Quote:
Originally Posted by nekokami
If you'd really like to change my mind, come up with a new way of explaining your point of view. There's not much point in debating the legal issues, as we live in different countries with quite different legal perspectives on this issue. But if you want to discuss morality, I'm still listening. You might, for example, start by considering whether there are any circumstances whatsoever in which it would be acceptable to receive a book from someone else without paying for it. Perhaps if we can define both ends of the moral spectrum it will be possible to find some common middle ground.
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OK, let me have one more go at it.
I have no problem whatsoever with you personally scanning a paperback book which you own, since you tell me that this is perfectly legal where you live.
HOWEVER, this is NOT the same as downloading an illegal copy of that book from the internet, from either a legal or a moral perspective, because that uploaded book is illegal. It can never be legal to download illegal material. This is true even if the end result is identical.
To use an example I've used before; I could buy two identical bottles of Bell's Whisky; one of which comes from my local supermarket, and the other of which has been smuggled from France without the payment of UK duty. Although the two are identical, I am breaking the law in buying the smuggled bottle, but not the one from my supermarket. It is the source of the product which makes it illegal, not whether or not I am "entitled" to own that product.