[SleepyBob]

Originally Posted by Catlady

So ... motive determines morality?

Motive is almost always a factor in morality. Stabbing someone with a knife because they won't give you their lunch money is generally considered not moral. Stabbing someone with a knife because they are trying to kill you is generally considered ok.

Suppose the motive for sharing files is to allow people who otherwise don't have access (lack of funds, geographical restrictions, etc.) to certain books to read those books? Suppose the motive for downloading files is to sample certain authors whose books I might buy in the future? Suppose the book in question is out of print?

Then, one moral action could be to buy paperback books for those poor people. Or to look at the used book catalogs of Amazon resellers. Having what you want in an ebook format isn't a constitutionally protected right in any country that I am aware of.

These "motives" make me think of the movie theater analogy. If I don't have spare money to see a movie in the theater (and with 5 kids, I often don't), then I don't go, because I need/choose to spend my money in other ways. What I don't do, is say since I won't pay for a ticket, then I might as well sneak in and sit in an empty seat for free.

You think it's legal and moral to photocopy a page out of a book to replace said page in the book one owns.

It is legal because it falls under the fair-use exemption of copyright law.
It is moral (to me) for much the same reasons that the fair-use exemption makes it legal. Certainly

Well, I have paperbacks I duly paid for that have pages falling out and cracked bindings and torn and missing pages. Shouldn't it be moral for me to get a digital replacement?

It's not legal, as the infringement would not be exempted by fair-use.

You asked for an example of when quantity changed something from being legal to illegal. I gave it. Whether you or I feel that this different situation is moral or not is an entirely different discussion. And since different people have different views on what is moral, that's mostly a pointless discussion.