Thread: Used bookstores, harbors of piracy?
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Old 04-19-2012, 08:42 AM   #37
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggleton View Post
I have been thinking a bit lately about the ethics of selling used books.
...
It's very simple, actually.

If I buy thoousands of used books for 3€ each, read some of them, and resell them all on ebay for 6-8€ each, I'm doing nothing illegal or ethically wrong, and I'm reagarded as a good e-businessman, even if I'm making money from the work of authors without rewarding them.

If I download a bunch of ebooks from Megaupload, do not read them, do not share them and do not sell them, I'm not taking any advantage at all, but I'm a pirate, a criminal, a parasite and I deserve some jail time.

Point is, "digital" and "Internet" are always aggravating circumstances in modern ethics.



[OT]
Try this experiment:

Joe takes pictures of naked kids in his home. He develops his film and send photos by mail.

Jack takes pictures of naked kids with his 24MP DSLR, optimize them with photoshop and put them in a blog.

Now rethink your first reaction: which one of them you'd like to punish the harder?
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