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Why are "moral" and "immoral" even being used as terms in this discussion? Whose definition of those terms are we using? Yours, mine, his, or hers? What makes one more definitive than another?
In this matter - the uploading and downloading of ebooks - the terms are totally arbitrary and subjective. There are so many gray areas in this discussion, the legality of which has never been tested in court. Ebooks are a totally different creature from print books. Books in and of themselves are totally different creatures from music and films, even if you only consider the culture of sharing books created by the library system and the used book market.
Then there is the whole matter of ownership - do I (just speaking in the abstract here) actually own what I buy or don't I? Do I recognize as legitimate any attempt to limit that ownership? If I don't, does that make me "immoral" - by who's definition and why should I allow them to define me that way? If I see my actions as "sharing", without advantage or recompense to myself, aren't I just doing what I've been taught to do since childhood? If I see my actions as a protest against a perceived higher-priced/lower-quality product, why should I be deemed immoral just because those gouging me want me to be seen that way? If I see myself as providing a service to an under-served area (orphan books, OOP series, dead favorite authors, unknown gems) does the potential good that results from that (higher author visibility, creation of new audiences, requests to publishers for reprints) make me immoral? If I am downloading just to hoard, and I never would have bought the books to begin with, am I actually taking sales away from anyone and if I'm not, am I immoral?
Are the author's or publisher's rights more important than the reader's? That's what some seem to be implying. Why is that? Why does the issue have to be weighted to one side or the other? The relationship between the three is symbiotic - none can exist without the other. Are the existing copyright laws realistic in this day and age, or should the whole law be revised? If one disagrees with the existing law, does that make one immoral? If a publisher refuses to reissue OOP books, does that make them immoral? If an author deliberately refuses to allow their works to appear in a new technological format, does that make them immoral? Or if an author/publisher reissues an old book under an new title and doesn't mention that it was previously issued, is that immoral?
One of the main problems I see with discussions about this topic is that some immediately start drawing correlations to actions in other areas of life - thus we start getting the examples of walking into someone's house and robbing them, stealing cars, etc., and words like "moral" and "immoral" start getting bandied about. It may make some feel good about themselves, thinking that they are on the "moral" side, but I don't think the issue is as cut-and-dried as that, and putting it in those terms over-simplifies it to the point of ridiculousness. Life is not black-or-white, and neither is this issue.
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