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337 points hn_acker | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.209s | source
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elashri ◴[] No.42199701[source]
> Z-Library, or a similar website, is helpful to students living in poverty (82% agree).

I would really like to hear the reason for the 18% who thinks that it is not helpful for poor students. Is it this complicated argument that they will discourage authors from writing books and then this will hurt all students in a hypothetical scenario? Or there are other reasons?

I mean I understand that some people will just want these sites gone on IP grounds or because it is against the law ..etc. But this question was different.

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bluedays ◴[] No.42200431[source]
I could play devils advocate and say that it’s bad for poor students because if authors are not fairly compensated then these authors won’t write textbooks and if they don’t then future students won’t benefit from having the textbooks.
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tomrod ◴[] No.42200603[source]
Few academic authors are in it for the money.
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1. DiscourseFan ◴[] No.42200639[source]
I mean yeah, getting your work published just means that you can sue if someone steals it (often the case with those university presidents that they plagiarized work from undergrads or those who otherwise couldn't fight back). But if publishers stop making money off academic texts, then they won't be inclined to fight those battles. Then again, a lot of the money comes from university library subscriptions to entire catalogues of texts including books and articles, so either something you want to access is already in your ecosystem or it isn't.