View Single Post
Old 02-05-2010, 06:01 PM   #201
Ben Thornton
Guru
Ben Thornton ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Ben Thornton ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Ben Thornton ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Ben Thornton ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Ben Thornton ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Ben Thornton ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Ben Thornton ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Ben Thornton ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Ben Thornton ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Ben Thornton ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Ben Thornton ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Ben Thornton's Avatar
 
Posts: 900
Karma: 779635
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: UK
Device: Kindle 3, iPad 2 (but not for e-books)
Re the OP, I put "Other" because the recent spat over Macmillan is not what prevents me from buying eBooks. What irks me is (1) geographical differences in pricing and availability and (2) the relative price of a physical book.

So, I'd pay more than $15 if that was the going rate (i.e. the physical book was a bit more) and it wasn't falsely cheaper somewhere else (i.e. I wasn't paying a massively inflated rate due to geographical restrictions).

It's when I feel that I'm being ripped off that I won't buy the book (or, obviously, if I don't value it enough to pay the price in an absolute sense).

Re the main (off!)topic, I'm surprised at how vehemently some people seem to react against the idea of any illegal copying at all. As many have pointed out, whether something is wrong is a matter of social consensus Some people seem to think that there is a social consensus that illegal copying, for any reason, is wrong. That isn't my experience of people's attitudes at all. Most people that I know and have known wouldn't think anything wrong about having some cassette tapes of vinyl albums, keeping videos recorded off the telly, swapping some mp3 files etc. My point here is not that it is morally right or wrong, but rather that I don't think that the social consensus is that any illegal copying is bad. My experience is that the majority of people infringe copyright on a regular basis and think nothing of it.

FWIW, I don't feel that I've done anything wrong if I illegally obtain a copy of a book that I've got physically, or that I can't find electronically, or even from a major author that I want to try out. It's not that I don't want to pay for books - I've bought several ebooks and will continue to do so. But, as with music, although I've bought hundreds and hundreds of CDs, I'll occasionally copy some too.
Ben Thornton is offline   Reply With Quote