Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
What I specifically regard as unethical is the unauthorised sharing of copyrighted material (ie piracy).
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But piracy is not "unauthorised sharing of copyrighted material" it's "unauthorised
copying of copyrighted material". That's why the analogy with paper books is apt - I receive no explicit authorisation from the copyright owner to share the material but I can do so legally so long as I do so by lending the book itself not heading to the photocopier.
So ethically I can't see a problem.
Legally there are two potential problems:
a) Amazon has TOS (part of which you quote) - but that's not a matter of copyright law, that's (putatively) a contract between the user and Amazon. Such click-through contracts are open to question as to whether they're enforceable and open to interpretation by courts even if they are.
b) At a very low level technically there is copying going on when you use an ereader. The text gets copied from storage to memory, and from one memory location to another. I'm extremely sceptical than one could build a copyright infringement case on it.
Would you consider it ethical for me to lend you my (Windows) laptop? By your logic I'm "sharing" the software which is copyrighted. But if you only use the laptop not copy the software you're ethically OK surely?