In case anyone hasn't seen the hilarious scare screen on one of the seized ZLibrary domains. lol
"zomg russian cyber criminals are using free books to fund their lavish lifestyles!!!!!!1!1!!!!1! you should go support corporate rent seeking publishers 'creators' by paying thousands for basic knowledge!!!11"
this shit sounds like it was written by a middle schooler making a history presentation. it's hilarious
If the DoJ replaced google.com with a similar scare screen, a message about the AI feature appearing before search results, and photos of CEO yachts, that might actually give me hope for the future.
Maybe include a screenshot of the AI Overview so there's no ambiguity about what feature was problematic. Something like this:
Tangent - I remember reading a blog post when oink got seized saying that if the guy behind it was trying to make a profit rather than to create a library he would be respected like another Steve Jobs rather than being imprisoned. I still 100% believe that.
RIP oink's pink palace, I was a member for only two or three years but it opened up the world to me. Got invited from a guy at my undergrad I never met in person or knew his name, there was a local filesharing network on campus with a few hundred students on it and we had similar music tastes so would im occasionally. Hope you are doing well wherever you are now, meowfaceman.
Those fucks forcing money into their pockets from science are the absolute dregs of society. I actually respect angel investors more since maybe they made a good decision with their money (that feels gross to just type, even!). The fact that a select few companies are able to make science pay to win is absolutely sickening.
This is coming from someone that never even graduated college, let alone spending time in academia.
It's at least reassuring to know that the DoJ values the privacy of these horrible criminals enough to warrant blurring their faces. Hard to believe those assholes were spending the money on beautiful rainbows. A rainbow isn't a tangible possession someone can just keep to themselves! The idea that some guy can just own this abstract thing is deeply offensive to me and I will not be giving any more of my hard-earned money to library genesis.
Makes me think of this video of the geneticist Albert Jacquard that tries to show how ideas will always be in the commons. How it's impossible for people to own a concept of an idea, using the example of "it's impossible to tell who saw the rainbow the first to own its concept".
But really, books already are not the way to make a fortune unless you are in the field of basically being able to dictate what books are used in every educational institution in an entire nation. How would they imagine a pirate, who shares these books, has server upkeep to pay and at best gets very sporadic donations, could afford a lavish lifestyle from this endeavour?
Oh no! What will the people with offshore bank accounts do without the collective 10 grand they didn't squeeze? Damn criminals! They're avoiding taxes by laundering money abroad!
Yeah it's legit, it's been up a hot minute (since May iirc). I clicked the wrong zlibrary bookmark out of reflex and then remembered how hilarious the scare screen was.
Reminder that sites like israel.tv are still "illegal" to visit and all US ISPs are forced to block it, even though this directly contradicts Net Neutrality.