[Catlady]

Originally Posted by ApK

I honestly cannot see how they are different.
One is giving someone an unauthorized copy, the other is giving someone an unauthorized copy. I see no meaningful difference in knowing the someone's name, or in the expected number of someones, other than when it comes time to calculate damages. Unless you think the likelihood of getting in trouble makes a difference? I don't.

Is there a meaningful difference between giving Aunt Mary a key to my house, and leaving the door wide open with a welcome sign and an invitation to all and sundry to take whatever they want?

What if you uploaded to the file sharing site and only Aunt Mary ever happened to download a copy? Now you did nothing wrong?

I said no such thing.

With Harry's cases I can see the difference clearly, starting with the fact that one is illegal and one is arguable at best, based on differing court opinions and ambiguous and untested language in the DMCA, and continuing on to one is clearly not a case of fair use, and the other seems to be, and finally getting down to the more arguably ambiguous moral concerns, which I personally see the same way Harry does.

Seems to me that saying that stripping DRM is just fine and dandy is a rationalization that most of us make, because we want to do it for our own convenience. The whole reason for it, really, is to avoid having to buy multiple copies of books. And THAT impacts book sales, just as surely as copying a book for Aunt Mary does.

Claiming that making a single copy to share with a relative or friend is equivalent to mass distribution and therefore constitutes piracy is just silly; it's an overreach.