Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
The difference, as I see it (and please feel free to disagree!) is that I see a significant difference between judging the ethics of my own actions and those of someone else. I know that I'm not going to upload a DRM-stripped book to a torrent site. I have no way of knowing what someone else is or isn't going to do, regardless of how well I think I know them. If I gave a copy of a book to someone, and they then in turn gave it to other people, uploaded it to the internet, etc, I'd feel morally responsible for that piracy, because it would be my actions which led to it. Because of this, I prefer not to take the chance. I should add that I also don't lend paper books to people because they don't look after them the way that I do. If I can't trust my friends to look after my paper books, I'm not going to trust them to look after my ebooks.
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But you are judging the ethics of others, and finding them not up to your standards.
Taking on moral responsibility for the ripple effect of one's legitimate actions seems to give off a whiff of inflated self-importance. If you loan your car to a friend, and that friend has an accident and kills a pedestrian, are you responsible?