Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I very much get the impression that people are talking here about giving away copies of their books, not merely lending them.
Lending seems fine to me, but only when done through a system, such as Amazon's, which enforces both a time limit and the inability of the lender to read the book while the borrower has it.
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And that is the crux of the issue.
You believe in the honor system when it comes to DeDRMing your books and we should just take it on faith that you won't do anything unethical with them.
You deny the honor system when it comes to lending a friend a book and having him delete it when he is done with it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbjb
I can see why enforcement is of interest to the copyright holder, and why it can be argued that it's required for a generally workable system, but when discussing an individual's ethical position when lending a book surely the thing that really matters is that the lender doesn't actually read the book during the loan, and that the borrower doesn't read it after its returned, not whether or not those restrictions were actually enforced by the system.
You are comfortable with stripping DRM from your books because you trust yourself not do do anything with the stripped books which damages the author. Is it not also ethically acceptable for me to trust myself not to read a book when lending it to a friend whom I trust to delete it when they've finished it?
/JB
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Precisely.
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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Quote:
Originally Posted by doctorow
Your mistrust of people's motives (motives of your friends no less) depicts a lonely and disconnected picture of this world. How can you still interact with them if you mistrust them with something trivial as respecting your wishes not to pirate the e-book you lent to them?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Precisely because, as I said in my previous post, on the few occasions that I've lent people paper books (which I keep in a pristine condition) I've got them back in a shocking state, with creased spines, bent covers, etc. It's not a matter of being "lonely and disconnected" - it's a matter of experience teaching me that, much as I enjoy the company of my friends, they don't have the same respect for books that I do. And if I'm pirating the book by giving it to them in the first place, it's a bit hypocritical to ask them not to do the same, isn't it? One rule for me and a different one for them?
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Some people I cannot trust to take care of my pbooks, and that is because they are careless individuals. In such cases, I do not trust them to delete an ebook loan, because like I said, they are careless people.
That is fundamentally difficult from the people who I
do trust to lend them pbooks, and ebooks as well.
Just because there is no one you trust does not mean everyone else is in the same boat.
I thought your issue with the alleged piracy of a loan is because they might not delete it, so how can you say "I'm pirating the book by giving it to them in the first place" separate from them pirating the book by keeping it?
I had thought your opinion was "I am responsible for making sure they don't pirate the book, by aiding and abetting them", not that you regard the loan itself -- even when verifiably carried out to an ethical and honorable end -- as intrinsically unethical.
Of course, according to a strictly legal definition, you are pirating the book when DeDRMing it, period.