RIP, library.nu
После долгой неравной борьбы сегодня пал великий бастион свободы, сайт с книжками http://library.nu/. Это - очень древний проект. Ebooksclub.org, Gigapedia - у него было немало имен. Но кольцо осады все сужалось. Сайт был закрыт для посторонних - но соглядатаи сидели уже внутри. Вчера перестала работать база данных. Смайли, основной программист и владелец сайта, сопротивлялся до последнего. По данным компаний, на сайте было около 400.000 книг. Хехе.. В разные времена в сумме там было больше. Потеря трудно восполнимая - но я уверен, что все же восполнимая. Вот, почитайте сообщение книготорговцев и реакцию борцов против копирайта.
Да - они зря празднуют победу над нами, преждевременно: вчера голландский парламент подавляющим большинством голосов отказался одобрить анти-пиратский кодекс законов АСТА! И словаки с хорватами (кажется, они) отказались подписывать.
Вот сообщение с сайта книжников:
An international alliance of publishers, including Cambridge University Press, Elsevier and Pearson Education Ltd, has served successful cease-and-desist orders on a piracy operation with an estimated turnover of £7m.
The two platforms, sharehoster service www.ifile.it and link library www.library.nu, had together created an "internet library" making more than 400,000 e-books available as free illegal downloads. The operators generated an estimated turnover of €8m (£6.7m) through advertising, donations and sales of premium-level accounts, according to a report by German law firm Lausen which helped co-ordinate the alliance.
The other publishers involved also comprised Georg Thieme; HarperCollins; Hogrefe; Macmillan Publishers Ltd; Cengage Learning; John Wiley & Sons;the McGraw-Hill Companies; Pearson Education Inc; Oxford University Press; Springer; Taylor & Francis; C H Beck; and Walter De Gruyter. The alliance was also co-ordinated by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association (Börsenverein) and the International Publishers Association (IPA),
Jens Bammel, secretary general of the IPA, said: "Today, the international book industry has shown that it continues to stand up against organised copyright crime.
"We will not tolerate freeloaders who make unjustified profits by depriving authors and publishers of their due reward. This is an important step towards a more transparent, honest and fair trade of digital content on the Internet," he said.
Alexander Skipis, Börsenverein c.e.o., added: "This case demonstrates, in particular in the context of current debates, that systematic copyright infringement has developed into a highly criminal and lucrative business."
А вот и некоторые реакции на него
Наиболее одобряемый читателями комментарий - вот этот
This is a brief and gaudy victory that the industry has won, and for now your age-old privileges are intact. You can continue to appropriate value from the masses, by fiat, with the brute force of the state at your disposal. (Who are the real "pirates" here, one wonders?)
But inevitably, the people are going to win this war. There are too many dedicated, talented and hardworking individuals out there, breaking your DRM, hacking your devices, uploading, hosting and distributing, for you to ever prevail. You - that is, your engineers and your security experts - are fighting for a paycheck. We're fighting for our freedom. Have fun in the dustbin of history, publishers...
By Anonymous78596
Just like music record companies and tv/movie studios, publishers are just going to have to deal with piracy because once one site shuts down, 10 more will pop up (more anonymously and difficult to track) and that's just the way it works. That's what the majority wants, so the majority will always win in the end because putting a price tag on media is unethical. So shut the F up and take it. Besides all you pencil-pushers who want to make a buck over any old crap you produce (because adding 50 cent words and run-on sentences, then calling your crap study scholarly is like putting icing on a pile of dung, it's still dung) should get a real job if that's what you want. Try getting your soft little hands dirty for a change.
By omfgzell
This is an issue of reasons. Why do you publish books, publishers? To make money? Or to disseminate knowledge, artistic value, etc?
The closing of library.nu just speaks to your commitment to making a buck. That's what took priority here.
If you'd be commited to the spreading of knowledge and culture,pirates wouldn't bother you. Most people that pirate books like this do it because they can't - or simply won't - pay for them. I can only hope you're smart enough to realize that you were not losing money. The vast majority of the people who pirated books from library.nu won't buy your books now that it's closed. All you've done with this brute force enforcement is deprive people of knowledge. If no site like that ever rises again, you've just condemned a whole lot of people to live in ignorance of the knowledge that you should be commited to spread as much as possible.
This is just shameful, and speaks for the absurd level of marketization of everthing. Putting money before widespread knowledge - even when it's money you know you wouldn't have earned anyway - should be the crime here.
Да - они зря празднуют победу над нами, преждевременно: вчера голландский парламент подавляющим большинством голосов отказался одобрить анти-пиратский кодекс законов АСТА! И словаки с хорватами (кажется, они) отказались подписывать.
Вот сообщение с сайта книжников:
An international alliance of publishers, including Cambridge University Press, Elsevier and Pearson Education Ltd, has served successful cease-and-desist orders on a piracy operation with an estimated turnover of £7m.
The two platforms, sharehoster service www.ifile.it and link library www.library.nu, had together created an "internet library" making more than 400,000 e-books available as free illegal downloads. The operators generated an estimated turnover of €8m (£6.7m) through advertising, donations and sales of premium-level accounts, according to a report by German law firm Lausen which helped co-ordinate the alliance.
The other publishers involved also comprised Georg Thieme; HarperCollins; Hogrefe; Macmillan Publishers Ltd; Cengage Learning; John Wiley & Sons;the McGraw-Hill Companies; Pearson Education Inc; Oxford University Press; Springer; Taylor & Francis; C H Beck; and Walter De Gruyter. The alliance was also co-ordinated by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association (Börsenverein) and the International Publishers Association (IPA),
Jens Bammel, secretary general of the IPA, said: "Today, the international book industry has shown that it continues to stand up against organised copyright crime.
"We will not tolerate freeloaders who make unjustified profits by depriving authors and publishers of their due reward. This is an important step towards a more transparent, honest and fair trade of digital content on the Internet," he said.
Alexander Skipis, Börsenverein c.e.o., added: "This case demonstrates, in particular in the context of current debates, that systematic copyright infringement has developed into a highly criminal and lucrative business."
А вот и некоторые реакции на него
Наиболее одобряемый читателями комментарий - вот этот
This is a brief and gaudy victory that the industry has won, and for now your age-old privileges are intact. You can continue to appropriate value from the masses, by fiat, with the brute force of the state at your disposal. (Who are the real "pirates" here, one wonders?)
But inevitably, the people are going to win this war. There are too many dedicated, talented and hardworking individuals out there, breaking your DRM, hacking your devices, uploading, hosting and distributing, for you to ever prevail. You - that is, your engineers and your security experts - are fighting for a paycheck. We're fighting for our freedom. Have fun in the dustbin of history, publishers...
By Anonymous78596
Just like music record companies and tv/movie studios, publishers are just going to have to deal with piracy because once one site shuts down, 10 more will pop up (more anonymously and difficult to track) and that's just the way it works. That's what the majority wants, so the majority will always win in the end because putting a price tag on media is unethical. So shut the F up and take it. Besides all you pencil-pushers who want to make a buck over any old crap you produce (because adding 50 cent words and run-on sentences, then calling your crap study scholarly is like putting icing on a pile of dung, it's still dung) should get a real job if that's what you want. Try getting your soft little hands dirty for a change.
By omfgzell
This is an issue of reasons. Why do you publish books, publishers? To make money? Or to disseminate knowledge, artistic value, etc?
The closing of library.nu just speaks to your commitment to making a buck. That's what took priority here.
If you'd be commited to the spreading of knowledge and culture,pirates wouldn't bother you. Most people that pirate books like this do it because they can't - or simply won't - pay for them. I can only hope you're smart enough to realize that you were not losing money. The vast majority of the people who pirated books from library.nu won't buy your books now that it's closed. All you've done with this brute force enforcement is deprive people of knowledge. If no site like that ever rises again, you've just condemned a whole lot of people to live in ignorance of the knowledge that you should be commited to spread as much as possible.
This is just shameful, and speaks for the absurd level of marketization of everthing. Putting money before widespread knowledge - even when it's money you know you wouldn't have earned anyway - should be the crime here.