Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparrow
If I buy and read a still-in-copyright pbook second-hand, it doesn't benefit the original producer, but you argued:
"People who create e-Books for commercial distribution do so for commercial gain, and deserve to be rewarded if one reads their books."
It seems that second-hand bookshops are violating your moral principle (if it applies to pbooks as well as ebooks - maybe there's a distinction I'm missing).
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Selling a book in a 2nd hand bookshop is no different to passing it on to a friend; the author has still been paid for the book. The difference between a pBook and an eBook is that the pBook can only be physically read by one person at a time; it's rather different to 1000 people downloading a copy of one original eBook, don't you think?
Moral principles are never entirely "black and white" - one has to be sensible about applying them. In the case of 2nd hand bookshops I think that their
benefit to society (that of keeping out of print books in circulation) outweighs any potential loss to an author of a lost sale as a result of someone buying a 2nd hand book rather than a new one. Don't you agree?