So, I have been using a.aaaarg.org as a resource for the past few months and have benefited greatly from it. However, this morning I logged in to my account to try to download an article that I haven’t been able to find anywhere else online and was shocked to find out that the site has been disabled!!! No more direct download links to any of their material!! Apparently they have been contacted by a “Mark Taylor” (I sure hope it’s not Mark C. Taylor) who threatened them with legal action if they didn’t take down their “copyrighted” material.
Is there anything that can be done to salvage this amazing academic resource???? Does anyone know of any other sites where such material can be found in such bulk without having to sign up with “Megaload” or some other file sharing site???
Thomas said:
You could always just put out a request. Someone else maybe able to access it.
Austin said:
Once the request is issued do they just get in contact via email to let me know that it’s available somewhere online?
Troy Polidori said:
gigapedia as well.
saidosed said:
send someone@aaaarg.org an email and s/he will explain what is going on. there has been a series of discussions which i’m not quite sure you have followed. and it is the “macmillan” mark taylor.
Austin said:
Thanks to all
joe blow said:
glad i d/led at least 1000 titles well in advance…
kvond said:
I don’t know Mark C. Taylor, but from the description of a recent book of his, it sounds like a decent candidate for the man who brought down Academic intellectual freedom:
“Awash in a sea of data that seems to have no meaning and bombarded by images and sounds transmitted from around the globe 24/7, people are no longer sure what is real and what is fake. Artists recycle ads in their paintings and businesses use images of artists in their ads; politicians mount campaigns based on hit films; and bankers make billions trading incomprehensible financial products backed by nothing more than abstract figures and signs.
In Confidence Games, Mark C. Taylor considers the implications of these developments for our digital and increasingly virtual economy. According to Taylor, money and markets do not exist in a vacuum but grow in a profoundly cultural medium, reflecting and in turn shaping their world. To understand the recent changes in our economy, it is not enough to analyze the impact of politics and technology—one must consider the influence of art, philosophy, and religion as well.”
kvond said:
And then there is this request in Oct 2009, was it that set off the action:
“”Requesting Please: Mark C. Taylor”
http://a.aaaarg.org/discussion/5026/requesting-please-mark-c-taylor
if anybody has Mark C Taylor’s Economies of Faith in A Virtual Culture, I would greatly appreciate the post. Thank you in advance.”
Austin said:
Not sure that evidence is conclusive, but it’s a possibility… I’d be a bit bummed. Not surprised, just bummed…
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kvond said:
As you can see from my most recent pngback, a little bird directed me to which Mark Taylor it was, and it most certainly does not seem to be Mark C. Taylor:
http://mitochondrialvertigo.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/macmillan-and-mark-taylor-take-down-aaaarg-org/
Adrian Ivakhiv said:
The site seems to be up, and the Arg Facebook group hasn’t reported anything amiss… Is this just an announcement of intention by Macmillan?
kvond said:
I’m too curious. What is the scoop?
Austin said:
The site is still up. However, they are no longer providing direct links for the material. Instead, the articles/books contain a request “external link” button. Once an item is requested, then the host will provide a link to mediafire or some other file sharing site where the material can be downloaded. It’s not quite as convenient or efficient, but it’s better than nothing…
Austin said:
So, I don’t think any legal action is imminent. It was more of a threat. So, the aaaarg community (including the aaaarg administrators) is seeking ways around the system by providing the material in other ways. Gotta love a motivated group of counter-cultural academics! :)
kvond said:
Has there been a loss of available material – that is, has all the “internal” material they had been now externalized? And could you link me to any social media sites (Facebook?) that is discussing the current threat and their response? How come no one seems to be talking about this and it is pretty much unGoogleable?
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merula said:
I only see a text AAAARG.ORG HAS BEEN TAKEN DOWN so is the site still anywhere ?
Austin said:
Oh, that web address is the old one. They moved a while ago. The site is up and functioning, albeit in a different capacity. Here’s the new address:
http://a.aaaarg.org
merula said:
Unfortunately I get the same message at the new address, too, is it possible to send them a mail or so ?
Austin said:
There was some talk about suspending any new accounts, so perhaps that is why????
Here’s an email address:
someone@aaaarg.org
Hope it helps!
merula said:
Thanks for replying, it worked about 1 hour ago so problem solved probably.
There are quite a lot of items with no direct links displayed but with a button Ask for a link, what will happen in these cases, will I get a mail/link from the uploader of the book ?
Austin said:
To be honest, I’m not really sure how it works. I’m not familiar with the new format… Just give it a shot and see if it’ll work; that’d be my suggestion :)
AAAARG said:
To begin with a quick point: the confusion in these comments is encouraging in a way, as smoke and mirrors are becoming a tactical necessity. I apologize now for writing anything that is untrue.
But a few points of clarification:
- Macmillan’s letter caused the hosting company to delete all files (i.e. it was not just an idle threat)
- The “going underground” discussion on AAAARG will give you more background
- The site never went down; for a week new accounts and new uploads were frozen
- Now, files are hosted elsewhere, links are external.
- If you ask for an external link, chances are someone will post one soon (especially if others have asked for it, which you can tell by the !!). If you have previously downloaded something before that doesn’t have an external link, create one.
- Dispersion: more to come.
And a final note. Macmillan recently made news for “standing up” to Amazon and keeping prices of digital books high. They are also ipad partners. Mark Taylor has been imported for his experience in the music industry. 3 of its 5 publishing areas are academic/ educational. Amazon and Apple are competing for the student market with the kindle and ipad. It’s worth taking this all seriously and seeing its place in the context of current conflicts over, for one, corporatization of the university.
kvond said:
I do think that it is worth taking this seriously – I wonder who is doing so other than those immediately involved with AAAARG.org. This is the very “stuff” of access and distribution, the kind of stuff that shapes the rivers of money and thought, the kind of stuff that changes things in unpredictable and longterm ways (not always bad).
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Austin said:
kvond,
I completely agree. The debate surrounding access and distribution is something that has serious revolutionary potential (in the Deleuze/Guattari sense). Do you have anything in mind that would be a sort of embodiment of taking this seriously?
kvond said:
Well all kinds of people got excited about the metallica and napster thing, but that was metallica and everyone felt the guillt of suddenly having their computer seized by police.
What I expected was that the micro-community of academic bloggists would get excited about it. These are people who are on the outskirts of the publishing world – infact I found out about AAAARG.org a while ago from one such much respected and loved blogger. But everyone is extremely silent. i thought that this would pour through the social media like wildfire, but as Adrian said, it really didn’t even make the AAAARG.org facebook page.
Is this because AAAARG.org is trying to lie low, and has real fears of prosecution? Is this because all these academic types really don’t want their theoretical “revolutionary potential” attached to real world, corporate context “revolutionary potential” (i.e. I want to be a Zizek someday too!), or is the story just boring to everyone? I want my texts and I don’t care how I get them.
kvond said:
I should add, the kind of action that would embody “revolutionary potential” would be a social media campaign that would eventually get the attention of major media markets – that is, the use of all that educated brain power to represent the values and ideas they study.
Austin said:
At a conference in Dundee, Scotland in March, I actually had a sustained discussion about AAAARG and other file sharing media with Prof. Peter Hallward (Middlesex) and Dr. Adrian Johnston (“Zizek’s Ontology,” etc.). Both of them expressed their support of open access social media. In fact, if I remember correctly, Dr. Johnston even said that he didn’t care about book royalties as long as he has a salary that covers more than enough to survive/flourish. I assume that such academics, who both have established names in academia, are not alone in their support of such media. Thus, it seems to follow that there are probably plenty of thinkers who could get together and saturate the market in support open access in a sustained, concentrated, and public sense – i.e. dropping those publishers that don’t offer open access or encouraging their current publishers to implement new policies.
At least re.press has been consistent with providing open access. Hopefully other publishers will follow suit.
kvond said:
Welll, this is the thing – the issue isn’t royalties, which are meager, academics almost all realize that getting rich by book is a silly idea, the spread of the ideas of the book, with attribution to the author, are what is hoped for – what is at stake is the collective power of, let us say, Macmillan, to bargain for market shares. Macmillian has every reason to try to narrow the representational bandwidth, they and they alone represent the author and their work. The work’s representation does NOT belong to the author, it has been bargained away at a very low rate.
So of course authors would be onto this. Indeed it would seem that this is a potential source of resistance because the natural inclination is to assume that authors own their work, and if they are upset about it being restricted (under any number of arguments) they could “unionize” (in the loose sense), and create a real shift.
The Macmillan contraction is no doubt a market strategy one, one that has to do with the iPad, part of a global positioning of properties.
I agree though. Perhaps start a website with an online petition, and advocate for publishers with liberal online, open access policies. It could be the publishing version of Green. Value oriented commercial pressure. Maybe instead of Green, it will be Clear.
Austin said:
I like that: “Maybe instead of Green, it will be Clear.”
helenajoshee said:
Want to know how and when and where. Somehow don’t believe a.aaaarg does not exist. Too many of us working on books ourselves need to have open access to other writers
pika said:
aaaarg – my little helper in the time of dead-line immergence is gone! Who knows what can be done?!
andw said:
yes. any news about or the future following the “aaaarg doesn’t exist” development of yesterday?
kvond said:
Gone are the times when you voice your theories in the open marketplace, literally.
Agora.
Anonymous said:
followup
darien said:
hoping to find out what rises from the ashes too.
Jim said:
I’m surprised there aren’t partial if not complete torrents of this archive somewhere. That seems like an obvious, if imperfect and temporary, workaround.
tube said:
yeah does anyone know any more information on aaaarg not existing?
mukundanunni said:
I request to whomsoever it may concern to make aaarg alive again.
purple said:
i hope there is a way to keep aaarg going
slip said:
two alternatives:
http://f60s.com/cache/p/646297/646500.aspx#646500
http://gigle.ws/
slip said:
http://www.filestube.com
Adam A said:
Indeed, a great loss.
It must spring up again somehow…
MrMarxche said:
Hey guys,
I wonder can we contact the aaaarg.org team and tell them to post a torrent or upload the files /links into gigapedia or ebedb or a website of the sort?
I mean I’m here in Lebanon, Middle East, and buying all those books is really expensive for me and many others. So maybe we can salvage the files and the links at least.
Just some thoughts because the site was extraordinary.My first thought was that it was hacked.
MrMarxche said:
or we can set it up in here in Lebanon where really copyrights are inexistant?! what do you think? (it is a serious proposal)
Anonymous said:
or at least someone with a good heart would put all the aaaarg files in torrent?
Austin said:
I was out of town for a while. When I left the site was still up and running (although in a limited sense). The new development just bums me out. Thanks for those of you that posted links to substitute sites!
Anonymous said:
welcome
eriktrips said:
I don’t know how many new members they can accommodate at once, but it is easy and relatively secure (so far) to share texts at http://ebooksshares.org./
Yes there’s a dot after org..
Private tracker; lots of other books too.
eriktrips said:
oh. And I should add that membership is currently open. You don’t need to know anyone who knows someone who knows etc.
slip said:
migrating from a.aaaarg.org?: better to use gigle.ws than ebookshares.org
with all due respect to eriktrips, academics are far better off using the gigle.ws system: 1. no need to seed and sustain your torrent on gigle, a one time upload takes care of the file for the future 2. the gigle.ws list is already very large and contains many of the files that a.aaaarg.org contained.
ebookshares has a nice community and is a user friendly site but gigle is functionally the better system and an easier option for building up a library of academic resources.
juliet said:
I love aaaarg ! It helped me so much! could anybody relaunch it! God bless you!
anonymous said:
FUCK THAT EBOOKSSHARES.ORG
TORRENT? JUST FOR EBOOKS?!?!?
AW HELL NAW!!!!!!!
anonymous said:
ebooksshares is a place started by 4 pedophiles.They first tried to set-up a sh1tty
pale-xvid to gather attention, but it failed hard because nobody gave a sh1t.
ebooksshares is pretty much a lame copy of every ebook site existed:”except that the books are in a sh1tty .torrent format” (replace the book forums with whining about nobody seems to donate). It has gained much interest among the most attention-seeking, un-intelligent and unreasonable stupid wannabe moderators. EBS forum gets probably 4 posts a day(LOL!) most of which are double-posts from the self-acclaimed admins
and mods who delete and ban everyone and everything that doesn’t agree with them.
They also like to spam on:
http://www.publichalls.com/military-ebooks-f162/password-to-luftwaffe-secret-projects-bombers-t42346.html
where they usually pretend to be someone looking for something and then posting the link to their sh1tty torrent site.
anonymous said:
ebooksshares IP: 89.185.228.149
stupid mod#1′s IP: 174.49.228.149 abuse@comcast.net
stupid mod#2′s IP: 80.6.29.245 skype: ashrow2
more to come…
anonymous said:
174.49.119.149 atlanta georgia
Anonymous said:
[img]http://i50.tinypic.com/25upnd1.jpg[/img]
Anonymous said:
http://www.aaaaarg.org/
MrMarxche said:
I’m IMPRESSED!
Anonymous said:
ebooksshares.org sucks
Anonymous said:
Why can’t you all just buy books? What’s the harm in supporting publishers?
Anon said:
Books and especially essays are ridiculously expensive.
Austin said:
Poor postgrads…
Anon said:
Hey anonymous — most of us DO buy books. Many of us use these sites as ways of accessing books not easily available at local libraries. Most people I know who use sites like these end up BUYING the books we really need.
Ironside said:
Kai01 the Pedo wrote:
Hey anonymous most of us DO buy books. Many of us use these sites as ways of accessing books not easily available at local libraries. Most people I know who use sites like these end up BUYING the books we really need.
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
BULLSHIT
Anon said:
Good point! I like it because it clearly elucidates your reasons for negating someone else’ assertions. Brilliant! Do you have a book for which I can pay $34.95? Because it would clearly be worth my hard-earned money! No reason to peruse that voluminous tome via a text-sharing site, it’s guaranteed to be succinct and astounding.
Three Cheers!
Ironside said:
BULLSHIT
Anon said:
Do you really expect us to read
“All that Shit”
ISBN 4873648726
by Kai01?
Anonymous said:
I for one have spent about $300 on ‘actual’ books this year alone. so yeah just can it would you?