Freeing literature and knowledge is no excuse for violating federal copyright laws
There is no evidence that the availibilty of Tor decreases sales in the works themselves. Quite the contrary, while i don't use z library specifically, i often use the open librarys to speed read through certain sections before i decide to buy the print, or through kindle just because the experience is that much better.
The powers that be offer us a contract where all our data is open and available for selling, training, marketing and general manipulation but yet when someone maintains a decentralized directory of books they get punished by the full extent of the law.
In this particular case, the United States can't even provide a list of copyrights that are being violated and the judge was removed for collusion. This is where my taxpayer dollars are going?...
Seriously.
If you're an author, do you know how much it costs to have your book distributed, for free, via NetGalley? The answer is anywhere from $700 to $1500.
It costs anywhere from $1500 to $6000 to have an "Open Access" scientific paper published.
As an author, I love to see my stuff available on free platforms. To me, there's no downside. I've even paid open access fees out of pocket.
I got paid a pittance for the amount of time put into the works. I wouldn't have seen any more or less if someone pirated the books.
Of course it doesn't. It costs just as much for you to publish any material as it cost you to publish this comment. If you need to pay up to $6000 in industry bribes for some career reason, that's some cost. But it isn't a cost of publishing.
The idea of peer review is a very sensible one. But (much like search engines) the process can be gamed by unethical actors; and where scarcity (of academic prestige) is enforced, rent-seekers invariably follow. Peer-reviewed journals charge a lot of money to submittants, but they generally don't pay the reviewers any of that. The money mostly goes into 'editing' - which is a little bit of curation and mostly proofreading - and administrative costs.
Ie, industry bribes (or call it levies) to benefit one's career. Rent-seeking, as you put it.
We have all the tools to move on from that. Many sectors already have. Public discourse and free debate is enough of peer review for any idea of enough importance, in my opinion. Especially considering that the public today is almost everyone in the world, including very special interests.
I'm sure the random person violates a number of laws of Iran and/or other autocratic countries with one's online comments. Should these countries serve up extradition papers for them?
The extradition treaty applies only if a crime is actually committed in a jurisdiction where it is a crime. I do not see this here.
While I agree many copyright laws are broken in many ways, this sort of agreement is also what makes the GPL of source code copyright holders enforceable in other countries.
Chinese GPL violators were a big deal in 3D printing a few years ago, with many companies not releasing their 3D printer firmware source based off the Marlin GPL software.
It's been a while since I followed that but it's apparently got real legal precedent now, with a Chinese court fining a local GPL violator: https://segmentfault.com/a/1190000040661920/en
it extracts rent at the behest of those few that makes bulk of the profits not the actual creators who doesn't want peoples lives ruined for simply consuming their content from everyone that seeks privilege for something by on its own cannot place any sort of control on the viewer.
its only because the threat of violence and draconian enforcers who think someone sharing an episode simpsons is a national security threat that we "respect" US copyright laws.
It's nothing short of digital colonialism
ex) Megaupload was raided by tier 1 new zealand special forcese at the behest of President Biden and the MPAA lobby that put him in power in direct violation of NZ's sovereignty