundane fan art patreon website that ends up violating US copyright laws and you used the proceeds to buy yourself Subway sandwich and a new laptop to create copyrighted art, you are labelled a money launderer.
doesn't such draconian ruling end up driving these type of services deeper underground and closer to actual money laundering which only leads to more proliferation and opacity?
US federal prosecutors use a very expansive definition of “money laundering”. Basically, any financial transaction made with funds considered to be “proceeds of crime” can result in a money laundering charge. Contrary to the traditional definition of “money laundering”, there doesn’t need to be any attempt by the defendant to obscure the origin of the funds. All that is required is the defendant knew (at times in a rather loose sense of “know”) the connection between the funds and the underlying crime
> (a)(1) Whoever, knowing that the property involved in a financial transaction represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, conducts or attempts to conduct such a financial transaction which in fact involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity—
> (A)(i) with the intent to promote the carrying on of specified unlawful activity;
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1956
You can read the entire code but it criminalizes 2 main categories of conduct. Knowingly using the proceeds of a crime to promote the carrying on of a crime. And knowingly using the proceeds of a crime in a transaction that attempts to conceal the source of the proceeds. So even if you assume all money is the proceeds of a crime this law would not apply to you as long as you don't use it to commit any crimes yourself and you don't attempt to hide where you got it.
I agree that the way I explained the law was less than completely accurate. But I was talking about money laundering charges as add-on charges. Your "as long as you don't use it to commit any crimes yourself" is unlikely to apply to a defendant who is getting a money laundering charge as an add-on rather than the sole charge.
Theoretically, you might commit a crime, and draw proceeds from that crime, and never use those proceeds in any way to further the commission of the underlying crime – but in practice that doesn't seem particularly likely. An enterprising prosecutor is going to come up with some explanation of how you used the proceeds to further the criminal enterprise which produced them – e.g. you used the money to buy a car, and then you went on a crime-related car trip; you used the money to buy a phone, and then you made a crime-related phone call; etc – and once the jury is convinced you are guilty of the underlying criminal conduct, they'll be primed to believe the prosecutor's explanation. Especially since the law doesn't require the prosecution to prove that you actually used the proceeds to further the criminal enterprise, only that you intended to.
It's almost circular logic.
What has to be proven?
That they got money and used it to fund the operation isn't in question.
This is laughable, there are killers, syndicate bosses, drug dealers and human traffickers out there on the run, maybe the prosecutors should get their priorities a bit in order...