Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
There's a rather fundamental difference between using a cardboard box as a pet bed, and thinking that it's OK to download pirated books merely because you've bought the paper book.
|
So what is the moral distinction between converting CDs to MP3s versus books to ebooks? Would you be okay with someone scanning the book on their own, or paying a few dollars for a scanning service to do it? Now I'm the one having trouble following the logic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
No, I am sure that NinjaLawyer knows exactly that illegally downloading pirated ebooks is not right even when the pbook is owned. He is trying to make it morally excusable by hiding under format shifting a pbook into a ebook. That mere act may be legal for you to do for own personal usage. Now the excuse is to download a format shifted ebook from the darknet is ok morally, because you could have done it yourself anyway with your own pbook...
|
Actually, I'm
not trying to "make it morally excusable".
I think if you read my post more carefully, you'd see that I merely pointed out that some may not have an issue with downloading an electronic version of a book that they own physically, in the same way they might not have any issue downloading MP3s of songs they have on CD, converting VHS to digital or using their PVR to record from cable to watch later. That's just an observation, not a particular value judgement with respect to converting pbooks to ebooks.
In the context of this topic, I then pointed out that that thinking might cause an issue for the service we're supposedly discussing.
For my own understanding though, what makes scanning a physical book for your own use morally okay in your system (I'm assuming that, so feel free to correct me), but downloading an ebook that someone else has scanned (where you own the physical book) not okay? Does going through more steps to get the ebook convert the whole matter from wrong to okay?