Quote:
Originally Posted by sbroome
Technology shouldn't dictate people's morality. I find that with technology (aka price aggregators and websites where you can buy stuff on sale constantly) it's very easy to legally purchase entertainment. If anything the internet is a reason NOT to engage in piracy. One of the sites I follow notified me when the entire run of BSG was available on blu-ray for 80 bucks. What more do people want exactly? After all the cute semantics the reality is that people just want a bunch of free stuff, this isn't a civil rights movement.
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I don't disagree with you.
However, how about if you own the work already in printed form? What is the moral direction on that one getting a "pirated" electronic copy? Its perfectly legal if you were to scan your own paper copy, but not to download the pirated electronic copy. Yes you can argue that there is "value added" in the conversion process, possibly a table of contents added that is linked internally.
However, a lot of the ebook pirated versions are OCR scanned, and occasionally, user corrected for any scanning mistakes. So it isn't value added by the rights holder.
Or even a step futher, what if you already own the printed work, and the publisher/author has not made an electronic version available for sale, but there is a pirated version available?
In either case it is not direct theft. They may lose a(nother) sale in the case of pirating the work electronically whilest already owning the printed work. In the case of not making it available, they don't even lose a sale. You've already paid the rights holder for their work.
I truely am just wondering your thoughts on the morality of either scenario (not the legality, that has been established).