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Originally Posted by barryem
I'm not really sure what "an offense against justice" means. Does anyone know?
The article says they're afraid piracy will lead to fewer novels being published. Piracy has been around a long time. I just googled and found there are estimates of 600,000 to 1,000,000 new novels every year. It doesn't seem that piracy is slowing things down.
I'm all for honesty in obtaining books. I'm just as much in favor of honesty in the other direction. I'd love to be able to read descriptions of books on the back cover or on Amazon and be able to believe them. In the approximately 65 years that I've been buying books I've never been able to do that and it's no better now than it was when I was a teen.
I have no problem with shutting down pirate sites. I have no problem with shutting down lying book sellers and publishers.
The article also mentions the high percentage of ebooks on devices that aren't purchased legally. A lot of us make backups of the books we've purchased legally and then read them on our devices. I wonder how that affects those counts. I find it pretty hard to believe that most people have a very high percentage of pirated books.
I don't have a Kindle at hand as I type but I do have a Nook handy. All of the books on it, 561 to be exact, were purchased from Amazon, legally. None were purchased from B&N. If B&N were able to see what is on it now they might very well think they're all pirated books.
On my Kindles I do it a little differently. I'll make a safe backup of a book and send it to my library at Amazon to download to my Kindles. I have a lot of Kindles and Kindle apps and I like to rotate through them. I never read on more than one Kindle and one phone but I'll often switch Kindles so this helps me avoid the limits of 6 devices. I have contacted Amazon about this and they have no problem with it. In fact the last time I contacted them about it the guy said a lot of the Kindle support people do similar things.
This is all legitimate but it would be easy to misinterpret if someone wasn't paying close attention.
Barry
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The last thing in the world people want is justice. They mostly want to be excused.
What is moral justice as opposed to immoral justice.
I stole a book from the library when I was 11. I haven't stolen a book since. The book was
The Memoirs of Cordell Hull. I obviously wasn't interested in reading the book. It was a dare.
I am amazed at how people can justify what they do. I arrested some people from a church for charity fraud. They were insulted. I pointed out they were lying. Their leader said, "When you're lying for Jesus it's call a heavenly deception." Right. Got it.
While I don't approve of stealing books, I also don't approve of how textbook publishers conduct their business. In one of my classes, the very expensive textbook had two pages of "worksheet." You had to complete the worksheet and tear out the pages. Xerox copies got an "F". Oh, did I mention the professor wrote the textbook? And, I got a 25% discount buying a textbook when I wasn't a student. The clerk said that according to their contract, only students had to pay full price.
People shouldn't lecture on morals. The should demonstrate moral behavior instead. And, prepare to be hated.