assine sign firma signer unterschreiben
Discussion
Knowledge should not be a crime. And authors need paid. One reason why I encourage & teach reading— buy books if you can invest in them & share what you learn. Here is a piece from December 2022 from LRB— “And simply busting open the doors to the libraries will not magically make their contents accessible to everyone. Despite shadow libraries’ roots in Soviet and post-Soviet samizdat culture, and despite their widespread adoption by university students in India, Argentina and Brazil, rates of use on the leading sites are highest among well-educated Europeans and Americans. Anna’s Archive’s catalogue of ‘all the books in existence’ could not by itself rectify the many inequalities of access. But it would be a start.” https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2022/december/in-the-shadow-library
that's the big dilemma, I guess. the more so if we consider that a brazilian reads on average only four books per year, and that a book here is extremely expensive (5 to 10% of the minimum wage) and that to import a book not published here you’d have to disburse 30% to 40% of the minimum wage, and that authors here earn a pittance (5 to 10% of cover price), with 60% to 70% of the profit going to the big chain bookstores, all that considered, even if the majority of readers is well educated (they wouldnt even be reading a book if not so), it seems to me a very valid start. in the specific case of the author, unless the book becomes a bestseller, it is much more of a deal if the book is read and spread with the wind. z-library, open archive (also at risk of disappearing), clacso, and others do their part. it is up to the readers and the authors themselves to disclose this, to take it to those who still do not have access. but that's it, just the beginning. this wave of censorship of which even shakespeare was a victim in florida will end up helping the cause a lot.
this “speech” of mine reminded me of what people used to say at the beginning of mp3 culture. cuz that's exactly what it is. bands earned money from concerts, sales of t-shirts, stickers, soundtracks. just as writers that make money from book fairs, workshops, translations, ghostwriting. the great challenge is to take this knowledge to the bases, really. that is: five thousand years of civilization and nothing has changed. not all technology in the world is capable of change it. what to do?
Thank you for this detailed response. Facts are important as well as people like you who are willing to encourage others to think deeply about this issue & hopefully something will change. Here are some
more facts I discovered last March about global reading habits. They need to add the info. you shared.
https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/public-life/book-reading-behavior
nice doc. focused on usa, but it gives a fair clue. it can be deduced, for example, that not even 30% of brazilians read a single book per year, which probably must be even lower as north americans read 12.6 books per year. so it’s probably 15% to 20% here, proportionally.
Thank you. You’re right— I should have prefaced my response with the study focuses on the US — but my brain found & centered itself around the small parts of the study where other countries were mentioned. For example, I am curious why certain countries read more (unrelated to work) books— and that part grabbed my attention. I appreciate your data analysis! Anyway— I’m really interested in the Z-Library & what will happen. Keep sharing if you see any updates. And thanks again!
nah, thank you for sharing such infos. besides usa (and here we’d have to check which areas of usa — what if NY alone represents 80% of all that?), they are all old world’s northern countries. thus: tradition. but mainly: massari. tradition + money = education. and back we are to the well educated ones.
Very true. I appreciate how you think deeply— analyzing the research itself is important. I wonder if the people involved with the Z-Library even think critically about who reads—does it matter to them when profit is involved? If authors/publishers are losing a small percentage of profits— isn’t there a solution.