Quote:
Originally Posted by volwrath
Interesting that you don't feel buying the paperback gives you rights to the ebook format if its available for sell. What about if you ripped the paperback up, scanned the documents, and OCRed it yourself? Would that make a difference? And if that is acceptable, what the difference between you doing it and someone else doing it.
|
The difference is in the distribution. Fair use may include my "media shifting" of a book I own but would not include giving a copy (that I made) to someone else. That is one aspect of the original ethics that doesn't seem to be addressed -i.e. "Is it ethical to download an illegally distributed copy of an ebook, regardless of what you have previously purchased?"
Keep in mind that even though the society's mores, which are essentially made up of the accumulated individual's ethical sense, generally create the country's laws (at least in the US), more often than not it is "whoever has the most money" that really make things legal or not. This is why, for example, it is illegal to build your own device to unencrypt video signals that the video satellites freely beam down on you, whether you want them or not. Those companies have spent more money lobbying the the everyday citizen has.
