Quote:
Originally Posted by Erinath
I have great difficulties with this point, probably because I do not see what is wrong with selling on a book you have read. I often buy second hand copies of books, sometimes online from sites such as eBay or Amazon but mainly from charity shops. When I've finished with a book I tend to give donate it to a charity shop, that way it isn't taking up space in my home and it is benefitting someone else. To me, it is no worse than borrowing a book from a library.
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I do not think it is wrong. But the author will not get anything from you selling the book. And the person getting a book you give away will not buy the book. And so on. So a lot of the arguments used for claiming that it is wrong to download a book can be used in this situation.
So if we accept it is OK ethically to sell a book or give it away after you have read it then we have an example were we do not think that the ethical arguments above are very strong. The arguments are much stronger if we give away many copies of the same book (electronically for example). And if these are the ethical arguments we use to decide if it is OK to copy (consume) a CD and than give it away then we ought to come to the same conclusion. The time shifting of the timepoint when you give the item away should not matter.