Newyana2 <Newyana2@invalid.nospam> wrote:
> "Julian Bradfield" <jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote
>
> | Why should this group help a pirate? It's not even an expensive
> | book.
>
> Indeed. This project sounds so farfetched and nonsensical,
> as well as blatantly illegal, that I suspect the OP is doing
> research on attitudes about theft of copyrighted material.
> Maybe it's a college student, maybe cops, or maybe it's
> an AI bot, honing its "skills".

Well, we already knew that 'Arlen Holder' wants/demands all software
for free, but now he even wants to pirate copyrighted material!

In his OP, he said:

> I couldn't find an out-of-print book online no matter how hard I tried.

The "out-of-print" sort of implied that it wasn't available, but the
facts show it *is* available and it's even available "online", but just
not for free - but cheap - and (AFAWK) not in electronic form.

I'm sorry that I fell for his scam.

On Thu, 14 Mar 2024 01:42:51 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote

>> But it's tedious at best.
>
> It's 212 pages.

A book could be any number of pages. There's no magic in the number 212.

The script is designed for any book that you need to find, usually to quote
a sentence or two in papers, where fair use is the domain it fits within.

That specific book was simply an example that I already had on my shelf.

It wasn't supposed to be the actual set of books that anyone would want in
the future. It's just one book. It wasn't supposed to anything else.

Just one example of one book that there is no easily available PDF for,
but which is legally available to borrow on archive.org & Google Books.

The script is written for any freely available book on the Internet.
That people ascribe sinister intent is their own minds fabricating it.

The web sites actually came from simple googling for how to legally get
free books PDFs on the web, some of which are these sites listed below.

The only reason I gave that example was to point out to the VanguardLH
poster that there are books out there that have no easily available PDF.

[PCMag][https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/download-free-ebooks-audiobooks-online]
[PDFTech][https://www.pdfreaderpro.com/blog/download-free-pdf-books]
[MakeUseOf][https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-books-for-free-from-google-books/]
[PDFGear][https://www.pdfgear.com/pdf-converter/free-ebook-download-sites.htm]

Some of those commonly available sites for ebooks are:
[Authorama][http://www.authorama.com/]
[Ebooks Free][https://www.ebooks.com/en-us/free/]
[Feedbooks][https://www.feedbooks.com/catalog/public_domain]
[Free Ebooks][https://www.free-ebooks.net/]
[Free Engineering Books][http://www.freeengineeringbooks.com/]
[Google Scholar][https://scholar.google.com/]
[Gutenberg Books][https://www.gutenberg.org/]
[Internet Book Archive][https://archive.org/]
[Manybooks Public Domain][https://manybooks.net/]
[PDFGet][https://pdfget.com/]
[Science Government Books][https://www.science.gov/]
[UPenn Online Books Page][https://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/]

Why is everyone claiming those sites are so sinister?
Have they never used any of them?

On Thu, 14 Mar 2024 07:39:15 -0400, Newyana2 <Newyana2@invalid.nospam>
wrote

> This project sounds so farfetched and nonsensical,
> as well as blatantly illegal, that I suspect the OP is doing
> research on attitudes about theft of copyrighted material.
> Maybe it's a college student, maybe cops, or maybe it's
> an AI bot, honing its "skills".

The only reason I gave that example was to point out to the VanguardLH
poster that there are books out there that have no easily available PDF.

The script is written to use any list of sites that are publicly
available on the Internet - and which are perfectly legal to use.

Those lists came from web articles on ebooks that are legit articles.
[PCMag][https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/download-free-ebooks-audiobooks-online]
[PDFTech][https://www.pdfreaderpro.com/blog/download-free-pdf-books]
[MakeUseOf][https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-books-for-free-from-google-books/]
[PDFGear][https://www.pdfgear.com/pdf-converter/free-ebook-download-sites.htm]

Some of those commonly available sites for ebooks are:
[Authorama][http://www.authorama.com/]
[Ebooks Free][https://www.ebooks.com/en-us/free/]
[Feedbooks][https://www.feedbooks.com/catalog/public_domain]
[Free Ebooks][https://www.free-ebooks.net/]
[Free Engineering Books][http://www.freeengineeringbooks.com/]
[Google Scholar][https://scholar.google.com/]
[Gutenberg Books][https://www.gutenberg.org/]
[Internet Book Archive][https://archive.org/]
[Manybooks Public Domain][https://manybooks.net/]
[PDFGet][https://pdfget.com/]
[Science Government Books][https://www.science.gov/]
[UPenn Online Books Page][https://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/]

Why is everyone claiming those sites are so sinister?
Have they never searched for a publicly available PDF before?

"Oliver" <ollie@invalid.net> wrote

| The only reason I gave that example was to point out to the VanguardLH
| poster that there are books out there that have no easily available PDF.
|

Yes. There's no download offered. Google is forcing you
to see only one page at a time, and usually not the whole book.
It's not for me to say whether it's morally right to copy the books.
Was it morally right for Disney to spend millions lobbying Congress
to extend copyright way beyond what the law intends, in what
was quite literally a Mickey Mouse case? No.

But there is law. It won't help to just say, "Hey, officer, the
car was just sitting there with the door unlocked. Looks free
to me. And I think the legal owner is a crook."

As far as I can see, there are 4 general categories. There are
free, legal downloads. Those may sometimes be PDFs, or they may
be only offered in formats like DAISY, intended only for the blind.

There are *available* downloads as PDF. A place like archive.org
might have those legally, or they may be illegal uploads that
archive.org hasn't been asked to take down. Some are out of
copyright. Some are not.

There are illegal offerings, from sites that come and go, just
as sites used to offer illegal software activation keys. They may
offer a PDF but the site itself is illegal, the distribution is illegal,
and publishers try to get them shut down.

Then there's what you're talking about: Hacking the available
formats to get a copy not offered. You could probably also
hack a DAISY version, but those versions are technically only legal
for use by the blind. Google or archive.org may be legally offering
access. Some books at archive.org are available for borrowing,
for example. So they may be acting as a library. Borrowing books
from a library is legal. Copying them is not.

It's a funny system. Copyright was intended to reimburse artists
for their work, not help Disney make billions from the work of
long-dead artists. Today copyright has been interpreted more as
property rights. If libraries didn't already exist they'd surely be
illegal. Tech companies have bent the law for their own purposes.
For example, Microsoft illegally claims that their copyrighted code
is licensed to inanimate objects -- motherboards -- thus claiming
that you have no right to own the copy of Windows that you bought.
Which goes against the Macy's ruling of 1909 that says you own
your copy and that you're free to do anything with it you like,
including selling it, so long as you don't distribute copies of your copy.
Similarly, movie companies keep trying to limit access, doing things
like imposing articial "wear and tear" limits on e-books that libraries
buy.

So there's that. Illegal exploitation of the law by copyright holders.
How do Microsoft and Hollywood get away with that? They have more
money, lawyers and Congressmen than you do. The copyright law is
malleable and US law generally serves plutocracy. That's why tech
companies have become the biggest lobbyists in Congress.

How we feel about that is a separate issue from the law itself. In the
case of Google, they went to court on fair use grounds and won the right
to scan, distribute snippets and possibly rent books. Authors were
trying to claim that merely scanning was illegal. But that case was
never about Google being able to give away books under copyright.
It was only about the use of new technology for distributing snippets
of books.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/court-ruling-legalizes-google-books-180956997/

On 03/15/2024 8:36 AM, Newyana2 wrote:
> "Oliver" <ollie@invalid.net> wrote
>
> | The only reason I gave that example was to point out to the VanguardLH
> | poster that there are books out there that have no easily available PDF.
> |
>
> Yes. There's no download offered. Google is forcing you
> to see only one page at a time, and usually not the whole book.
> It's not for me to say whether it's morally right to copy the books.
> Was it morally right for Disney to spend millions lobbying Congress
> to extend copyright way beyond what the law intends, in what
> was quite literally a Mickey Mouse case? No.
>
> But there is law. It won't help to just say, "Hey, officer, the
> car was just sitting there with the door unlocked. Looks free
> to me. And I think the legal owner is a crook."
>
> As far as I can see, there are 4 general categories. There are
> free, legal downloads. Those may sometimes be PDFs, or they may
> be only offered in formats like DAISY, intended only for the blind.
>
> There are *available* downloads as PDF. A place like archive.org
> might have those legally, or they may be illegal uploads that
> archive.org hasn't been asked to take down. Some are out of
> copyright. Some are not.
>
> There are illegal offerings, from sites that come and go, just
> as sites used to offer illegal software activation keys. They may
> offer a PDF but the site itself is illegal, the distribution is illegal,
> and publishers try to get them shut down.
>
> Then there's what you're talking about: Hacking the available
> formats to get a copy not offered. You could probably also
> hack a DAISY version, but those versions are technically only legal
> for use by the blind. Google or archive.org may be legally offering
> access. Some books at archive.org are available for borrowing,
> for example. So they may be acting as a library. Borrowing books
> from a library is legal. Copying them is not.
>
> It's a funny system. Copyright was intended to reimburse artists
> for their work, not help Disney make billions from the work of
> long-dead artists. Today copyright has been interpreted more as
> property rights. If libraries didn't already exist they'd surely be
> illegal. Tech companies have bent the law for their own purposes.
> For example, Microsoft illegally claims that their copyrighted code
> is licensed to inanimate objects -- motherboards -- thus claiming
> that you have no right to own the copy of Windows that you bought.
> Which goes against the Macy's ruling of 1909 that says you own
> your copy and that you're free to do anything with it you like,
> including selling it, so long as you don't distribute copies of your copy.
> Similarly, movie companies keep trying to limit access, doing things
> like imposing articial "wear and tear" limits on e-books that libraries
> buy.
>
> So there's that. Illegal exploitation of the law by copyright holders.
> How do Microsoft and Hollywood get away with that? They have more
> money, lawyers and Congressmen than you do. The copyright law is
> malleable and US law generally serves plutocracy. That's why tech
> companies have become the biggest lobbyists in Congress.
>
> How we feel about that is a separate issue from the law itself. In the
> case of Google, they went to court on fair use grounds and won the right
> to scan, distribute snippets and possibly rent books. Authors were
> trying to claim that merely scanning was illegal. But that case was
> never about Google being able to give away books under copyright.
> It was only about the use of new technology for distributing snippets
> of books.
>
> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/court-ruling-legalizes-google-books-180956997/
>
>
I don't not know the original posters intentions, but if he were doing
research, he has the right to make copies of the pages that effect his
research.

Hence the need to download pages from an online book.

He can use the information found on those pages in the results of his
published research, IF he properly credits the information.

If he enters the information from those pages verbatim, without credit
he is guilty of plagiarism. in his own words the information is not
plagiarized

The exact way this works varies from country to country.

Since it could be debateable if it were in his own words, that is why we
have the courts.

On Fri, 15 Mar 2024 13:58:28 -0400, knuttle <keith_nuttle@yahoo.com> wrote

> I don't not know the original posters intentions, but if he were doing
> research, he has the right to make copies of the pages that effect his
> research.
>
> Hence the need to download pages from an online book.
>
> He can use the information found on those pages in the results of his
> published research, IF he properly credits the information.
>
> If he enters the information from those pages verbatim, without credit
> he is guilty of plagiarism. in his own words the information is not
> plagiarized
>
> The exact way this works varies from country to country.
>
> Since it could be debateable if it were in his own words, that is why we
> have the courts.

Every country is different, as you said, where Wikipedia covers the
doctrine of Fair Use (particularly in school environments) over here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

On Fri, 15 Mar 2024 09:46:06 -0700, "...w�񧱤� " <winstonmvp@gmail.com>
wrote

> - Macy's selling a product(book) at a discount below a price the
> publisher claimed as a minimum price by insertion of the minimum price
> notice in the book. The Supreme Court ruled in Macy's favor, later
> codified in the Copyright Act of 2009, which was later repealed and
> superceded by the Copyright Act of 1976 but retained content applicable
> to the earlier Supreme Court's Macy's ruling.

https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/
About Fair Use

Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by
permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain
circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory
framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies
certain types of uses-such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching,
scholarship, and research-as examples of activities that may qualify as
fair use. Section 107 calls for consideration of the following four factors
in evaluating a question of fair use:

Purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a
commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes: Courts look at
how the party claiming fair use is using the copyrighted work, and are more
likely to find that nonprofit educational and noncommercial uses are fair.
This does not mean, however, that all nonprofit education and noncommercial
uses are fair and all commercial uses are not fair; instead, courts will
balance the purpose and character of the use against the other factors
below. Additionally, "transformative" uses are more likely to be considered
fair. Transformative uses are those that add something new, with a further
purpose or different character, and do not substitute for the original use
of the work.

Nature of the copyrighted work: This factor analyzes the degree to
which the work that was used relates to copyright's purpose of encouraging
creative expression. Thus, using a more creative or imaginative work (such
as a novel, movie, or song) is less likely to support a claim of a fair use
than using a factual work (such as a technical article or news item). In
addition, use of an unpublished work is less likely to be considered fair.

Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the
copyrighted work as a whole: Under this factor, courts look at both the
quantity and quality of the copyrighted material that was used. If the use
includes a large portion of the copyrighted work, fair use is less likely
to be found; if the use employs only a small amount of copyrighted
material, fair use is more likely. That said, some courts have found use of
an entire work to be fair under certain circumstances. And in other
contexts, using even a small amount of a copyrighted work was determined
not to be fair because the selection was an important part-or the
"heart"-of the work.

Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the
copyrighted work: Here, courts review whether, and to what extent, the
unlicensed use harms the existing or future market for the copyright
owner's original work. In assessing this factor, courts consider whether
the use is hurting the current market for the original work (for example,
by displacing sales of the original) and/or whether the use could cause
substantial harm if it were to become widespread.

In addition to the above, other factors may also be considered by a court
in weighing a fair use question, depending upon the circumstances. Courts
evaluate fair use claims on a case-bycase basis, and the outcome of any
given case depends on a fact-specific inquiry. This means that there is no
formula to ensure that a predetermined percentage or amount of a work-or
specific number of words, lines, pages, copies-may be used without
permission.

On Fri, 15 Mar 2024 08:36:31 -0400, Newyana2 <Newyana2@invalid.nospam>
wrote

>| The only reason I gave that example was to point out to the VanguardLH
>| poster that there are books out there that have no easily available PDF.
>
> Yes. There's no download offered.

+1. Agreed.

The only point of picking that one specific book example was to prove to
VanguardLH (who had *insisted* that he could find a free book PDF even
though it doesn't seem to exist), so I tested out his claim. He failed.

I'm no slouch when it comes to book searches, mind you, so I knew
VanguardLH would fail - even after he declared success - he didn't
understand that the goal is creating a PDF of snapshots of any book that
doesn't have a freely available PDF download - but which has the entire
book in some kind of freely available viewing engine (like archive.org).

> Google is forcing you
> to see only one page at a time, and usually not the whole book.

+1. Agreed.

I knew that before I checked but what I checked is I went back a few times,
and it's not feasible, but at least it's potentially possible to get every
page from Google Books if you visit using enough different fingerprints.

But I wouldn't do it.
The easier way is, by far, to find the freely downloadable PDF.
The next easiest way is what the subject of this thread is really about.

> It's not for me to say whether it's morally right to copy the books.

Most people are ignorant of copyright law, much like they're as ignorant of
most laws, whether they're trespassing laws, fraud laws or copyright laws.

Each of those laws has MULTIPLE tenets all of which MUST exist, in order
for it to be a crime where simply pointing to a file is NOT a crime, no
matter how much VanguardLH insists that a distributing a mere URL to a book
is a crime. Clearly people who are like VanguardLH is have absolutely no
concept of copyright law, and in particular, people who scream, as he did,
that downloading a publicly available file from a URL is illegal probably
aren't even aware that there is a concept of fair use doctrine in the USA.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=copyright+law+fair+use

> Was it morally right for Disney to spend millions lobbying Congress
> to extend copyright way beyond what the law intends, in what
> was quite literally a Mickey Mouse case? No.

Same with cellphone companies who wanted to stop network unlocking by
claiming it was a copyright infringement to unlock the phone long ago.
> But there is law. It won't help to just say, "Hey, officer, the
> car was just sitting there with the door unlocked. Looks free
> to me. And I think the legal owner is a crook."

Look up Fair Use (see search link above). Every single tenet MUST exist for
it to even begin to be considered for copyright infringement.
https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/

> As far as I can see, there are 4 general categories. There are
> free, legal downloads. Those may sometimes be PDFs, or they may
> be only offered in formats like DAISY, intended only for the blind.
>
> There are *available* downloads as PDF. A place like archive.org
> might have those legally, or they may be illegal uploads that
> archive.org hasn't been asked to take down. Some are out of
> copyright. Some are not.
>
> There are illegal offerings, from sites that come and go, just
> as sites used to offer illegal software activation keys. They may
> offer a PDF but the site itself is illegal, the distribution is illegal,
> and publishers try to get them shut down.
>
> Then there's what you're talking about: Hacking the available
> formats to get a copy not offered. You could probably also
> hack a DAISY version, but those versions are technically only legal
> for use by the blind. Google or archive.org may be legally offering
> access. Some books at archive.org are available for borrowing,
> for example. So they may be acting as a library. Borrowing books
> from a library is legal. Copying them is not.

This is not a true statement. You can copy books if you want but you havef
to follow the four tenets of fair use doctrine (at least in the USA).
1. Purpose and character of the use
2. Nature of the copyrighted work
3. Substantiality of the portion used (note quantity & *quality*!)
4. Effect of the use upon the potential market

Those are explained further in the cite prior, where most people
fundamentally misunderstand copyright law (and fair use in particular).

> It's a funny system. Copyright was intended to reimburse artists
> for their work, not help Disney make billions from the work of
> long-dead artists. Today copyright has been interpreted more as
> property rights. If libraries didn't already exist they'd surely be
> illegal. Tech companies have bent the law for their own purposes.
> For example, Microsoft illegally claims that their copyrighted code
> is licensed to inanimate objects -- motherboards -- thus claiming
> that you have no right to own the copy of Windows that you bought.
> Which goes against the Macy's ruling of 1909 that says you own
> your copy and that you're free to do anything with it you like,
> including selling it, so long as you don't distribute copies of your copy.
> Similarly, movie companies keep trying to limit access, doing things
> like imposing articial "wear and tear" limits on e-books that libraries
> buy.
>
> So there's that. Illegal exploitation of the law by copyright holders.
> How do Microsoft and Hollywood get away with that? They have more
> money, lawyers and Congressmen than you do. The copyright law is
> malleable and US law generally serves plutocracy. That's why tech
> companies have become the biggest lobbyists in Congress.
>
> How we feel about that is a separate issue from the law itself. In the
> case of Google, they went to court on fair use grounds and won the right
> to scan, distribute snippets and possibly rent books. Authors were
> trying to claim that merely scanning was illegal. But that case was
> never about Google being able to give away books under copyright.
> It was only about the use of new technology for distributing snippets
> of books.
>
> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/court-ruling-legalizes-google-books-180956997/

I am well aware of the google situation as we studied it in school.
I had to do a paper on it myself, so I'm familiar with the arguments.

It turns out that under the four tenets of fair use, Google was permitted
to display the book, where you have to keep in mind the quality factor is
one component of whether there is copyright infringement and also the
potential effect on the market.

It's not up to you or me but to a judge whether a barely readable blurry
non-text screenshot of already blurry book pages is going to have a
potentially huge effect on the market for an out of print book. :)

We can summarize as anyone who says it's copyright infringement doesn't
know enough about anything to help anyone so it doesn't matter that they're
wrong - it only matters that they don't own the computer skills needed.

Have you tried Internet Archive?

https://archive.org/

On Sat, 16 Mar 2024 08:57:20 +1100, Peter Jason <pj@jostle.com> wrote

> Have you tried Internet Archive?
>
> https://archive.org/

Yes. Every known publicly freely available Internet book archive
is expected to be included into the links.txt file (which will later be
improved to ask which browser and to run the search on each tab).

@echo off
set LINKS=links.txt
set BROWSER=firefox

FOR /F %%i in (%LINKS%) do start %BROWSER% -new-tab %%i

set LINKS=
set BROWSER=

I've started testing the ability to switch to any desired browser.
@echo off
echo "Open web browser to a variety of book sites"
echo USAGE:
echo -Press "1" to open book sites in the Firefox web browser
echo -Press "2" to open book sites in the Chrome web browser
echo -Press "3" to open book sites in the Internet Explorer web browser
echo -Press "x" to exit.
echo.
set /p option=Your option:
if '%option%'=='1' goto :option1
if '%option%'=='2' goto :option2
if '%option%'=='3' goto :option3
if '%option%'=='x' goto :exit
echo Enter browser 1, 2, 3 or x

The current links.txt file contains the following:
"http://www.authorama.com/"
"https://annas-archive.org/"
"https://archive.org/"
"https://bitsearch.to/"
"https://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/"
"https://libgen.is/"
"https://libgen.li/"
"https://libgen.rs/"
"https://libgen.st/"
"https://librarygenesis.net/"
"https://librivox.org/"
"https://manybooks.net/"
"https://openaccessbutton.org/"
"https://openlibrary.org/"
"https://pdfget.com/"
"https://pdfgrab.com/"
"https://scholar.google.com/"
"https://sci-hub.ru/"
"https://unpaywall.org"
"https://www.academia.edu"
"https://www.base-search.net/"
"https://www.ebooks.com/en-us/free/"
"https://www.feedbooks.com/catalog/public_domain"
"https://www.free-ebooks.net/"
"https://www.freeengineeringbooks.com/"
"https://www.gutenberg.org/"
"https://www.readanybook.com/"
"https://www.researchgate.net/"
"https://www.science.gov/"
"https://www.tandfonline.com/"
"https://zlibrary.to/"

Do you know of other common ebook archives which contain
legally available free public PDFs that have been missed?

On Fri, 15 Mar 2024 16:36:31 -0700, "...w�񧱤� " <winstonmvp@gmail.com>
wrote

> i.e. Fair use was not an argument in the Macy case.

Nobody said this thread is about the Macy case.
Fair use applies to this thread.

Particularly when Fair Use (in the USA) has four provisions, every one of
which must be violated without reasonable doubt for it to be infringement.

https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/

1. Purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a
commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes

2. Nature of the copyrighted work: This factor analyzes the degree to which
the work that was used relates to copyright's purpose of encouraging
creative expression.

3. Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the
copyrighted work as a whole: Under this factor, courts look at both the
quantity and quality of the copyrighted material that was used.

4. Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the
copyrighted work.

All four tenets MUST be violated for it to be deemed infringement.

Not one. Not two. Not three. But all four. Appreciably so.

Every single tenet must be appreciably violated (e.g., a blurry image of a
book could be judged as not the same thing as a crisp epub of the book in
terms of #3) and the use that it is made in terms of item #1 will also be
looked at in a court of law.

Most people know none of this. I'm sure people like VanguardLH have never
even heard of the term "fair use" in this context in their whole lives.

On Fri, 15 Mar 2024 17:34:34 -0600, Oliver <ollie@invalid.net> wrote:

>On Sat, 16 Mar 2024 08:57:20 +1100, Peter Jason <pj@jostle.com> wrote
>
>> Have you tried Internet Archive?
>>
>> https://archive.org/
>
>Yes. Every known publicly freely available Internet book archive
>is expected to be included into the links.txt file (which will later be
>improved to ask which browser and to run the search on each tab).
>
> @echo off
> set LINKS=links.txt
> set BROWSER=firefox
>
> FOR /F %%i in (%LINKS%) do start %BROWSER% -new-tab %%i
>
> set LINKS=
> set BROWSER=
>
>I've started testing the ability to switch to any desired browser.
> @echo off
> echo "Open web browser to a variety of book sites"
> echo USAGE:
> echo -Press "1" to open book sites in the Firefox web browser
> echo -Press "2" to open book sites in the Chrome web browser
> echo -Press "3" to open book sites in the Internet Explorer web browser
> echo -Press "x" to exit.
> echo.
> set /p option=Your option:
> if '%option%'=='1' goto :option1
> if '%option%'=='2' goto :option2
> if '%option%'=='3' goto :option3
> if '%option%'=='x' goto :exit
> echo Enter browser 1, 2, 3 or x
>
>The current links.txt file contains the following:
> "http://www.authorama.com/"
> "https://annas-archive.org/"
> "https://archive.org/"
> "https://bitsearch.to/"
> "https://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/"
> "https://libgen.is/"
> "https://libgen.li/"
> "https://libgen.rs/"
> "https://libgen.st/"
> "https://librarygenesis.net/"
> "https://librivox.org/"
> "https://manybooks.net/"
> "https://openaccessbutton.org/"
> "https://openlibrary.org/"
> "https://pdfget.com/"
> "https://pdfgrab.com/"
> "https://scholar.google.com/"
> "https://sci-hub.ru/"
> "https://unpaywall.org"
> "https://www.academia.edu"
> "https://www.base-search.net/"
> "https://www.ebooks.com/en-us/free/"
> "https://www.feedbooks.com/catalog/public_domain"
> "https://www.free-ebooks.net/"
> "https://www.freeengineeringbooks.com/"
> "https://www.gutenberg.org/"
> "https://www.readanybook.com/"
> "https://www.researchgate.net/"
> "https://www.science.gov/"
> "https://www.tandfonline.com/"
> "https://zlibrary.to/"
>
>Do you know of other common ebook archives which contain
>legally available free public PDFs that have been missed?

Thanks for the info.

I can think of one other site with hi-quality pdfs.....
https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/index.html

On 2024-03-15, Oliver <ollie@invalid.net> wrote:
> Particularly when Fair Use (in the USA) has four provisions, every one of
> which must be violated without reasonable doubt for it to be infringement.

Rubbish. You have no understanding of your own law.

Go and read what the law actually says. Then read the case law.

On Sat, 16 Mar 2024 09:45:33 +0000 (UTC), Julian Bradfield
<jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote

> Rubbish. You have no understanding of your own law.
>
> Go and read what the law actually says. Then read the case law.

Rubbish? WTF? No understanding? WTF? I cited well-known USA laws.
From the government copyright site.

For you to call cites to USA laws "Rubbish" speaks worlds about you.
https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/

Your unilateral declaration that all US copyright laws on Fair Use are
"Rubbish" simply means either you viscerally dislike USA copyright law, or,
you were initially ignorant of USA Fair Use laws and you are shocked.

Most likely it's the latter as I've long known (for decades) that stupid
people have no concept that laws such as Fair Use even exist in the USA.

Yet, Fair Use is well established in the USA even if you never heard of it
prior to this thread, where you're shocked that the concept even exists.

From your wording & NNTP posting host, you appear to perhaps be in the UK.
Your UK laws on Fair Use can and most likely will differ.

Usually people who don't own the technical skills to comprehend something
as simple as a cite to the government description of the topic, won't have
even one tenth of the technical skills necessary to resolve technical
issues.

In this case, that technical issue is making the current process more
efficient.

On 2024-03-16, Oliver <ollie@invalid.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Mar 2024 09:45:33 +0000 (UTC), Julian Bradfield
><jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote
>
>> Rubbish. You have no understanding of your own law.
>>
>> Go and read what the law actually says. Then read the case law.
>
> Rubbish? WTF? No understanding? WTF? I cited well-known USA laws.

No, you didn't. You cited the four principles, without the
preceding text in the law, or the text on the page, which describe
how they are applied.

You have also removed your comment which I was describing as rubbish:

>> Particularly when Fair Use (in the USA) has four provisions, every one of
>> which must be violated without reasonable doubt for it to be infringement.

It's rubbish because that is not what the law says, as you can see for
yourself by reading either the law or the copyright page you referred to.

The rest of your post is created by replying to things I did not (and
would not) say and insulting me. There are words for that.

On Sat, 16 Mar 2024 19:58:35 +0000 (UTC), Julian Bradfield
<jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote

> The rest of your post is created by replying to things I did not (and
> would not) say and insulting me. There are words for that.

Your "rubbish" comment was because you did not understand US laws.
The laws for such things are entirety laws.

Every single tenet MUST NOT exist for it to be infringement, and,
if a single tenet does exist, then it's not infringement.

Many laws work that way. Fraud for example.
You can't have half of a fraud in the USA.

Either every tenet is proven, or it's not fraud.
Same with Fair Use.

However, as I said, in your jurisdiction, the laws may be different.

But your misunderstanding of USA law does not make USA law "Rubbish".

On 2024-03-18, Oliver <ollie@invalid.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Mar 2024 19:58:35 +0000 (UTC), Julian Bradfield
><jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote
>
>> The rest of your post is created by replying to things I did not (and
>> would not) say and insulting me. There are words for that.
>
> Your "rubbish" comment was because you did not understand US laws.
> The laws for such things are entirety laws.
>
> Every single tenet MUST NOT exist for it to be infringement, and,
> if a single tenet does exist, then it's not infringement.

This is eimply false. Here is what the title says:
"In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case
is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—"
and then the four factors.

All these factors are gradient factors; the court does a balancing
exercise and decides, on the facts of each particular case, whether
the use is fair or not.
Libraries in the US generally work on the basis that a student can
safely copy up to 10% of a given book for educational use.

This is all explained for non-lawyers here:
https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/index.html

On 2024-03-14 02:32, Oliver wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 19:00:02 -0500, VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote
>> Now it's time to retract your claim of "If I can't find it, you'll never
>> find it. Nobody will if I can't."
>
> You did not find it.
>
> I gave you an example of something that has no free downloadable PDF.
> You didn't find a free downloadable PDF.

Why should we help you to steal a book, and not pay for it?

Just buy the book.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 2024-03-15 21:40, Oliver wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Mar 2024 09:46:06 -0700, "...w�񧱤� " <winstonmvp@gmail.com>
> wrote
>> - Macy's selling a product(book) at a discount below a price the
>> publisher claimed as a minimum price by insertion of the minimum price
>> notice in the book. The  Supreme Court ruled in Macy's favor, later
>> codified in the Copyright Act of 2009, which was later repealed and
>> superceded by the Copyright Act of 1976 but retained content
>> applicable to the earlier Supreme Court's Macy's ruling.
>
> https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/
> About Fair Use
>
> Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by
> permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain
> circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory
> framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies
> certain types of uses-such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching,
> scholarship, and research-as examples of activities that may qualify as
> fair use. Section 107 calls for consideration of the following four factors
> in evaluating a question of fair use:

But they don't give you the right to download an entire book for free.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 2024-03-13 22:48, Oliver wrote:
> On 13 Mar 2024 19:52:58 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote
>>> I was hoping to "sharpen" the image where I was hoping there is a PDF
>>> tool
>>> out there which does that - much like Irfanview sharpens a JPEG
>>> snapshot.
>>
>>   Why do you want/need to do the sharpening in "a PDF tool"? Why can't
>> you just sharpen the screenshots?
>
> I already tried that by snapping JPEG images in Irfanview and sharpening
> them and then converting them to PDF (as the final thing is a book).
>
> Your suggestion gave me an idea though, which is I can probably snapshot to
> GIF or BMP which can be set to not have image compression.
>
> Since it's a book of hundreds of pages, it might be better to snapshot as
> TIFF without compression and then combine all the TIFFs.
>
> I just ran a quick test in Irfanview and I was pleased to see the Irfanview
> sharpen command works on all three non-compression file formats.
>
> I wonder if the PDF experts know how to snapshot a screen to PDF at no
> compression? Is that even possible?

Why no compression? Compression is not the same as lossy.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 2024-03-15 02:31, Oliver wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Mar 2024 01:42:51 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote
>>> But it's tedious at best.
>>
>> It's 212 pages.
>
> A book could be any number of pages. There's no magic in the number 212.
>
> The script is designed for any book that you need to find, usually to quote
> a sentence or two in papers, where fair use is the domain it fits within.

Yes, but that doesn't entitle you to download for free the entire book.

You are entitled to read it online at a library, in a way similar to a
city or university library. You borrow the book, you can not copy it
legally.

Some can excuse the copy if the book is out of print and no one sells an
electronic copy.

--
Cheers, Carlos.