Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
I find the notion of shopping "abroad" for ebooks to be ethically questionable, especially when it's done to save money. But I admit its appeal when it's an ebook that you can't purchase domestically - especially when the alternative is to purchase a used paper copy, in which case the author gets nothing at all.
Invoking freedom to read seems like overkill, to me. You could always buy the paper book even if you had to buy that abroad. You might not want a paper book, but that's a different issue. No one's stopping you from reading it or accessing it.
Being able to purchase a particular title as an ebook is pretty far down any hierarchy of needs.  I'm not the internet morality police. But I find most justifications for it pretty thin. |
I find this a bit confusing. Am I to understand in your opinion that for myself as a Canadian, ordering a physical book from a UK bookstore is moral but ordering the same book as an ebook is immoral? The same geo-restrictions should apply since the publisher in the UK, in most cases, would own the rights for both editions in the UK while a different publisher would own the rights in Canada.