More than 600k students and teachers use Z-Library
torrentfreak.com
torrentfreak.com
What I see talked way less is that the quality of new books, in light of this, is very bad. Most books out there that were published in the 21st century serve as business cards. Commoditizing the complement, they call it.
Think about that...I would never in a million years sign up for a piracy site with such an important email address that's publicly tied to my reputation. So if 600k people have done that, the number in total must be absolutely colossal.
I believe it is like this everywhere in Europe.
Fun story, I had a professor in university that tried to force us to buy his own book for his course, refusing to provide notes or any other free alternatives, and for the final exam he allowed anyone to bring in his book.
We complained to the school board as this was unfair and there was a conflict of interests, the exam was redone by a committee and a new professor replaced him the next year.
It was next door to the main faculty building and they could pirate any textbook you needed. You didn't even need to know the name of the book, you could just say "I need the book for so and so professor's so and so class" and they'd print it out for you. All the source files were already on their copy machines' hard drives.
While technically illegal, this was fully endorsed by faculty and administration in the "If you need books, don't go next door and print them there. Under no circumstances are you to do that. Again, don't under any circumstances go next door and ask for these books at 5 cents per page. And whatever you do, do _not_ ask for 2 pages per page in tiny print to make it cheaper"
Here in India we just legalized copying for educational purposes. No tricks necessary!
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000091049
but in 1993 Microsoft bribed the regime to change those laws
Noticeably, this was done at multiple print shops in the university area, and you could get a discount or a free copy if you brought the original when a new book was chosen.
The whole academic establishment basically was aware of this, except for a few professors who insist on selling their own book, but it's typically in humanities or social sciences.
Or if we were really required to buy a book, it usually was like a really good 30$ book that we could use as reference for the whole degree.
"Hello, I received this book today and it is definitely not in "like new" condition; the eBay condition definition for "like new" states that the "cover has no visible wear", but this textbook's cover is very worn on both front and back. The cover corners are bent inward, there are scuffs on the upper edges like it had been dragged upside down, and there's even a tear on the bottom of the back cover! It's incomprehensible how you could list this book as "like new," according to eBay's definitions, this book is closer to "Very Good", or even "Good" condition."
Note the "damage" they speak of came from amazon shipping it to me and it sliding around in the box. I responded:
"Sorry for the misrepresentation of the book. $71 is a very good price for the book. I was hoping to get above $110 for it. Because of the great deal you have gotten, I hesitate to offer a partial refund for the book. Will a partial refund be necessary? Otherwise, I will be more careful next time."
Lame.
The point about the biology book though, I just find it ironic that biology is always changing, but the Biology book was old and never updated while a math book seems to get re-written in a different permutation every two years.
Really the prof should just make his own assignments (or rather have his underlings do it). At least that's how it works on this side of the pond. In any case, requiring additional purchases of educational material when students are already paying tuition is absurd.
It taught me that there are limits to my ethics. Knowing full well that I am violating a social contract that many others are abiding by, I still did it. If I can act on this particular line, then it's just a matter of degree between me and those who more egregiously violate our shared rules.
After all, we had a massive advantage against kids who worked hard to afford the books. Even if they made $15/hr (outrageous), they would still have spent 10 hours on that book alone.
In fact, my kids have used my old books to help them with AP Physics in high school. They tell me they like the lower content of distracting color-filled "circus acts" (as they call it) and better explanations.
How much of the math, physics and chemistry has changed? I would guess, depending on stage of learning and subject, somewhere between 0% and 10% (with 10% possibly being an exaggeration). It is nothing less than ridiculous that students have to buy books on Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus, etc. for $60 or more.
This is the kind of thing that really gets me going about just how badly our system of education has derailed in some areas. Most school books, at a national level, should be freely available and used year over year, preferably in electronic form.
What is wrong with a, let's call it, federally publish set of books covering the sciences and other subjects? They could be evolved over time.
I know these things exist in various forms, we simply don't seem to lay down the law and use them. CK-12 used to be about books, now they seem to have expanded beyond that:
What's wrong with these books?
The people I really appreciate are the pedagogues on YouTube who make world-class materials for "free". Shout out to Dennis Davis:
They're getting assigned in some courses, but I think most professors are happy assigning commercial textbooks, often knowing that they can be pirated and that most students will pirate them.
What's the justification for a professor to assign openstax Calculus instead of Stewart, for instance, other than to make a political statement?
It won't matter in another few years once teaching AIs, a hybrid of LLMs and knowledgebases and logical inference engines, can take the place of textbooks and teachers for non-specialized fields. That'll be able to handle almost all K-12 and lower level college subjects, and teach better than most human teachers. Traditional education may not matter by then, though, depending on what AI does to society.
Where does the "illegal arrest" part come from? If the arrest was illegal, that's a big deal. My assumption is that there was nothing illegal about the arrest per se, and calling it an illegal arrest is just a way of getting sympathy or trying to re-frame the situation. But, I could have missed something, so please let me know if this is a serious allegation.
If I copy your property, you still have access to, and use of, your property.
I would argue that is not immoral.
As a (recreational part-time), content creator myself, I would of course prefer it if people paid me so I didn’t have to work every day. But I’d rather that be on the basis of somebody wanting me to thrive, and showing their support, rather than me threatening them with legal action because they can’t prioritise giving me money over other demands in their life.
If you want a physical copy of some work, you need to pay for it. That’s moral. Digital copies? I think we’ve bought the myths of publishers and the content industry and it’s harming our education as a species.
In the grand scheme of things social programs have done way more harm to the advancement of knowledge than high textbook prices.
However, I consider the privatisation of publically funded research to be (currently) legal theft.
Edit: I realise this was an indirect response to your comment, so I would also like to add that a meta-point I want to make is that we came to almost polar opposite conclusions despite having the same "morality" to a certain accuracy. Therefore, it could be argued that morality is not a sufficient measure for lawmaking.
FWIW my work, which puts food on my table, is pirated every day.
I hope that the two Russians arrested over Z-library won't get much more than a slap on the wrist. There are much worse offenses than pirating books.
Something is legal if the society has decided it to be. That is distinct from merely being popular. I am arguing that the consensus opinion is very strongly in support of making publicly funded research also accessible to said public.
As a result, the question of whether such an action is "good" or "right" isn't really sufficient. Because the point isn't popularity, the point is that citizens can change their laws.
Isn't that the difference between legitimate and legal? Maybe `legitimate == legal` would be the ideal world (not thought hard enough about it).
You're a teacher, and your griping that you aren't getting bonus money for something that is part of the normal duties of teaching? Like, you're not even an adjunct here are you, you're tenure track... and the $200k/yr (average) isn't enough, you want to lock up this book of yours behind paywalls and DRM?
I think I have more sympathy for bail bondsmen than I do you.
Many, many basic textbooks for required courses sell for hundreds, and use one time use codes for access to required content online. Meaning that the book is useless for future students without paying an additional exorbitant fee.
In other words, you aren’t the problem, and no one is pretending that you are.
Alternatively, how much would your book cost if it wasn’t sold to a captive audience buying on debt… pretty rare to see a $50 business book off campus. I normally see them at the airport for $19.99. Maybe just be happy that you are selling to a market where the person making the purchasing decision (the profesor) isn’t the one that has to pay for the goods.
What is the social impact of your business decisions?
How would it be so much worse for you to make no profit at all? $50 from the position of a student is a significant amount of money. In all likelihood, that is going to leave each student with a more significant financial impact than the profit you would be missing out on for not charging them: and it is multiplied to each student who buys the book.
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The ultimate dilemma here is not whether or not you should be compensated. It's how. Whether you choose to charge for this book or not, this strategy is untenable.
I am from a time and country where syllabi were written by the professors and were free with the course (you paid a few cents for the printing/paper). Those were thick stacks of paper and they were free. Sure it could’ve been better; they could’ve been free as in speech, but at least they were free as in beer. That is your job and you already get paid for it.
The part that is missing in the equation: How much value will this give to your readers? The answer is probably different for each individual reader of your book. For some those $50 might be a great investment and I certainly wish you and your audience that there are many such cases. But there is probably also a long tail of people who will not benefit enough to warrant the 50$ price tag - potentially because there's only parts of the book that are actually relevant to them or because they thought that the book answers some important questions that they had but it actually doesn't.
And then there's also the individual financial situation of the readers. Especially grad students are not exactly known for being rich. 50$ might be a lot of money to them. While it is possible that they will derive a value greater than 50$ from buying the book, it is far from guaranteed and can be a risky investment, especially when there are also other expensive books that they need to buy.
If there was a way to sell your textbook that would yield more profits for you than thousands of copies at $50 per copy, and would also make it very affordable for students, would you do it?
Is there a way to email you?
Your publisher is involved because they don't have to do a lot of work or take a lot of risk. Editorial and layout work is a something they'll recover on the first few hundred copies and they are very good at that because that's their core business. It's a fixed cost. And since you bring the students, they'll have a strong guarantee those copies will get sold. Everything after that is profit. Most publishing deals leave paying the author as an after thought. They pay themselves first. And unless you are a best selling author, that means they pocket most of that 50$.
If you sell 1000 copies, that's 50000 dollars. That's basically the editing and layout cost more than covered. You may have spent years of your life writing and learning. But editing and typesetting that is a lot less billable hours than that. Weeks or months at best. Possibly just days.
So, from the publisher's point of view this is an amazing deal. You do most of the work, including bringing an customer base (i.e. your students for years to come), and they get most of the profit. That's why academic publishing is such a hot business.
And let's be fair. You are compensated by the institution you work for (presumably); probably pretty well even. Having a book with your name on it helps enhance your value and status. Especially if it sells modestly well. That's why you get the big money. Publishing and being good at that is part of the job as an academic. You are already being payed for that. This isn't you going above and beyond what you are supposed to be doing but you doing your job.
My suggestion, and it's only as half baked as one can in 5 minutes of HN reading: give your book away for free to as many students as possible. Make it clear that you are running a community of social impact students, where networking opportunities will be provided. An online forum as well. You will be sure to have a number of industry people coming to you looking for the best students, which is something recruiters spend a lot of money on.
Someone did something similar in the quant finance space a few years ago, they built an online forum for QF students, got a lot of talking going, and then recruitment became a thing, IIRC one of the early users was a recruitment guy.
Another guy I know teaches a bunch of trading related classes, and he also gets to recommend people for things at fancy firms.
Especially coming from commentators on a site where the bubble of privilege living is often as thick as a Star Trek shield, and many make hundreds of thousands per year working for some of the world's most money-grubbing, user-abusing, parasitic, pervasively spying, chronically mendacious tech companies in the world. I suggest you climb down from your sanctimonious pedestals for a little while.
Isn’t it strange we can start to see the value of a course being made free to audit, but the books and papers that enhance the learning, are still protected like they’re holy relics that only rich, anointed classes can have access to…
(Or something third or other option I'm missing right now?)
To stay on the subject: what incentive would a private company have to sell their books at a reasonable price when they could just find a niche and seek rent? This is not hypothetical, it’s exactly what they are doing. What the fuck does this have to do with China?
The incentive companies (unlike governments) have to lower prices is competition. If competition is not happening, then that needs fixing. If competition is happening, but the journals are providing enough value that no one can compete usefully, then I don't see what can fix that, as that doesn't sound broken.
As for China, if you read the comments you'll see someone broadened the scope of the conversation.
Quick tip: You can often email a researcher and they will sometimes send a pre-print version of the article if you don't have access. Nobody is making money off this.
Other than public scholars, academic books rarely make enough to even consider it minimum wage.
Most of us would send the final published version with proper formatting. It’s not even subversive, it’s something included in the non-commercial uses of the license agreements. Here’s Elsevier, but the others are similar: https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/copyright .
TL;DR: sending pdfs is perfectly ok; what they don’t want is uploading them to servers (which is perfectly ok morally but not so legally (yet)).