Isn't Anna's Library piracy? Bookwyrm is just a book tracker ala goodreads which only has metadata, providing links to free downloads of books is illegal and would put them under fire.

If you want a legal alternative to what you're describing, check out OpenLibrary. You can borrow books there and use it as a Goodreads alternative.

Anything that helps bookwyrm grow its knowledge library of books (missing a LOT of books that goodreads has) is a good idea. I fear however that combining anything which points people to where to pirate the book might not help the popularity/reputation of bookwyrm as a good OS alt to goodreads.

In theory, if a good number of public libraries and and the Internet Archive each has a paid-for digital copy of a book, and decent infrastructure to ensure redundancy, plus a paper copy as the ultimate backup, then it seems unlikely the book's content will actually be lost before centuries have passed.

The problem I want solved is this: how do I get my money to the author of a book without needing to use DRM software and without paying tax to gatekeeping corporate monopolists?

Oh wow, they even have the book that was written about my great, great, great grandparents.

I've already bought the actual book but it's nice to have a pdf of it as well.

I mean, yea. The whole point of this project is to replace traditional internet services with updated and improved ones.

So, we should probably do that. It's not a question of the ideas being good or not, though, it's how there's not enough people to do all the sitting down and physically working to create these things. So, progress is slow. Just because there's not that many of us yet, in the grand scheme of things. Especially compared to the scope of the Fediverse's ambitions.

Never heard of Anna's Archive before. Not sure how I feel about the prospect of piracy in the fediverse explicitly.

I love Bookwyrm!!

With Anna's Archive there'd be issues of the legality of linking to it but BookWyrm does provide OpenLibrary links where available.

Ultimately, someone could create a more piracy focused fork of BookWyrm and start their own instance but I think it would be problematic for the core project to bake it in and open anyone running an instance up to legal issues. I suppose there's nothing stopping Anna's Archive from doing it to provide a more social interface to their database.

I have nothing against AA or Goodreads, and have never heard of BookWyrm before today, but the main thing I use Goodreads for is providing a link for a publication that has accurate info (full correct name, correct name of author, date of publishing, ISBN, etc) that does not involve an Amazon or other sales link.

So BookWyrm could never replace Goodreads for me anyway, and then there's this:

Write reviews or post casual commentary as you go, and control who gets to see your posts with granular privacy settings.

From https://joinbookwyrm.com/

It's like Facebook for book reviews. I couldn't even see a book myself because it's all locked down. And like Facebook if you have to create a private account to use it I'd never go there anyway without seeing it first, or specific interest in what it offers. (I'm one of those rare never-Facebook people you sometimes see in the wild, lol.) If I had been unable to browse Lemmy before joining, I'd never have joined.

Facebook overcame its initial participation hump by being .edu only, very exclusive, and word of mouth. They have coasted on that word of mouth factor ever since, because now it's baked into the media and daily online life. But they couldn't do it from scratch again today. So unless you unlock BookWyrm in some way, or its exclusivity becomes a major draw in itself, I don't know how it will overcome that initial participation hurdle.

I upvoted your post and absolutely support your goal in theory, but as someone who never joined Facebook, you could never get me to join a Facebook for book reviews, sorry.