Libraries are illegal? That sounds something from 1984.
No. But running a library in an illegal way is. Legal libraries pay the publishers.
That’s ass. People just wanna read. Words are free to copy.
But surely there’s an argument to be made that the people whose work goes into creating the texts you want to read have a claim to be recompensed for their labour. Authors, translators, proofreaders, layouters, illlustrators, printers and binders have mortgages or rent to pay and families to feed, and the servers and warehouses that store the texts are not free either. Where do these costs factor in to your »words are free to copy«-hypothesis?
If you like a book you can go buy the authors hardcovers?
But all those people aren’t publishers. The publishers are the ones owed money by Libgen, and the publishers can eat my shorts. The translators, editors, layouters, illustrators, printers and binders already got paid their wage/comission by the publishers. And besides, printers and binders aren’t making digital books, so bringing them into the conversation is bad faith nonsense.
Okay, so where on your theory does the publisher of a book get the money to pay the workers who produce it? (And isn‘t a significant part of libgen scanned print books? My printers and binders have played a role in all of those.)
They can pay the workers using the gigantic piles of money they have lying around from decades of exploiting customers and workers. And in fact, they already did, because the books Libgen is pirating already exist. You think Pearson is leaving wages unpaid until they hit a sales quota? No way, those books already got made and the workers already got paid. Some of those books are decades old, and Libgen is the only place you can get them aside from rare booksellers and libraries, and the court still awarded damages to a company that no longer even sells the product. It’s crooked.
I think our respective understanding of how publishing works is different, and perhaps you have more experience in this area than I do. My dealings with a publishing company have been limited to the one that has up to now published my own books. They are able to take on and finance new titles because they have have income from books they‘ve published in the past. I can‘t speak to Pearson‘s specific situation, but the principle is likely the same: sales from a backlist play a crucial part in allowing new works to be produced. I don‘t think there‘s anything crooked about it, at least not in principle. As for some of the books being out of print, that is, it seems to me, a separate issue relating to the way copyright works. In Europe, there are provisions in law for making out-of-commerce books digitally available, but perhaps you‘re writing from a different context.
That’s why piracy is and always will be morally justified.
The order forbids anyone from hosting Libgen, registering Libgen domains, or providing cloud storage, file-sharing, or advertising services, among other restrictions.
Als ob das jemanden außerhalb der USA interessiert…
USA justice system thinking they control global Internet is cute.
One of the few things ipfs is good for
