[JoeD]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I see piracy as theft

My position on that is likely found in numerous posts on here, so I'll leave it at that We can agree it's wrong and leave semantics to others.

I have stated that I would only pirate a book when I have purchased the book and the e-book is not available on the market. The day the e-book becomes available, I will buy the e-book because I believe the author should get paid for their efforts. I paid for one format, I want another format, I pay for the second format.

I've no issue with that, although I don't really judge those who buy the books in paper form when the ebook isn't available to make up for downloading the dodgy ebook copy but don't then buy the ebook when it becomes available either.

I'm not sure how I feel in the case of ebook being available to buy, but you already have the paper version and don't want to scan it yourself. I can see why some see it as justified and others see it as wrong.

Since I no longer buy paper books though, I'd have no justification for downloading the ebook anyway, which is why I've yet to read HP. I don't own the paper books and won't illegally download the ebooks (fortunately, Pottermore has provided a nice solution

I get that other people do not see it the same way and feel like it is ok to pirate e-books of books they already own even if they could purchase the e-books. I have seen the various reasons why. I don't agree with this but such is life. I would not encourage said behavior but I am not going to run around saying that people who pirate are evil.

I take it from your previous posts, you're ok with format conversions as long as you're the one doing it, even if the process itself is fairly automated, such as mobi -> epub conversion.

If you were wanting to scan one of your paperbacks to make an ebook and your neighbour said they've just finished doing it, would you be ok with taking their scanned copy rather than making your own?

How about, if you could pay someone to scan it for you.

What if the person you paid, to save time when they're asked to scan the same book they've already scanned for themselves, just gave you that file (assuming you both had identical editions)?

Not trying to be facetious, just gauging whether it's the wide scale distribution with no way to know if the people downloading really do own the original that's the main issue? (and knowing that in most cases they probably don't)

As an aside, If there was a non-destructive service where you could pay to get a book converted to ebook form, no cutting up your existing book for scanning, perhaps just marking the inside of the front/back cover and then giving you access to the ebook, I'd be more against people downloading an ebook of a book they already own (whether the ebook was available or not). Something like they're trying with movies, only for books I think it makes a whole lot more sense than it does movies, where you can very easily do it yourself.

Probably make more sense for reference books than fiction though.