Quote:
Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom
But what if I am downloading the books today at a fee that is less than it will be in the future? And that I will live long enough to continue to download the maximum?
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LOL. I obviously worry too much about these fine points. I suppose if it were a fee-per-download model (which it sounds like it is) then you would only be harming the library if books you downloaded but didn't read outweighed the difference in price adjusted for inflation.
Ok, so here's my new ethical dilemma: Let's say each book is an individual purchase, like pbooks, and can be downloaded as many times as possible provided that they only have the allowable number of copies out at once. With PDF books, I have the ability to turn things back in early allowing more downloads over time than Mobipocket. The most truthful thing I can do is download the book, read it and return it when done. If I have stripped the DRM, I don't have to retain the license to read it. Even if I took a week to read it, I could turn it back in right away and free it up for someone else. However this could cause the library to inadvertently violate its license for the book but at the same time it might increase usage of the ebook service allowing them to focus more on the enterprise, get more funding and purchase even more books.