[NatCh]

Originally Posted by cmbs

It's not a question of forcing people to stop downloading illegal books, it's a question of saying "we don't discuss that here" or "you can do it but we're not going to help you in any way, we strongly disapprove of that activity". You can't control the behavior of people, but you can control what you allow in your own place.

See, most folks would consider telling people what they can and can't discuss to be trying to control what they do. Discussion is an action, and therefore a "doing."

From the Policy

MobileRead does not condone or support the use of this web site to break the law. This means that, to the extent possible, we will not allow posting of instructions showing someone how to break the law or requests for such instructions.

In particular items that break copyright law or DRM cannot be supported. eBooks posted to this site must be legally posted using applicable law and permissions.

Originally Posted by cmbs

... "we don't discuss that here" or "you can do it but we're not going to help you in any way, we strongly disapprove of that activity".

The difference between those two statements is one of degree.

Originally Posted by cmbs

People do a lot of things you're not letting them discuss here, things that whether I think they're right or wrong, whether they're illegal or not, they have the freedom to do.

Ah, yes, the time honored"red herring." To which I believe the time honored reply would be "What's that got to do with the price of eggs?"

Originally Posted by cmbs

Mobile read is making a choice of what they're allowing. That's pretty much what you're saying, I just think if mobile read were more serious about not helping people in their piracy activities, you'd draw the line somewhere else.

If we were more serious than we are? Sure, we might well draw a different line, it would still depend on how serious we also were about the other relevant factors. For example we're also very serious about not trying to censor the whole world, so that affects where the line is drawn too.

Perhaps you feel that because we don't draw precisely the line you would draw it means that we are drawing no line at all? If we moved the line every time someone didn't like some particular stroke in it, that would be having no line at all.

Originally Posted by cmbs

This whole "freedom of discussion" is a convenient cover.

It would be, if we were putting it forward in the cynical manner you seem to be assuming we are. Given that apparent assumption on your part, I don't see any way to convince you otherwise.

Originally Posted by cmbs

You going to allow them to discuss assassinating the president? Blowing up Dallas? I doubt it.

Again: price, eggs, what?

Originally Posted by cmbs

The fact is that this community does give pretty clear instructions on how to remove drm in several places....

It's certainly possible, we can't police the whole bloomin' thing, there aren't very many of us. If you'd be so kind as to point out the instances you have in mind, I will be more than happy to personally remove or adjust them, as the posts in question require.

That's an open offer, by the way, to anyone at any time: if you run across a post of this type, please use the "report post" feature to let us know about it! It's quick and easy, and only hurts a little bit, I promise!

Originally Posted by cmbs

...and this thread is an advertisement for a site which illegally provides ebooks.

Well, it's certainly a fact that you view it that way.

We view it as a noteworthy item in the continually changing fabric of the effort to achieve legal access to ebooks. A blemish in that fabric, yes, and one I wasn't sad to see go nor am I particularly happy to see return, but it's part of it, regardless.