Quote:
Originally Posted by mcrow24
You misunderstand. I don't have that much of a problem with stripping DRM since post of the time you already paid for the book and just want to transfer it to another device or device that does not support the DRM. I said I understand why they use DRM. I don't strip DRM because I feel it is wrong and a pain in ass when I can buy my books straight from Amazon and read them on my Kindle no problem. More often than not they are about the same price as anywhere else. If others want to strip DRM that's fine, I don't think that most people that strip DRM are doing it for pirating purposes.
My beef is with torrenting or illegally downloading non-public domain books. As someone who writes, I think it is offensive if someone obtains my work without my permission (paying for it). If it's not OK to go to a brick and mortar store and shop lift a book, it's not OK to download a torrent of it either.
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None of that has anything to do with the argument I presented.
I understand your beef. You haven't addressed the casual sharing aspect that's common amongst users (here and in general, paper books and ebooks), and how it compares against the habits of the average pirate. A casual sharing aspect, keep in mind, which is not very different from casual sharing of physical books.
I am also not making an argument of what I think is right. That is a question I still ponder, and in the mean time err on the side of caution - I don't buy DRM'ed books, I do strip DRM from free books for personal use, but don't share any book that is not public domain. I'm not arguing what's right or what isn't. I am arguing that ethics don't existing in a vacuum.
You refuse to touch on the full breadth of what DRM stripping really means. Perhaps because it really puts into context how arbitrary your standard is.
And you still have not demonstrated to me how you arrived at your justification for brow-beating a poster of unknown intent without bothering to ask.
I am a writer as well. But I won't let irrational and poorly-founded fear cloud my judgement about how something works here in reality. In the case of DRM, poorly, for both writers and readers. Writing's a tough market. It always will be. Get over it. Using a bad system isn't going to change that. All it's going to do is tick off your customers and ultimately cost you at least as many sales as it saves (and that's the optimistic view - in reality you probably don't even break even).