'Yubin Archive' Pirate Library Operator Arrested, Illegal Study Materials Group Canceled For 330K Members (torrentfreak.com) 36
South Korean authorities have arrested the operator of Yubin Archive, a Telegram-based "pirate library" that grew to over 330,000 members by sharing textbooks, workbooks, lectures, and exam prep materials under the banner of "eliminating educational inequality." TorrentFreak reports: An official statement confirming the operator's arrest was published locally on August 12. The timeline suggests the arrest probably took place on or around August 9. The following notice appeared on Yubin Archive on August 11. "The Ministry of Culture and Sports' Copyright Crime Science Investigation Team used digital science investigation (forensics) and various investigation methods to identify the core operator, conduct simultaneous search and seizure at their homes, and fully secure the Telegram criminal activities," the Ministry's statement reads. "Investigations into accomplices who participated in the operation are also underway."
While copyright infringement at scale is almost always a crime, regardless of content type or claimed good intention, having a Robin Hood character in the mix risks dilution of key anti-piracy messaging. No surprise then that much is being made of the existence of a 'minority room' within Yubin Archive, access to which was only permitted upon payment of a fee. "The core operator of the 'Yubin Archive', who was arrested, was found to have created a separate paid sharing channel (also known as a minority channel) while promoting the illegal sharing of learning materials as a noble act to eliminate educational inequality," the Ministry notes. "In addition, the illegal sharing channel was a criminal act that could instill incorrect copyright awareness in most users, including teenagers. The Ministry of Culture and Sports is committed to continuing its efforts to track and strictly respond to illegal activities that abuse anonymous channels such as Telegram, to protect the rights of creators."
While copyright infringement at scale is almost always a crime, regardless of content type or claimed good intention, having a Robin Hood character in the mix risks dilution of key anti-piracy messaging. No surprise then that much is being made of the existence of a 'minority room' within Yubin Archive, access to which was only permitted upon payment of a fee. "The core operator of the 'Yubin Archive', who was arrested, was found to have created a separate paid sharing channel (also known as a minority channel) while promoting the illegal sharing of learning materials as a noble act to eliminate educational inequality," the Ministry notes. "In addition, the illegal sharing channel was a criminal act that could instill incorrect copyright awareness in most users, including teenagers. The Ministry of Culture and Sports is committed to continuing its efforts to track and strictly respond to illegal activities that abuse anonymous channels such as Telegram, to protect the rights of creators."
lesson for the future (Score:2)
God forbid people learn for free (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:God forbid people learn for free (Score:5, Interesting)
We need a system to put them into the public domain fast enough
Teach out of the public library system.
Will Hunting: "You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library."
Re:God forbid people learn for free (Score:5, Interesting)
Will Hunting: "You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library."
Not really. While some people can learn from books alone, most cannot. Then there is the topic selection, which is more important than the actual teaching because students lack the experience to know what they will need and what will give them efficiency. And finally, the quality gates (exams) are a critical part of it all.
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To elucidate: I meant that for traditional instructor, classroom, homework type learning, the course materials (textbooks) should be available through your local library. Perhaps as eBooks, lended for the duration of a particular course if necessary.
Public libraries have more clout in the marketplace than individual students. If they tell the textbook publishers that the proposed price is too high, they can get it knocked down. Or refuse to pay for the latest version, thereby withholding it from local coll
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I agree on that one. But this seems to be mostly an US problem. I have, so far, not required any of my students to buy any books, and if I had done that, the library would have gotten them in time for semester start and in large enough numbers for the whole course. They send out a questionnaire each semester. The slide-sets and exam sheets are obviously produced by me.
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I completely agree. I recommend to my students to write their own summary of the lecture and exercises. If I am teaching alone, they are allowed to bring that on paper to the exam and use it.
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Textbooks are a huge gouge. We need a system to put them into the public domain fast enough that they can be useful to people that can't afford them, or legislation to keep them affordable.
Unfortunately the number of people that can write a good teaching book is very small. Most of us have noticed that some instructors are much better at communicating with a class of students and seem better than average at introducing new concepts without loosing most of the class with dry repetition. Writing a textbook is similar. Introducing new concepts with understandable examples is a balancing act that not all writers can do well. Plus, the more specialized the knowledge in the book, the fewer write
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Suggesting that an author goes through all that work for free is unrealistic. Same with suggesting the publisher prints and lists the book for free.
That's where you're wrong, kiddo. On here, everything is free. Movies, software, music, you name it, all of it is free. It doesn't cost the song writer anything to write the song. Nor does it cost anything to produce it. The group certainly isn't charging anything for the song, for their time spent in the free studio, all the equipment used, the personnel who m
This is a very solvable problem (Score:2)
Any textbooks a lecturer requires their students to have should be paid for by the educational institution itself, not the students, for the institution to collect back from students at the end of each semester. The educational institution should purchase enough books to cater for the course modules, plus three, with one being destroyed in the name of producing a fully digiti
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There are more textbooks than necessary. There are many on the same subject.
This is caused by IP law, you cannot just improve the existing book.
Therefore textbooks should be Open Source, so that the existing book can be improved.
People will still need to be paid to work on them to make necessary improvements, but copyright should just literally not cover teaching materials. There are already fair use exceptions for education, so this would not even be a big stretch.
Re:God forbid people learn for free (Score:4, Interesting)
> Unfortunately the number of people that can write a good teaching book is very small.
I disagree. I claim that almost anyone can write a good teaching book, as long as they follow the instructions. How long it will take is up to the skill, but with enough repetition, I think anyone can do it.
1) Write the material
2) Test how well it works
3) Fix found problems
4) Go to step 2
I think the major issue with bad books is that they were never tested by anyone. I claim this, because I have found errors from math books that would have been obvious to anyone who had tried to do the exercise. This requires more work, but it is work that literally even a kid could do. It just costs either money or volunteer time.
> Suggesting that an author goes through all that work for free is unrealistic
You can have free text books and pay huge amount of money to the authors at the same time. You can get the money from government or private donators. You pay for the work once and after that the work is published for free use.
Re: God forbid people learn for free (Score:1)
This reminds me of an episode of Max Headroom (Score:2)
Police barge in and arrest everyone because the kids aren't paying to see the show's version of Sesame Street.
Re: This reminds me of an episode of Max Headroom (Score:1)
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Re:Easy Fix... (Score:4, Insightful)
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There is so much that wouldn't work with that, but it's enough to say that most people won't understand a bit of what you just wrote. If you want to establish a new system, in particular one where you need users for it to work, you need to make it easy. One click. Not "Buy a RPI5, find a trustworthy person on the network, build a VPN, do routing, add a blockchain (WHY?!)" but "Install this app and share what you have and download what others have.
Jesus fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
His mistake (Score:5, Funny)
He didn't brand it as Al
What incorrect copyright awareness? (Score:5, Insightful)
that could instill incorrect copyright awareness in most users, including teenagers.
What's incorrect? Copyright isn't there to benefit YOU.
If it was it would expire in a timeframe that humans could actually use.
If it was like patents where it's 20 years you could reasonably have some argument about it.
As is it's completely absurd.
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Yeah, that line is completely ridiculous and even freightening. What exactly is "correct copyright awareness" and how do you "instill it in a user"? Who decided on that? Does the user have a choice?
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It's no different than any other laws. Did you get a choice in the laws that apply to you in your own country? Are you upset you have to abide by those laws, even when you didn't even know that the laws existed? If so, what are actually you doing about it?
In reality, if an awareness of the laws of your country had not been instilled into you over your childhood and teenage years (most likely by your parents), then you'd probably be a failed citizen by now with a correctional history of some sort.
Knowled
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Copyright is one of the least accepted laws. People ignore it all the time and are upset when it is enforced. But companies are lobbying enough, that no politician dares to change something to better match the reality of the people who obviously do not agree with it.
Re: What incorrect copyright awareness? (Score:2)
Well done, copyright cartel (Score:4, Insightful)
So, what's the new URL ?
Pirating is morally justified until we get a 5 year copyright term, that does what copyright is meant to do - encourage creation.
You will PAY for your education goddammit! (Score:2)
Because capitalism!
Latter Day Book Burning (Score:1)
Telegram (Score:2)
Why on Telegram? Why do people still think Telegram would be some kind of safe haven?