Given how LLMs are trained on its data, it's travesty to prevent the public from accessing it all the same.
I'm thinking it should be distributed using physical media given it's size. A 20 volume encyclopedia on hard drives? We used to do this when the internet was too slow back in the day. I've had friends give me anything from pirated encyclopedias to MSDN docs on CDs. if enough people have enough of the volumes, they could seed and keep it going. But if only a handful of people have the actual data, it's a matter of time before it's taken offline for good.
If you want to have the whole thing, it'd probably take dozens of hard drives each of which needs several hours to copy. For scale, individual chunks of the archive are several gigabytes, and there are thousands of chunks. It's not like that torrent with 1000 books you got in the day. There are millions of books and god knows what else in the archive.
I know. I've seen them as high as 24 TB. You'd still probably need at least a dozen of the highest capacity on the market. I believe the guys running the archive even have tape drives but the right kind of tape drive costs a fortune.
They could let buyers pay for the cost. Classify them based on topic category. The objective is, if enough of the drives exist out there, stopping it's distribution/access becomes a futile effort.
I don't think you understand how big of an ask that is in the US or any Western country. What you're proposing is in-person bootlegging with extra steps, but with very expensive equipment. There may be too many internet pirates to bother with, but the government will raid you for something like this. The more copies you make, the bigger the response is. If you're going to break the law it's best that you not be flagrant about it. The US government has scooped people in other countries that were thought to be neutral for taking a big role in piracy.
I could be wrong, but the laws apply just the same as a download. perhaps the scrutiny might be higher though. but over pdfs? I don't know. The shipping details could be tricky too, but dicier things are shipped from certain market places.
Cory Doctorow has it right. Since the USA is applying tariffs to everyone everywhere anyway, everyone should abandon their US free trade agreements and get rid of the agreement required local laws that allow US companies to shut down others for felony violation of business model.
> everyone should abandon their US free trade agreements
Do you have a link to Doctorow's argument? On its face, this is incredibly stupid--for most economies, the cost of losing a FTA is well above any of the tariff levels being discussed.
Thank you. Is there a transcript? I'm specifically interested in whether he's making an actual argument around trade, or if he's speaking metaphorically.
> serious in a techno-accelerationist manner, specifically around anticircumvention laws
So not serious as a policy proposal but serious for playing to his base. Got it. Disappointing coming from him. But I guess we all have to tend to our power.
> you have a level of pessimism that would prevent anyone from trying anything innovative
Dead wrong. I’m a risk taker. I wanted to see Doctorow’s argument because I respect him and would love if the numbers allowed for constraining Washington.
Dismissing a stupid proposal for being wrong isn’t rejecting solutions in general. In this case, it’s pointing out that Europe escalating a trade war for copyright reform doesn’t make a lot of sense unless you’re rallying folks to that cause.
I think it's ridiculous framing to call this Europe escalating.
The US has been escalating non-stop for a year. This would be Europe responding for once. Constraining Washington is in their interest as Washington is a malign actor now.
> it's ridiculous framing to call this Europe escalating
Shredding a trade agreement outright is absolutely an escalation relative to tariffs. It’s both more comprehensive and includes raising tariffs.
> The US has been escalating non-stop for a year. This would be Europe responding for once
Sure. By escalating.
> Constraining Washington is in their interest
Agree. But there are smart and stupid ways to do it. It’s in America’s interest to constrain China. Nuking its own oil production to raise oil prices, as an extreme example, would be a stupid way to do it. Ends not justifying the means is more than just a moral argument.
The tariffs already constitute shredding the trade agreement. This again is dishonest framing. There's no trade agreement as soon as one side breaks it. The side to break it wasn't the EU.
The parent of your comment is only one of the many here who go by the following scheme:
"WE can dishonor any part of any agreement but YOU have to fulfill all of your obligations according to our interpretation and under our direction... OR ELSE"
I don't know if these are real people or bots but I pity them for their lack of basic reasoning abilities.
Once one side starts removing obligations from themselves they will never stop, especially if the other side keeps being in compliance, it's just an incredible opportunity to corner the compliant side and drain it completely... and then it'll experience the "OR ELSE" part anyway but at the most damaging time and in its worst form.
There's only one choice when an agreement is broken - act as if it never existed while positioning yourself for a fair renegotiation.
He can't actually believe it. He's pretending like he doesn't know how numbers work, and burying it in words. There's a difference between a 1% tariff, a 2% tariff, and a 25% tariff. Just like there's a difference in forcing you to accept anticircumvention laws and forcing you to give up Greenland.
> Well, they're saying that they won't take our coffee unless we give them anticircumvention. And I'm sorry, but we just can't lose the US coffee market. Our economy would collapse. So we're going to give them anticircumvention. I'm really sorry."
> That's it. That's why every government in the world allowed US Big Tech companies to declare open season on their people's private data and ready cash.
> The alternative was tariffs. Well, I don't know if you've heard, but we've got tariffs now!
Comparing having any tariff to having your house burned down is pretending that it's not possible just to have your barn burned down. Or to have a window painted over. Or to have to trim the branches on your trees. Which ask is going to push you to the point where you give up your coffee industry? Nah, let's pretend not to know that all of this can be quantified, and that Hungary has any real leverage over the US on its own.
If the US is asking too much from Hungary, Hungary can go to China or India - but China or India can ask for anything marginally less than what the US asked for, or can even agree with the US to ask for exactly what the US asked for. And Europe has cut itself off from Russian resources for ideological reasons, so it can't even take advantage of the fact that Russia's market for its resources is somewhat limited.
He's suffering from applause addiction. China can do what they want because they are not a dependency of the US. Europe is. If anything, with all of his invective about Orban (because Orban is ideologically unpleasant), Hungary is in a better position than Europe as a whole because the Orban government doesn't have the self-destructive Russophobia that the rest of Europe does. Hungary can choose at any time whether to be in Europe or to rely on Russia, and China. That's more leverage than Europe has.
I think they meant he feels like saying “fuck you,” even if it burns down the world around him. That’s a real human impulse. But it’s important to distinguish folks who want to watch the world burn from those floating serious solutions.
He seems pretty emphatic that everything is burning and that we are watching it burn, right now, because it is on fire, presently. Is it your interpretation that Doctorow is a fan of this administration’s actions and wants them to continue? Or that he is advocating for a sort of… double fire? Like lighting fire on fire?
Is there a physical world analogy for what you’re describing in terms of burning/not burning?
Trump threatened an extra 10% tariffs on countries that don't think the US should be taking over Greenland. Who knows what dumb reason he'll come up with next?
Under this regime, the US is eventually going to develop into something similar to Japan under Sakoku - a nonfactor in international trade, due to a self-imposed embargo.
Of course it'll hurt former US trade partners (and the US itself even more!). But it's coming either way, whether we suck up to Americans or not. With that in mind, we might as well just do what we want since the US is for some reason voluntarily giving up power over us.
> Trump threatened an extra 10% tariffs on countries that don't think the US should be taking over Greenland
And that would be a good reason for tearing up a FTA.
It would cost Europeans more, financially, than the tariffs. Probably tip the EU into a recession without significant deficit spending and ECB intervention. But I think it’s the sort of thing that’s geostrategically worth threatening if your population and political structure lets you credibly do so.
(Note: shredding trade deals to the point that IP stops mattering != ratifying the new thing.)
Also having individual EU member states publicly announcing and committing to ratifying the Eu-Canada CETA within a 1 year time frame like they did for the EU-India FTA would be a significant message that also doesn't require shooting oneself in the foot.
States within the EU may also have to make peace with the need to expanding ties with regional powers like Israel, KSA, UAE, Egypt, etc in a strategic instead of tactical framework.
IK the latter is in the pipeline, the former less so due to electoral risks.
> serious for playing to his base. Got it. Disappointing coming from him. But I guess we all have to tend to our power.
What “power” does this blogger/sci-fi writer have? Who is “his base”? What responsibility to affect meaningful trade regulation did he abdicate when he said a thing you didn’t agree with?
Folks whose pet issue is IP reform, presumably. If that’s your drum, beat it. But it’s good context for anyone tuning in that it’s going to be your beat.
> What responsibility to affect meaningful trade regulation did he abdicate
What are you talking about? Where was this responsibility suggested?
All I did was point out hyperbole for what it is. Doctorow is speaking metaphorically. He isn’t literally suggesting tearing up trade agreements over IP because he isn’t an idiot.
Indeed, we in the US are about to find out what it means to voluntarily give up every bit of soft power we wielded in the post-WWII international order.
Small countries would be hurt worse than the US if they choose to ignore US IP law. The US has far more IP than they do, and represents most of their market, and possesses unique capabilities to retaliate. Tearing down IP law would also hurt consumers of IP because authors and artists would have limited means to get paid. It's a losing proposition on four fronts.
> Specifically, the site’s operator and these third parties are prohibited from scraping WorldCat data, storing or distributing the data on Anna’s Archive websites, and encouraging others to store, use or share this data.
Given the timing, I assumed it was Spotify trying to prevent the release of their dataset but apparently not.
I wonder if spotify cares about it that much. I looked at the article and it says the archive is 160kbps files and 96kbps files, while spotify can stream 320kbps files and recently lossless audio files, and of course there’s the app itself.
They deprecated their audio features endpoint which provided metrics like "danceability". Their ToS also forbids building recommendation engines with that data. So I imagine they're a little protective of at least that section of the metadata dump.
But yeah I agree that the audio file itself probably isn't super important to keep secret. After all, it's not that hard to find cd rips or at worst, a youtube version to download.
We still live in a golden age of music piracy. It's easier than ever to download anything you ever wanted to listen to without paying a cent. It's just that keeping music locally fell out of fashion and streaming is so easy.
> Specifically, the site’s operator and these third parties are prohibited from scraping WorldCat data, storing or distributing the data on Anna’s Archive websites, and encouraging others to store, use or share this data.
I don't see how that impacts anyone but Anna's Archive. Arguably ISPs distribute the data, but how are registrars implicated?
God knows how much OCLC spent in legal fees just to get it this far, even without any motions by the other party. What's the point? None of the people using Anna's Archive are potential customers of OCLC.
Also, isn't OCLC focused on the mission of libraries, which is to distribute knowledge? What is their attitude toward services like Anna's, which accomplishes that mission much better than any OCLC member?
These so called charities have to justify their executives' seven figure salaries somehow. If someone is doing their job better without all the embezzling executives people may start asking inconvenient questions.
The fact that such an organization is focused on the inverse of the mission one would expect should tell people more than enough. Unfortunately, most people simply rely on their preconceived notions about most things, even when faced with a stark contrast in reality.
I can tell you from direct contact with many of these “library organizations” that they are all totally corrupted. All you have to do is accept that premise just for a second and you will realize that it causes all the contradictions to explain themselves.
And all the corruption originates in the local/state library level, the government funding of libraries.
When there is a trough of government spending guaranteed, of course the scoundrels come out to feast, amidst a barrage of emotionally manipulative arguments narratives, usually centered around helping children.
Reality is that the whole library sector is an industry and it’s extremely corrupt, but that’s how the directors and executives like it, as they get rich from those public funds people are forced to pay against their will… for the children, of course.
Cooking together provides an educational and bonding opportunity for kids and caretakers, and nutrition is important. Making it easier is a win to me.
We can be annoyed at the actions against Anna's and also celebrate OCLC members and physical libraries.
I appreciate I'm just replying to a off-hand comment, so I'm sorry for the next part.
I will be battling my family for decades about IP and how they are relying on it instead of first mover advantage and the IQ we had today and yesterday. And how it changes cultural values around sharing. It's not good. I know we probably agree on that, so that part isn't directed at you, just the future.
Thank you for sharing your direct experience, which is always valuable.
> We can be annoyed at the actions against Anna's and also celebrate OCLC members and physical libraries.
I didn't mean to say otherwise. And I think 'annoyed' is insufficient for anyone who can influence OCLC. Too much is at stake to be bystanders.
Free and unlimited distribution doesn't need to be the answer, but look what happened to the Internet Archive's lending library, for example. There are other solutions too, such as micropayments. Shutting down online access to books is immoral and damaging to society, the economy, and the people of the world.
They also wasted a ton of money suing a random Washington state woman who wasn’t even affiliated with AA this whole case has really been a shitshow especially considering from a purely legal perspective the publishers have a point. I almost feel like every rightsholder other than Nintendo wants to engage in performative legal action more than substantive legal actions.
come one, we need lawyers so they can help owners make extra $billions. some lawyers are not humans, they are objects bought with money.literally, no humanity in them.
Disappointing in particular to see the court validate a ToS "browsewrap agreement", admitting that OCLC provided no evidence that Anna's Archive was aware of the agreement, but still finding the fact that "Defendant is a sophisticated party that scraped data from Plaintiffs website daily" as sufficient to bind them to it.
It's only a default judgement (Anna's Archive was a no-show in court), so I'd assume not. Since there were no lawyers arguing the defense side, the judge would have more or less rubber-stamped everything the plaintiff argued, without careful analysis.
I don't understand why Anna's Archive has such a convoluted donation system. At first glance it looks like it's trying to push a subscription on you, which is ironic considering aversion to subscriptions is exactly what's driving people to AA in the first place. I found no convenient single-link crypto donate button where I could just send some money whenever I want.
> I don't understand why Anna's Archive has such a convoluted donation system.
What? It's one page with a bunch of very clear options.
> At first glance it looks like it's trying to push a subscription on you...
On the one hand, fair. On the other hand, this is prominently displayed on the donation page:
Be aware that while the memberships on this page are “per month”, they are one-time donations (non-recurring). See the Donation FAQ.
Additionally, Q&A #1 on the Donations FAQ page are:
Do memberships automatically renew?
Memberships do not automatically renew. You can join for as long or short as you want.
Even if we're too busy to read, we can think about how they would manage to set up a recurring cryptocurrency payment without possession of one's wallet keys and become enlightened.
> I found no convenient single-link crypto donate button where I could just send some money whenever I want.
From their Donation FAQ:
Can I make a donation without becoming a member?
Sure thing. We accept donations of any amount on this Monero (XMR) address: 88gS7a8aHj5EYhCfYnkhEmYXX3MtR35r3YhWdWXwGLyS4fkXYjkupcif6RY5oj9xkNR8VVmoRXh1kQKQrZBRRc8PHLWMgUR.
Yeah, what OP is bizarrely describing as "push a subscription" with a (completely false) "im 12 and this is deep" insight about Anna Archive becoming the very thing they swore to destroy, can accurately be explained as them trying to ensure you get the benefits entitled by your donation level via your access key (linked to zero personal information).
I donate in 3 or 6 months chunks typically, if I forget, I don't get hassled to resubscribe or anything (nor could they even contact me for any reason), I just lose those bonus download benefits until I do it again. I could also generate a new key each time but it's convenient keeping the same one in my password manager so I like the way they do it now, basically works just like LWN.net.
How does it take more than 24 hours to take these servers down when they obviously are violating copyright. It should only take a few phone calls to get them taken down.
Who do you call? The Internet police? Anna's Archive is hosted in countries that don't give a shit about US copyright laws. Pirate bay is back up, and they've been at it for decades.
Sure, ultimately technical/knowledgeable people will be able to get around it. But preventing normies from accessing Anna's Archive is what they care about, because most people are normies.
preventing normies from accessing Anna's Archive is what they care about
Seriously?
Anna's Archive hosts ebooks and scholarly journal articles.
Not the kind of stuff your average Instagram Influencer (TM) is into.
I'd be utterly shocked if more than 1% of the population had ever used Anna's Archive. This isn't like Hollywood movie torrenting sites or IPTV sports streaming piracy. It's a long way from mainstream.
Yes, seriously. The vast majority of people who read books or scholarly articles wouldn't have a clue how to bypass internet censorship (the "normies" in your definition).
If you copy ebooks to a USB and put it at the summit of a tall mountain, for anyone to take, the authorities and "rights"holders will not give a damn. Convenience and scale matters, and that is why Anna's Archive is a target.
In this scenario your VPNs would still need to find a ISP that would let them route packets out of that country. This means that instead of a legit VPN company you have to deal with cyber criminals to get such a VPN.
Thankfully the horrendous concepts of western intellectual property haven't been forced upon the entirety of the the human race. One of the silver linings of the current administration speedrunning the destruction of American hegemony is that the waning of our power will likely have positive effects in this regard.
Given how LLMs are trained on its data, it's travesty to prevent the public from accessing it all the same.
I'm thinking it should be distributed using physical media given it's size. A 20 volume encyclopedia on hard drives? We used to do this when the internet was too slow back in the day. I've had friends give me anything from pirated encyclopedias to MSDN docs on CDs. if enough people have enough of the volumes, they could seed and keep it going. But if only a handful of people have the actual data, it's a matter of time before it's taken offline for good.
It's petabytes of data. Think cargo pallot, or small pickup truck bed.
400TB~ last i recall?
imagine if there was a global distribution of local buildings you could go to to look at and obtain copies of books... hmmmmm...
If you want to have the whole thing, it'd probably take dozens of hard drives each of which needs several hours to copy. For scale, individual chunks of the archive are several gigabytes, and there are thousands of chunks. It's not like that torrent with 1000 books you got in the day. There are millions of books and god knows what else in the archive.
There are 12-20TB drives now.
30TB https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FF69RHHL
I know. I've seen them as high as 24 TB. You'd still probably need at least a dozen of the highest capacity on the market. I believe the guys running the archive even have tape drives but the right kind of tape drive costs a fortune.
They could let buyers pay for the cost. Classify them based on topic category. The objective is, if enough of the drives exist out there, stopping it's distribution/access becomes a futile effort.
I don't think you understand how big of an ask that is in the US or any Western country. What you're proposing is in-person bootlegging with extra steps, but with very expensive equipment. There may be too many internet pirates to bother with, but the government will raid you for something like this. The more copies you make, the bigger the response is. If you're going to break the law it's best that you not be flagrant about it. The US government has scooped people in other countries that were thought to be neutral for taking a big role in piracy.
I could be wrong, but the laws apply just the same as a download. perhaps the scrutiny might be higher though. but over pdfs? I don't know. The shipping details could be tricky too, but dicier things are shipped from certain market places.
Cory Doctorow has it right. Since the USA is applying tariffs to everyone everywhere anyway, everyone should abandon their US free trade agreements and get rid of the agreement required local laws that allow US companies to shut down others for felony violation of business model.
> everyone should abandon their US free trade agreements
Do you have a link to Doctorow's argument? On its face, this is incredibly stupid--for most economies, the cost of losing a FTA is well above any of the tariff levels being discussed.
https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-a-post-american-enshittification...
Thank you. Is there a transcript? I'm specifically interested in whether he's making an actual argument around trade, or if he's speaking metaphorically.
Transcript - https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/
He's serious in a techno-accelerationist manner, specifically around anticircumvention laws.
That said, knowing the strength of the MT in TMT within the EU, it's more of an idealistic dream than a reality.
> serious in a techno-accelerationist manner, specifically around anticircumvention laws
So not serious as a policy proposal but serious for playing to his base. Got it. Disappointing coming from him. But I guess we all have to tend to our power.
As much as I tire of Doctorow's style, I feel you have a level of pessimism that would prevent anyone from trying anything innovative.
> you have a level of pessimism that would prevent anyone from trying anything innovative
Dead wrong. I’m a risk taker. I wanted to see Doctorow’s argument because I respect him and would love if the numbers allowed for constraining Washington.
Dismissing a stupid proposal for being wrong isn’t rejecting solutions in general. In this case, it’s pointing out that Europe escalating a trade war for copyright reform doesn’t make a lot of sense unless you’re rallying folks to that cause.
I think it's ridiculous framing to call this Europe escalating.
The US has been escalating non-stop for a year. This would be Europe responding for once. Constraining Washington is in their interest as Washington is a malign actor now.
> it's ridiculous framing to call this Europe escalating
Shredding a trade agreement outright is absolutely an escalation relative to tariffs. It’s both more comprehensive and includes raising tariffs.
> The US has been escalating non-stop for a year. This would be Europe responding for once
Sure. By escalating.
> Constraining Washington is in their interest
Agree. But there are smart and stupid ways to do it. It’s in America’s interest to constrain China. Nuking its own oil production to raise oil prices, as an extreme example, would be a stupid way to do it. Ends not justifying the means is more than just a moral argument.
The tariffs already constitute shredding the trade agreement. This again is dishonest framing. There's no trade agreement as soon as one side breaks it. The side to break it wasn't the EU.
The parent of your comment is only one of the many here who go by the following scheme:
"WE can dishonor any part of any agreement but YOU have to fulfill all of your obligations according to our interpretation and under our direction... OR ELSE"
I don't know if these are real people or bots but I pity them for their lack of basic reasoning abilities.
Once one side starts removing obligations from themselves they will never stop, especially if the other side keeps being in compliance, it's just an incredible opportunity to corner the compliant side and drain it completely... and then it'll experience the "OR ELSE" part anyway but at the most damaging time and in its worst form.
There's only one choice when an agreement is broken - act as if it never existed while positioning yourself for a fair renegotiation.
It seemed like you rejected the proposal before you knew what it was, and then looked for reasons to justify your decision.
Yep, but I think Cory truly believes this stuff deep down.
He can't actually believe it. He's pretending like he doesn't know how numbers work, and burying it in words. There's a difference between a 1% tariff, a 2% tariff, and a 25% tariff. Just like there's a difference in forcing you to accept anticircumvention laws and forcing you to give up Greenland.
> Well, they're saying that they won't take our coffee unless we give them anticircumvention. And I'm sorry, but we just can't lose the US coffee market. Our economy would collapse. So we're going to give them anticircumvention. I'm really sorry."
> That's it. That's why every government in the world allowed US Big Tech companies to declare open season on their people's private data and ready cash.
> The alternative was tariffs. Well, I don't know if you've heard, but we've got tariffs now!
Comparing having any tariff to having your house burned down is pretending that it's not possible just to have your barn burned down. Or to have a window painted over. Or to have to trim the branches on your trees. Which ask is going to push you to the point where you give up your coffee industry? Nah, let's pretend not to know that all of this can be quantified, and that Hungary has any real leverage over the US on its own.
If the US is asking too much from Hungary, Hungary can go to China or India - but China or India can ask for anything marginally less than what the US asked for, or can even agree with the US to ask for exactly what the US asked for. And Europe has cut itself off from Russian resources for ideological reasons, so it can't even take advantage of the fact that Russia's market for its resources is somewhat limited.
He's suffering from applause addiction. China can do what they want because they are not a dependency of the US. Europe is. If anything, with all of his invective about Orban (because Orban is ideologically unpleasant), Hungary is in a better position than Europe as a whole because the Orban government doesn't have the self-destructive Russophobia that the rest of Europe does. Hungary can choose at any time whether to be in Europe or to rely on Russia, and China. That's more leverage than Europe has.
I think they meant he feels like saying “fuck you,” even if it burns down the world around him. That’s a real human impulse. But it’s important to distinguish folks who want to watch the world burn from those floating serious solutions.
He seems pretty emphatic that everything is burning and that we are watching it burn, right now, because it is on fire, presently. Is it your interpretation that Doctorow is a fan of this administration’s actions and wants them to continue? Or that he is advocating for a sort of… double fire? Like lighting fire on fire?
Is there a physical world analogy for what you’re describing in terms of burning/not burning?
Trump threatened an extra 10% tariffs on countries that don't think the US should be taking over Greenland. Who knows what dumb reason he'll come up with next?
Under this regime, the US is eventually going to develop into something similar to Japan under Sakoku - a nonfactor in international trade, due to a self-imposed embargo.
Of course it'll hurt former US trade partners (and the US itself even more!). But it's coming either way, whether we suck up to Americans or not. With that in mind, we might as well just do what we want since the US is for some reason voluntarily giving up power over us.
> Trump threatened an extra 10% tariffs on countries that don't think the US should be taking over Greenland
And that would be a good reason for tearing up a FTA.
It would cost Europeans more, financially, than the tariffs. Probably tip the EU into a recession without significant deficit spending and ECB intervention. But I think it’s the sort of thing that’s geostrategically worth threatening if your population and political structure lets you credibly do so.
(Note: shredding trade deals to the point that IP stops mattering != ratifying the new thing.)
Also having individual EU member states publicly announcing and committing to ratifying the Eu-Canada CETA within a 1 year time frame like they did for the EU-India FTA would be a significant message that also doesn't require shooting oneself in the foot.
States within the EU may also have to make peace with the need to expanding ties with regional powers like Israel, KSA, UAE, Egypt, etc in a strategic instead of tactical framework.
IK the latter is in the pipeline, the former less so due to electoral risks.
> serious for playing to his base. Got it. Disappointing coming from him. But I guess we all have to tend to our power.
What “power” does this blogger/sci-fi writer have? Who is “his base”? What responsibility to affect meaningful trade regulation did he abdicate when he said a thing you didn’t agree with?
> Who is “his base”?
Folks whose pet issue is IP reform, presumably. If that’s your drum, beat it. But it’s good context for anyone tuning in that it’s going to be your beat.
> What responsibility to affect meaningful trade regulation did he abdicate
What are you talking about? Where was this responsibility suggested?
All I did was point out hyperbole for what it is. Doctorow is speaking metaphorically. He isn’t literally suggesting tearing up trade agreements over IP because he isn’t an idiot.
Indeed, we in the US are about to find out what it means to voluntarily give up every bit of soft power we wielded in the post-WWII international order.
Small countries would be hurt worse than the US if they choose to ignore US IP law. The US has far more IP than they do, and represents most of their market, and possesses unique capabilities to retaliate. Tearing down IP law would also hurt consumers of IP because authors and artists would have limited means to get paid. It's a losing proposition on four fronts.
> Specifically, the site’s operator and these third parties are prohibited from scraping WorldCat data, storing or distributing the data on Anna’s Archive websites, and encouraging others to store, use or share this data.
Given the timing, I assumed it was Spotify trying to prevent the release of their dataset but apparently not.
I wonder if spotify cares about it that much. I looked at the article and it says the archive is 160kbps files and 96kbps files, while spotify can stream 320kbps files and recently lossless audio files, and of course there’s the app itself.
They deprecated their audio features endpoint which provided metrics like "danceability". Their ToS also forbids building recommendation engines with that data. So I imagine they're a little protective of at least that section of the metadata dump.
But yeah I agree that the audio file itself probably isn't super important to keep secret. After all, it's not that hard to find cd rips or at worst, a youtube version to download.
I have a personal experience of spotify-users not being the most audiophile audience, to put it mildly. Probably spotify knows that
Spotify ended the golden age of music piracy.
We still live in a golden age of music piracy. It's easier than ever to download anything you ever wanted to listen to without paying a cent. It's just that keeping music locally fell out of fashion and streaming is so easy.
> Specifically, the site’s operator and these third parties are prohibited from scraping WorldCat data, storing or distributing the data on Anna’s Archive websites, and encouraging others to store, use or share this data.
I don't see how that impacts anyone but Anna's Archive. Arguably ISPs distribute the data, but how are registrars implicated?
God knows how much OCLC spent in legal fees just to get it this far, even without any motions by the other party. What's the point? None of the people using Anna's Archive are potential customers of OCLC.
Just lawyers trying to justify their existence.
Also, isn't OCLC focused on the mission of libraries, which is to distribute knowledge? What is their attitude toward services like Anna's, which accomplishes that mission much better than any OCLC member?
These so called charities have to justify their executives' seven figure salaries somehow. If someone is doing their job better without all the embezzling executives people may start asking inconvenient questions.
The CEO's compensation in 2024 was $1.3 million.
That is seven figures, no?
The fact that such an organization is focused on the inverse of the mission one would expect should tell people more than enough. Unfortunately, most people simply rely on their preconceived notions about most things, even when faced with a stark contrast in reality.
I can tell you from direct contact with many of these “library organizations” that they are all totally corrupted. All you have to do is accept that premise just for a second and you will realize that it causes all the contradictions to explain themselves.
And all the corruption originates in the local/state library level, the government funding of libraries.
When there is a trough of government spending guaranteed, of course the scoundrels come out to feast, amidst a barrage of emotionally manipulative arguments narratives, usually centered around helping children.
Reality is that the whole library sector is an industry and it’s extremely corrupt, but that’s how the directors and executives like it, as they get rich from those public funds people are forced to pay against their will… for the children, of course.
Indian River State College in Port St. Lucie and Fort Pierce, Florida is an OCLC member.
Their kids section is always busy.
They provide more than just books to patrons, one of their projects provides rentable backpacks with food making kits:
(Sorry about the Facebook link)
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=789082493879103&vanity=IRS...
Cooking together provides an educational and bonding opportunity for kids and caretakers, and nutrition is important. Making it easier is a win to me.
We can be annoyed at the actions against Anna's and also celebrate OCLC members and physical libraries.
I appreciate I'm just replying to a off-hand comment, so I'm sorry for the next part.
I will be battling my family for decades about IP and how they are relying on it instead of first mover advantage and the IQ we had today and yesterday. And how it changes cultural values around sharing. It's not good. I know we probably agree on that, so that part isn't directed at you, just the future.
Thank you for sharing your direct experience, which is always valuable.
> We can be annoyed at the actions against Anna's and also celebrate OCLC members and physical libraries.
I didn't mean to say otherwise. And I think 'annoyed' is insufficient for anyone who can influence OCLC. Too much is at stake to be bystanders.
Free and unlimited distribution doesn't need to be the answer, but look what happened to the Internet Archive's lending library, for example. There are other solutions too, such as micropayments. Shutting down online access to books is immoral and damaging to society, the economy, and the people of the world.
because The Mission is making money, too.
Exactly, Pournelle's law in full force.
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They also wasted a ton of money suing a random Washington state woman who wasn’t even affiliated with AA this whole case has really been a shitshow especially considering from a purely legal perspective the publishers have a point. I almost feel like every rightsholder other than Nintendo wants to engage in performative legal action more than substantive legal actions.
come one, we need lawyers so they can help owners make extra $billions. some lawyers are not humans, they are objects bought with money.literally, no humanity in them.
Judgment: https://torrentfreak.com/images/anna-oclc-default-judgment.p...
Disappointing in particular to see the court validate a ToS "browsewrap agreement", admitting that OCLC provided no evidence that Anna's Archive was aware of the agreement, but still finding the fact that "Defendant is a sophisticated party that scraped data from Plaintiffs website daily" as sufficient to bind them to it.
Can that be used as precedent to bind the AI companies that see themselves getting blocked, and then just switch to residential IPs?
> "used as precedent"
It's only a default judgement (Anna's Archive was a no-show in court), so I'd assume not. Since there were no lawyers arguing the defense side, the judge would have more or less rubber-stamped everything the plaintiff argued, without careful analysis.
I use it to grab fairly obscure history books- which are mostly funded by foundations, universities and governments anyway.
That is the kind of piracy that goes under the radar.
I don't understand why Anna's Archive has such a convoluted donation system. At first glance it looks like it's trying to push a subscription on you, which is ironic considering aversion to subscriptions is exactly what's driving people to AA in the first place. I found no convenient single-link crypto donate button where I could just send some money whenever I want.
Their Monero address is here: https://annas-archive.li/faq#donate
> I don't understand why Anna's Archive has such a convoluted donation system.
What? It's one page with a bunch of very clear options.
> At first glance it looks like it's trying to push a subscription on you...
On the one hand, fair. On the other hand, this is prominently displayed on the donation page:
Additionally, Q&A #1 on the Donations FAQ page are: Even if we're too busy to read, we can think about how they would manage to set up a recurring cryptocurrency payment without possession of one's wallet keys and become enlightened.> I found no convenient single-link crypto donate button where I could just send some money whenever I want.
From their Donation FAQ:
Yeah, what OP is bizarrely describing as "push a subscription" with a (completely false) "im 12 and this is deep" insight about Anna Archive becoming the very thing they swore to destroy, can accurately be explained as them trying to ensure you get the benefits entitled by your donation level via your access key (linked to zero personal information).
I donate in 3 or 6 months chunks typically, if I forget, I don't get hassled to resubscribe or anything (nor could they even contact me for any reason), I just lose those bonus download benefits until I do it again. I could also generate a new key each time but it's convenient keeping the same one in my password manager so I like the way they do it now, basically works just like LWN.net.
I don't think your snarky comment is productive. Reddit seems like a more appropriate platform for it.
a) I disagree with the assertion that the comment you're referring to is snarky.
b) kek.
How does it take more than 24 hours to take these servers down when they obviously are violating copyright. It should only take a few phone calls to get them taken down.
Who do you call? The Internet police? Anna's Archive is hosted in countries that don't give a shit about US copyright laws. Pirate bay is back up, and they've been at it for decades.
The traffic is getting here via another country who has signed a copyright treaty with the US. Just follow the packets.
If you block the packets, people will just use a VPN.
The best you can hope for is something like the Great Firewall, which only works on normies.
Sure, ultimately technical/knowledgeable people will be able to get around it. But preventing normies from accessing Anna's Archive is what they care about, because most people are normies.
preventing normies from accessing Anna's Archive is what they care about
Seriously?
Anna's Archive hosts ebooks and scholarly journal articles.
Not the kind of stuff your average Instagram Influencer (TM) is into.
I'd be utterly shocked if more than 1% of the population had ever used Anna's Archive. This isn't like Hollywood movie torrenting sites or IPTV sports streaming piracy. It's a long way from mainstream.
Yes, seriously. The vast majority of people who read books or scholarly articles wouldn't have a clue how to bypass internet censorship (the "normies" in your definition).
If you copy ebooks to a USB and put it at the summit of a tall mountain, for anyone to take, the authorities and "rights"holders will not give a damn. Convenience and scale matters, and that is why Anna's Archive is a target.
In this scenario your VPNs would still need to find a ISP that would let them route packets out of that country. This means that instead of a legit VPN company you have to deal with cyber criminals to get such a VPN.
Blocking traffic from a resource and blocking the whole country are two entirely different scenarios.
Thankfully the horrendous concepts of western intellectual property haven't been forced upon the entirety of the the human race. One of the silver linings of the current administration speedrunning the destruction of American hegemony is that the waning of our power will likely have positive effects in this regard.