Quote:
Originally Posted by jjylee1004
Was wondering if the newspapers Calibre allows users to download are legit. I just checked TorontoStar website, and they charge about $200/year for ebook version of their newspaper. Just curious.
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Yes ... but.
YES
Calibre downloads only material that is publicly available on a website, or only material that is available to legal subscribers, when they enter their user/pass into the Calibre recipe. Everything you see in a Calibre recipe-based ebook, you could have legally seen by going to that website yourself. It was all made legally available to the public by the newspaper on its website (or legally available to the subscriber who entered his user/pass into the recipe).
It's not like someone has taken the subscription that TorontoStar charges $200/year and copied it for other users. That's not how Calibre works.
I think most users agree that means the recipe-based ebooks are "legit."
... but
There are lots of "buts" we could talk about. Not everything on a site is added to the recipe. Advertising is often removed. Does that mean plugins like Adblock Plus are illegal? One can construct various legal theories for both sides of the argument. Generally they revolve around the ideas of copyright and "fair use" and "derivative works" etc. Some revolve around the terms of any license that may relate to use of the website, particularly when a user has paid for a user/pass and entered into some sort of agreement with the website owner. It may revolve around the specific laws of the country the user is located in.
I think we all have to decide for ourselves. There was a time when VCRs were of questionable legality and the answer to "Is using a VCR legit?" would have been about the same as the answer I made above.
Personally, I'm convinced that recipe-based ebooks are 100% legit.