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Originally Posted by Format C:
Bu I'm more concerned about the ethical aspect of it: why to get a torrent is to blame, while all the mentioned legal methods to access the book contents wthout rewarding the author are not?
What do you think? Do you consider borrowing books immoral because the author is deprived of his income?
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It's an interesting question, certainly.
The answer that I'd offer is that "legal" methods of sharing content do not (generally speaking, at least) involve creating additional copies of the book.
Let's say an authors sells 100 copies of a book. Perhaps some are bought by libraries, some are bought by one person, and then passed on to a friend. The point is that only 100 people can be reading that book at any given time. If a 101st person comes along and wants to read the book, he has to buy a new copy of it, because all the 100 copies that are currently in circulation are in use. That restriction does not apply once the book is pirated: a buyer can give a copy of the book to 1000 more people, and they can all read it at the same time.
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And how downloading a dead author's book is depriving him of his income?
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It's depriving the author's heirs of their income. An author's royalties are the legacy he leaves to his family after his death.
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Do you go by the equation legal = ethical?
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No, certainly not. I don't think that any reasonable person would consider format conversion to be unethical, for example, even though it's currently illegal under UK law. Even the music industry in the UK thinks that it's ridiculous that it's technically illegal to rip to your iPod a CD that you've legally bought.