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Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Not really. Both the uploading and downloading of ebooks with no distribution contract with rights-holder in place to do so is copyright violation. And whether money changes hands or not, the ebooks in question have been pirated. Many uploaders make money from their efforts whether it be through direct payment or ad revenue. Neither scenario is more, or less, piracy.
You want to argue that a friend passing another friend a copy of an ebook (outside of any official "sharing feature") isn't piracy? I'll entertain that notion (but I won't definitively agree with it, either). But online file-sharing sites? That's piracy whether money is directly changing hands or not. Uploading or downloading copyrighted ebooks you've no right to upload or download is both copyright violation and piracy.
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You have a different definition of piracy that I do. The term piracy was hijacked by the music and movie industry since it has a much more negative connotation than copyright violation. People redefine words a lot for rhetorical purposes, that doesn't mean that I have to accept their redefinition.
Yes, I would argue that someone passing a copy of an ebook to a friend isn't piracy. However, it's neither legal nor moral in my opinion. As I said earlier, IMPO, the case of the orphaned work is a lot less straight forward from a moral point of view.