Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Can you explain why it is "nonsense" to say that illegally downloading a book, rather than buying it, is depriving the author of income? It appears to be something which is self-evidently true to me.
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The point is that you're depriving the author of his income when you actually access the content of the book, not by just making a copy of it.
Like I said, there are several ways of legally deprieve the author of said income, without breaking any law.
So, I suppose we have to blame as ethically wrong things like borrowing books, buying used paperbacks, in-shop browsing, in-library reading (which is free in my country), having someone read aloud, peeking a reader's shoulder, and so on (*).
Unless we say that everithing legal is also ethical.
In such a case, it's enough to change the law to make piracy ethically right.
(*) I ruled out Wikipedia, because you already said you don't consider reading plot summaries a deprivation of income for the author, despite the fact lots of people do that instead of buying and reading the whole book.