Quote:
Originally Posted by Bilbo1967
There's a distinct anomaly between the first two paragraphs you quote. The first seems to suggest that anything that wasn't paid for is illegal; the second acknowledges that "free" doesn't necessarily equal "illegal".
I have a lot of free books on my reader, none were illegally obtained.
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Correct. It's a direct translation of the Dutch article, and this point is also mentioned in many of the comments below. Getting a book for free is not nessicarily illegal.
Muddying the waters even more are the statements "acquired through illegal means such as torrents", and "downloading books through torrents and usenet is legal".
At this point in time it's quite easy however: The Dutch government is of the opinion that it is either unreasonable or impossible to expect of someone to check the legality of each and every file before downloading, so we're allowed to download anything, apart from computer programs (unless they are clearly stated to be free), and we pay extra taxes to compensate. Thus, illegally downloading media isn't even possible at this point in time. Downloading media for which you should have paid is possible, obviously, but not (yet) punishable by law.
(I'm not stating an opinion if these extra taxes work correctly, or if this is a morally correct system or not. I'm just stating the rules as they are now.)