[mcrow24]

Originally Posted by SmokeAndMirrors

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.

many ereaders/stores allow for sharing. You can also check ebooks out from the library.

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.

I don't have a problem with DRM being stripped for personal use but like I said, I do understand why exists. Not that I really like DRM but it's clear why it is done.

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.

I guess you're going to have to explain to me how this is true. "fulll breadth" seriously? All it is, is protection the content of the file from being used outside of given device (for the most part anyway). It keeps things being copies, printed, or shared. I understand the whole anti-control aspect. However, you cannot compare trading paperbacks with trading ebooks. You can easily make it so that unlimited copies of ebooks are availible for download if there wasn't anything to stop it.

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.

99% of torrents are illegal. I have yet to run into anyone who used torrents to download stuff that was PD. The purpose and intent of torrents is to illegally distribute files. If you think otherwise you are not being honest.

IMO, torrents are nothing more than online black markets with the sole purpose of getting something for nothing. Can you get legal content from torrents? Sure, but the light will shine on a dog's ass once in while as well.

And for the record, the OP has yet to come back and dispute that he was using illegal torrents.

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).

Again, I'll say it for 4th time, I don't really have that much of an issue with stripping DRM. I don't like DRM. My area of concern is torrents and illegal file sharing. As I stated above, DRM does not stop pirating in any meaningful way and I don't agree with it but understand the intent. If someone wants to strip DRM from my books for their personal use, I couldn't care less. Personally, I don't strip DRM because I tend to go with the flow and my entire library is through Amazon anyway. I do think that it is illegal to strip DRM (maybe I'm wrong on that) but that is also another good reason not to do it.