Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
People seem to want to play both ends against the middle in this argument. Is it about perceived "harm" or is it about breaking rules? You can't have it both ways.
Rationalizing being OK with breaking a ToS or removing DRM because it "does no harm" (in one's opinion), yet denying someone else the right to rationalize that their breaking of copyright "does no harm" (in their opinion) seems like the height of hypocrisy to me.
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It's not hypocrisy at all.
If I remove DRM from a book, I
know that I'm not doing anybody any harm. I am in complete control of everything that I'm doing.
If you give someone a pirated copy of a book, you have absolutely no idea whether or not that person would have otherwise bought the book themselves (or some other book instead). Moreover, you've lost control of the process: you don't know what the person you give the book to is subsequently going to do with it, or who they are going to give it to. You cannot in all honesty say that you "know" you're doing no harm. You cannot know, because you have no control over what happens to the pirated book after you've given it away.