IPFS is a protocol like http or bittorrent, rather than a platform like Twitter. It is a federated file storage, so although individual contributors can choose not to host z-lib or allow it through their gateway, there is not single authority that can ban content.
A better question is - is this a sensible technology for hosting legally dangerous material, and the answer has to be no. It is censorship resistant not anonymising. Like bittorrent but kind of worse. It is trivial for an enforcement agent to find all the servers in the world hosting a particular e.g. book and go after them.
I am sympathetic to your ethical question, but I'm just answering you on the technical side which is - your question doesn't really make sense but this is a bad idea.
well, that's not how I would address it. Remember here in HN you have many people interested in that subject (experts or not): app makers, artists, lawyers and what not. remember spotify was done based in a whole piracy movement/situation.
Honestly, merely limiting drastically the maximum copyright term would probably cover it. (Not just by making things public domain more rapidly, but also by presumably providing pressure on the business models of companies currently relying on the existing duration of copyright.)
Back in 2006, the UK commissioned a report recommending how to revise the copyright system (the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property), and it particularly recommended against any further increases in copyright terms - contra pressure from the music industry - and essentially only didn't argue for decreases because of international obligations. On pages 52 to 55 of the Review, however, there's quite a lot of evidence suggesting that most producers of creative works would not be meaningfully harmed in earning power if the term of copyright was as short as 10 to 20 years after production.
A 10 year copyright term, renewable for a further 10 on application, would do a lot to redress the balance you mention here.
Piracy is a misnomer used to make people feel like unauthorized copying is "stealing", since "piracy" traditionally refers to people who perform armed robbery on high seas.
Copying can be unauthorized, but when you say it as it is, "unauthorized copying" sounds a lot less terrible then "stealing" and "piracy", and is more precise in meaning.
Everyone calls it piracy, including the people who are active in the 'unauthorized copying' community. I'm not sure what's your objective in this discussion.
My objective is to get people to argue precisely why copying is bad.
Calling it "stealing", "piracy" and other ugly words is a strawman argument - we all agree stealing (physical items) and piracy (on high seas) is bad, so that would imply that copying is bad, too, since "copying is stealing and piracy". It's not, and additional arguments are needed.
ngl your point made more sense in the original sentence.
Using an untethered copy is indeed more privacy-friendly than using most garbage publisher portals and offerings. And yes, piracy can be a problem for the host if she has insufficient opsec.
Copying answers isn't bad because you are infringing on someones "right" to have control over their answers.
It is bad because you are commiting academic fraud and seeking a qualification you have not earned. You are claiming anothers achievement as your own.
Me reading a pirated book does not mean I claim to be the author.
I guess the elephant in the room is that you're not paying the authors for what they created; in this sense it's like "stealing". Someone spends time and resources making something and you use that something without compensating that someone. I agree it's not exactly like stealing (that's why we invented a different word for it), bt ut's still something that is unfair to the book author(s).
I think it's worthwhile to be precise when we argue. Saying it's not stealing isn't necessarily saying it's harmless or that it's not illegal. It's just not the same sort of action.
Eg, if you steal a book from a shelf, then it's gone. The shop can no longer sell it to anyone else, and needs to obtain a replacement. The customer that really need it may not be able to get it now.
But if a 10 year old from a dirt poor family with $100 to their name downloads a whole library of technical literature worth $10M, it's a very different situation. I think it's very arguable that there was no scenario in which the authors would have gotten paid, and that no real harm has been done in this particular case.
> I think it's very arguable that there was no scenario in which the authors would have gotten paid
Just to be sure: do you think that if people can't afford something that's not physically tangible they should be entitled (or at least permitted) to have it free of charge, because they wouldn't buy it anyway? I wouldn't buy (and probably wouldn't afford) a 30-day stay at the most luxurious spa in my country, should I insist that they let me enter anyway?
There is an artist's gallery in my town. The artist sells lots of pieces (or tries to; no idea how successful). If I go and look at each piece, really take it in and absorb it fully and internalize it, but buy nothing, have I done the thing that's not exactly like stealing?
If I download a PDF and read it and then delete it as soon as I am done, have I done the thing that is not exactly like stealing?
If I go to a library and read that same book in its entirety without checking it out ... doesn't seem much different than reading and then deleting a PDF.
Stealing someone else's book definitely seems wrong, but reading it while you are visiting their house seems fine?
I am not claiming to know the right (ethical, moral, whatever) action here. I just have a super huge problem calling it "piracy" or "stealing" or whatever. Figuring out a way to support creators is hugely important, but criminalizing the mere viewing or hearing of art/music/words/etc seems extremely wrong.
Anyway, I've been thinking about all this since at least Napster and I still have no idea really.
My perspective: go with what the person who created it agreed to. They’ve set their life up around certain assumptions, and if I don’t like them I will forgo their work.
For example, that person whose works are in the gallery has built their business on a balance of exposure - letting anyone who walks in look at things - and the fact that people who buy art are willing to pay a fair amount to own a physical object for display. Looking without buying is expressly part of their business model.
Book publishing is different, with the author assuming they’ll get payments from readers - much smaller than that artists but many of them. Since I don’t have any ownership rights over their work, I don’t attempt to change the terms.
There is an artist's gallery in your town. The artist charges $10 on entry to see the pieces, that's how he/she makes a living. You enter from a backdoor that someone left open to avoid paying, and you additionally help anyone who wants to enter for free by showing them the backdoor. You know that what you're doing is illegal, but you don't care because the building where the gallery is hosted doesn't have anyone to check the backdoor at night, so you're extremely unlikely to get caught.
It's not exactly stealing, but it's still a) illegal b) selfish c) damaging to the artist
You cannot really "steal" military secrets by photograping them either, but it's still a threat to national safety. You cannot really "steal" trade secrets by photocopying documents, but it's still an incalculable damage to the company you target if you do. You cannot really "steal" someone's privacy, but if you look at their private correspondence or their electoral card you're still infringing on their right.
Does it really matter if you can call an action "stealing" or not? An action could still be damaging even if it's not technically "stealing".
If you gave credit to the source of the answers... then most teachers would just not give you the marks for the bits you copied.
The cheating here is faking attribution - claiming yourself as a source of something you didn't originate, not copying - a legally and morally distinct thing to copyright infringement.
Indeed, part of the point of copyright infringement is that you do know (and reveal to your clients) who made the thing you're copying, which is why it has value.
I'm obviously talking about ebooks downloaded from commercial platforms like KDP Amazon, and distributed for free on Z-library without permission from the author.
Comparing this to your comment is whataboutism. Comments on hacker news are free to read. If you want to be payed for your writing, use a platform that support this.
However, you do have an automatic copyright on everything you write and I would need your permission (eventually by paying you a fee) to republish it in a book or somewhere else. Fair use is an exception to that, but the amount of text we can reuse without permission is limited. These are rules.
When governments make exact copy of existing fiat money (i.e. engage in money printing) they increase supply of fiat money and as a result cause inflation, which decrease the value of fiat money existing before the money printer was turned on. So while such a copy did not completely eliminate your ability to use your money, it did in fact decreased its utility. And indeed can be a valid case of "stealing".
It's not stealing, government didn't steal anyone's money, they just devalued it. In a similar sense, gold miners are increasing the supply of gold and lowering its price, but they still aren't stealing anyone's gold - they're making more. The fact that fiat money is completely fictional does make it more prone to systemic abuse - but even in that case, what the government is taking away from people is value and labor, not money itself, and those two are a little more abstract and harder to reason about.
The word "stealing" has a specific meaning related to physically taking something away from someone else, let's not use it in contexts where it doesn't apply. Especially when the use of the word is mostly perpetuated by copyright holders who want to persuade the public that not giving money to them is equal to stealing from them. That's bullshit, and it will always be bullshit. To me, it sounds horribly similar to narcissistic abuse: "How could you not give money to me? Do you have any idea how much that hurts me?".
> When all my fiat money is taken, I cannot use it anymore, therefore it's removed.
Ok, so if your intellectual property is stolen ... err, sorry, "copied" of course, how do you get monetized for those "copied" copies? By your initial statement it's not removed, now you tell me it is? Weird.
There's no such thing as "intellectual property". If you don't want other people learning the information your mind has come up with, don't release it into the public where it can be easily shared.
> but I want money! I don't care if everyone else loses their right to sharing information!
A better question is - is this a sensible technology for hosting legally dangerous material, and the answer has to be no. It is censorship resistant not anonymising. Like bittorrent but kind of worse. It is trivial for an enforcement agent to find all the servers in the world hosting a particular e.g. book and go after them.
I am sympathetic to your ethical question, but I'm just answering you on the technical side which is - your question doesn't really make sense but this is a bad idea.