Quote:
Originally Posted by WritePR
Are you serious? Libraries PAY for every book they have available to check out, Pirates don't pay a dime. Libraries also have PERMISSION from the publishers to offer those books for lending. Pirates don't. That is why piracy is WRONG.
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For pirated books, someone paid for it, just like the library. If the library acquired the book used--like, from a collector, or an archive elsewhere--that library didn't pay the publisher for use and loaning of the book.
Pirates, indeed, do not have permission, nor a legal right to share books.
Libraries do not have permission to loan pbooks; they are limited to those ebooks that publishers have specifically granted permission for, and those in the public domain. (I know of no libraries with public-domain/creative commons ebook lending systems.)
Knowing that a thing is
illegal is not the same as knowing that it's
wrong. (Women voting was illegal for a very long time. Child labor was legal for a long time. The US has changed its mind on the legality of these things, based on peoples' opinions of right and wrong.)
It's unclear why it's morally acceptable for libraries (and individuals) to loan pbooks but not ebooks.
It's clear (to those who think about it) that allowing rampant copying-and-distribution of ebooks would result in authors not being paid, and that would be A Bad Thing. However, allowing small-scale copying--the kind that equates to pbook loaning, "I won't open it as long as you've got the file" (which could be easily arranged technologically, by putting the file on a shared server and only allowing one copy to be open at a time)--doesn't strike many people as "wrong."
Until the law allows and legitimizes the kind of loaning that has always supported the book industries, piracy not only isn't going away, the public isn't going to be riled up to try to stop it.
"1 buyer should mean 1 reader" is never going to be an effective morality claim, any more than "1 buyer=1 listener" will work for music.