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Originally Posted by HansTWN
The downloader has taken something they have no right to take --- they have enriched themselves with the fruit of other people's work. That is the moral violation. Just as if an employer doesn't pay a worker --- "I have taken nothing from them, just their time". And if the downloader actually reads the book then they have done actual harm equal to the lost purchase price.
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Gaining a benefit from something somebody else did without paying them, is no necessarily immoral or harmful. If Joe, owner of Joe's Coffee Shop, puts some tables and chairs out on the street in front of his shop so that his customers can sit and drink coffee, he expects to see some return on those tables and, understandably, doesn't want people who are not patronizing his shop to sit there. If I work such hours that Joe's is always closed when I walk by, but Joe leaves the tables and chairs out and I sit down at a table and drink the coffee I bought from an all-night doughnut shop while sitting at Joe's table, what harm have I done to Joe? He didn't lose any business from me depriving paying customers of a seat [because a copy of an e-book does not deprive a vendor of a saleable copy], I haven't deprived him of any money from by not making a purchase because he wasn't open. If I had walked on by without sitting the effect on Joe's revenue would be exactly the same: zero [just as a copy of an e-book that someone was never going to pay for does not decrease anybody's revenue]. I have certainly gained a benefit from having a lovely place to sit, but it was at no cost to Joe, it didn't negatively affect his business, and it didn't deprive him of any physical property.
An employer and employee have a pre-aranged agreement regarding pay. I have made no such agreement to pay anyone for a book. I have not broken my word to anyone if I make a copy. And reading a copy of a book one didn't pay for doesn't deprive anyone of a penny. I can go to a library in a city I don't live in and sit there and read a book bought with somebody else's tax money. i have paid anything and, according to you, I now owe the author the cover price. Ludicrous.
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The easy choice is: "you don't want to pay the price, then just read something else". The "wouldn't have purchased the book anyway" is just a red herring, and doesn't really matter. You could use that for anything.
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I don't think you know what a
red herring is. The original point was that an infringing copy that does not take the place of a copy that would have been paid for results in zero loss. This is completely relevant to the point of whether copyright infringement always causes harm.