[throwaway2037]

To clarify your question, are you asking if "AA actually distributes stolen content" (one could argue no, since it is only available by Torrent) or "the stolen contents of AA" (essentially every published book in existance)?

Honestly, in these HN discussions, I am disappointed that people seem very casual about mass piracy of copyrighted works.

[Dylan16807]

Neither of those. It's generally violating the law to distribute that copyrighted content, but the content itself isn't illegal. They're asking about what's in there where the actual content is the problem.

As far as being casual about mass piracy, I think the preservation outweighs the damage, and on top of that copyright is too restrictive in the first place. If we could massively boost the internet archive and have dozens of similar institutions, and didn't paywall science articles, and brought copyright down to a reasonable duration, then after that I would be much easier to convince that instances of piracy are bad.

[idiotsecant]

copyright (in the capital D Disney sense) is an abomination that should not exist. Information wants to be free.

[Nevermark]

Many creators also want to eat.

You could say that cameras want to be free. A camera left unattended is likely to walk away.

Some rules are about adjusting incentives and disincentives to maximize value for everyone.

There is a lot of room to argue where that balance is. But the "its easy to copy stuff" argument isn't even grappling the kinds of context that result in more creations.

Most copyrighted material doesn't hurt you in any way if you can't have a copy. So someone creating something and not sharing with you should not be something to complain about.

Nor should it be a problem if they are willing to share with you, if you do something for them.

You are also completely unfettered to create anything for yourself that you feel you are missing.

People don't owe other people their work.