Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
But that is a totally different argument and not the one you made originally. This is an argument that says that because it is illegal it is morally wrong.
|
The law does have to come into the equation because an author is writing with the expectation that they will have a certain amount of legal control over what they wrote for the term of the copyright. They understand that by publishing, they implicitly agree to let the work enter the public domain at the end of the copyright term. Therefore, to some extent the question resolves around the author's legal rights.
Quote:
Well, no. I cannot see how I take income from somebody if I download something and then directly throw it away without looking at it for example.
|
You walk into a book store, take a copy off the shelf and sneak it out of the store without paying for it. As soon as you walk out, you throw it in the trash can. Now make the same argument to the judge?
Further, you have admitted that you don't just throw it out. You might throw out a thousand of the books, but you read some of them (after all, it would be silly in the extreme to just download for the sake of downloading). So, ultimately, you are trying to justify the part of your activity that does deprive the author of income by focusing on the the part that doesn't.
For your position to hold, you have to ethically justify the illegal downloading and reading of any books, at all!
--
Bill