Quote:
Originally Posted by scveteran
Sorry, but IMO the guys who are pirating the files ARE the bad guys. I also know better than to believe the stuff you are selling about all publishers being the bad guys. There are some that are bad apples, but there are others that are honest business people.
I also disagree with the idea that some here espouse about all corporations being evil. The vast majority of corporations are legitimate businesses that follow the law and do things honestly and above board. Many of them also give large sums of money to charity.
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In what way are they the bad guys? If they feel the current copyright laws unjust then disobeying such a law may be unlawful but not immoral however morality being subjective let's consider other points. Harm, at what point does piracy cause harm, to what extent is that harm and who is harmed?
I'd find it hard to argue that a book still in print has value to seller and buyer. However I fail to see harm in a copy being received by someone who would have never purchased the book to begin with. If I'm given a dead tree copy of the romance novel I'm not going to read it, the author and publisher gained from the sale but if it was not bought for me they would not have. If i download the same book and never read it again there was no harm, no lost sale. If i were to read the dead tree version given to me (highly unlikely!) and then decided I liked it I might account for future sales, a gain for the publisher and perhaps even the author though they're still unlikely to ever have royalties exceeding their advance. If it were the ebook version I read, there's still the possibility of future sales but no original sale I would have in essence gotten a promotional copy but without author consent, still no direct harm since there was no way I was going to buy that book it's like a library copy but for some reason I'd still have it, immoral most likely, unlawful yes, direct harm none.
Next, we have the case of a book no longer in print. Direct harm zero it was not available to begin with there was no sale to be made. Future harm possible, there could be a reprint or an ebook release however old publishing contracts didn't assign electronic rights so an ebook won't be forthcoming and then then only harm would be if a reprint of the paper edition were released and not bought.
Or do you come from the position that all copying is wrong? The riaa argued that ripping your cds to put on your ipod was not fair use or that burning an extra copy of a cd to put in your car was not fair use. If you come from that school of thought then there's probably zero chance to reason with you. In recent years those arguments got slapped down, I can find a citation if you need it but I don't have one at hand and would have to dig it up. I'll for the moment assume you believe in fair use and ask what is the moral difference between scanning a book and downloading it form someone who did the work for me, assuming they're making that offer free of charge? The end result is the same only many hours of work have been saved. Would you object to proofreading someone else's scan and returning it to them?
The rest... Corporations are amoral, their purpose is profit, nothing wrong with profit but all but the most mercenary of us place limits on what we would do to profit. Not so with corporations even google with their motto of don't be evil censor Chinese search results, peep into people's windows and take photos, disregard and kind of privacy for their users and themselves violate copyright protections (citations available on request). In the US they're allowed to disregard campaign final laws that restrict individuals and spend with abandon to advance their interests in Washington and most importantly for this debate engage in hollywood accounting to deprive artists of earned royalties.