Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
It's not "ridiculous" at all, unless you'd consider it "acceptable" to photocopy 10 copies of a pBook and give those photocopies to your friends? That's what the law is there to prevent you doing. It just happens that making copies of a pBook is probably more effort than most people are willing to go to, but that doesn't apply to digital data, of course. Would you consider it acceptable to copy an eBook and give copies to your friends?
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Actually, I would. Culture trumps profits at all times, in my ebook. It wouldn't be any different, to me, than when I give away a book to a friend. I've already read that book, maybe I won't read it again, maybe I will. For me the only difference would be that I now had an accessible copy on my HD.
The benefits of sharing have already been proven over and over again, whether you want to call it piracy or not is in the realm of semantics. A percieved, phantom sale is not an actual sale. It would then be up to my friend to decide on whether or not they wanted to support the author in question after I gave them a copy. It's been my experience that most people, myself included, go on to purchase back-catalogues, new releases and other related material after being given access to 'free' materials, if only to show support and feel as if they're contributing.
Truth be told I have bought more items of culture due to the ease of availabilty of these works through 'illegal' means than I ever bought beforeheand. I now own all of Cory Doctorow's novels in their pbook form, and yet I got them all for free. I also own pBooks of many public domain novels which I also have on the hard drive. Same for the Richard Stark novels I was given on a CD-Rom a couple of years back. Sharing is not stealing, it's the foundation of a healthy culture. DRM is the block to that culture.