Rolling Philosophy

how long ago did academic books become piratable? it's very, very easy to find a copy of brassier's nihil unbound or metzinger's being no one online for free

that being said, i once payed for brassier's book when it was a $99 hardcover

(winter 2009ish, the paperback wasn't out yet)

neither of the books i listed are open access either. one's on palgrave and the other's on mit press

Wait is that the Fixed-Point Brouwer?

xp what do you mean 'piratable'? i'm sure students have been passing around photocopies since photocopiers existed, the phenomenon of uploaded pdfs (with an accelerating move from scans of varying quality to shiny ebooks) seems to have really escalated in the last five years. and now just about everything is available.

yup, that's fixed point Brouwer!

xpost i wasn't saying anything particularly interesting. from, like, idk, 1999-2010 i pirated music, while spending a lot on cds too, but i never even went looking for ebooks too much until recently. obviously it's a little different for someone to photocopy all of being no one vs. just typing the title and the word "pdf" into google and getting the thing into a pdf app on yr ipad in seconds for reading and annotation. i don't know if it's harder to find more mainstream stuff like hemingway or harry potter, but it does seem easy enough to find at least some of the academic works that i'm interested in; i found a sellars article, a churchland article, and the two books i've mentioned, and i'm sure there's tons more out there. how they actually get there is another deal. does someone actually scan all of less than nothing?

for what it's worth i bought a new bookcase early this year and intend on buying another one, and i just spent $25 on the piketty book, so i'm not killing publishing by downloading this stuff, especially since i'm going to end up buying the brassier and metzinger books sooner or later, almost definitely in paperback

my friend and i photocopied zizek's violence for a reading group once in 2009

is brassier really good? i read a short article by him in a collection and it was ok.

does someone actually scan all of less than nothing?

quick answer is yeah (though perhaps not less than nothing itself as that was quickly available in ebook form), there's enough of a community rejecting the absurdities of academic publishing for people to spend a lot of time scanning and sharing. you're definitely not killing academic publishing by downloading stuff, they have some of the highest profit margins around. (if you errrrrrm happen to be interested in an excellent source of research materials, dm me on twitter?)

xps
5 years sounds about right - i always thought of aaaaarg as being a launch point for academic book-sharing - & it gave me the impression that a lot of ppl online seemed driven on principle to get theory, especially, circulating.

when i got my book contract from an academic press i immediately did the math on the royalties and found out that i'd need to sell 20 million copies to be a millionaire. *crosses fingers*

merdeyeux, expect a dm tonight! (thanks)

i don't mind paying for the books. i don't own much and don't care too, except for my books.

ryan i'll read your shit as long as it isn't one of those hundred dollar p4lg4v3 or r0ut13dg3 deals. make sure to tell us when it's out

oh, and i think i read br4ssi3r's doctoral thesis a few years ago. it's out there, legally, for free. look for "alien theory."

nihil unbound i've skimmed. it looks real good.

is that the one he's since disowned?

in my experience, the press I'm with isn't terrible about prices. pleased that they are one of the few doing ebooks as well.

xps woof already mentioned the site i was being (probably unnecessarily) hush hush about, but you do need to be invited to it nowadays, so if you're not already on it send me yr email address and i'll do the rest.

btw markers another answer to your 'how do things get pirated' question is that in our circles the authors are generally as against the pricing of academic books as everybody else is, so they'll often happily distribute their final pdf copies from the publisher if they're confident it can't be traced back to them.

hint hint ryan.

haha hint well taken! I doubt it'd be in hot demand but couldn't hurt to broaden its accessibility.

is that the one he's since disowned?

― ryan, Friday, April 4, 2014 3:39 PM

not sure "disowned" is the right word, but i remember him saying something (re: nihil unbound) like "i regard the book as a botched job" (that's close to a direct quote). i don't think i've ever heard him talk about his thesis too much?

also, yes, academic ebooks are funny insofar as many of them do not exist (legally). good luck finding the brassier book on amazon.

so if you're not already on it send me yr email address and i'll do the rest.

ah thank you! but i think i'll avoid it b/c for some reason i feel paranoid about signing up for something like that where i wouldn't be paranoid about just checking it out. i could see why it's more locked down now.

btw markers another answer to your 'how do things get pirated' question is that in our circles the authors are generally as against the pricing of academic books as everybody else is, so they'll often happily distribute their final pdf copies from the publisher if they're confident it can't be traced back to them.

oh yeah. i think i knew they'd do that for articles, but didn't know they'd do the same for books.

i'm serious about reading either of yr stuff btw. let me know whenever stuff's available through whatever channel.

ah thank you! but i think i'll avoid it b/c for some reason i feel paranoid about signing up for something like that where i wouldn't be paranoid about just checking it out. i could see why it's more locked down now.

fair enough. i think in addition to that the mp3-downloading 'problem' of just having too much available to you is amplified. if i had the option of reading all the books i own before plunging into the thousands and thousands of pdfs they have then i'd take it, but as someone who has to produce work its an absolutely invaluable resource.

i think the only publisher who actually tried to take action against @@@@@rg was verso, good radicals that they are. for quite a while zizek was conspicuously absent from their archives.

On that note, though, verso is selling all their books online for half off this week...

uh holy shit

not their lefebvre : (

huh? http://www.versobooks.com/books/1062-introduction-to-modernity

http://www.versobooks.com/books/264-critique-of-everyday-life-volume-one
http://www.versobooks.com/books/274-critique-of-everyday-life-volume-two

the newest one on his author page isn't out yet

huh, that is a change from the day or two ago when i was looking at 'critique'

well maybe you were on this page: http://www.versobooks.com/books/1623-the-critique-of-everyday-life

oh, that's why—i want volume 3

note the "may 2014"

this is insane though. whatever they were hoping to accomplish with this, it's gonna probably work and get me to sign up for their store, which i wouldn't have done otherwise.

if i had more money now i'd drop a lot on this

xp or, when it is issued, a ~900 page CRITIQUE OF ALL YALL MOTHERFUCKERS W/ BLACK AND WHITE TEXT-ONLY COVER ART

for a hardcover! http://www.versobooks.com/books/437-fanaticism

wanna order...three books from verso, what are your favourites everyone? give me a wide spread.

minima moralia

signs mistaken for wonders

and, i dunno, one i'd like to read, say rancière, hatred of democracy

i didnt think id want anything but after looking at the website Élisabeth Roudinesco's book on Lacan looks good!

zizek - sublime object of ideology
zizek - living in the end times
various artists - aesthetics and politics
hal foster - the art-architecture complex
anabel hernández - narcoland

Contingency, Hegemony, Universality remains a favorite. and anything by Ernesto Laclau in general. wish i knew more, but Verso tends to cover things outside my competence. which is why i should read more of their stuff.

i can't find any info on "signs mistaken for wonders"--what is it? good title.

nevermind! it's moretti.

shit it's not in stock.

Jameson's Late Marxism is really good, though i read it probably a decade ago.

minima moralia out of stock :(

you should order it used anyway, to get the bad-motherfucker black cover instead of the newer grosser one

o wait i see the new sexxxier series has a kewl black hardcover now

i'll wait for a library copy.