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A Question on ethics
Forgive me if this has already been discussed at length. I am quite recent to these forums and my first e-book device, the Sony Portable Reader has not even arrived at my house yet.
Anyhow....
Supposing a person such as myself made an honest effort to live his life humbly before the God he serves, trying to do the right thing. This person would be adverse to downloading files of copyright material which he had not purchased. However, suppose the person owned a physical copy of a book and desired the book in Electronic format. In that case, is it ethical for the person to download the electronic text without purchasing it?
Also...
In preparing for my Reader to arrive I have perused the selection of books which many of you have done such wonderfully hard work in making available on this site. I noticed that some (i.e. David Copperfield, Pride and Prejudice, etc...) are illustrated. Now I know little about copyright law...only that the book must be at least 95 years old or published before 1920something to be Public Domain. So do illustrations (which presumably came after the text of the work itself) negate the copyright free status of the book? I desire to download many of these books but I need to know more about how the whole system works legally. Please help.
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