[jabberwock_11]

I don't think that anyone is claiming that downloading ebooks from less than legal sources is anything other than pilfering. Our statements of frustration and indignation are not ones of justification, but of an over boiling. It has gotten to the point where the situation, as some of us see it, is simply not tolerable. Seeing as most change begins with circumvention of established practice, we are acting like the canaries in a coal mine...the tip of the spear of folks who are no longer willing to wait for the publishing industry to catch up with the times. It is not justification, simply explanation. If I steal bread because I am hungry it is STILL stealing, even if I have a defensible reason.

I also have to point out that most folks here have zero problems with scanning their own paper books to make ebook versions; however, they take exception to the idea of having someone else do the work for them (as was pointed out by an earlier post). If I own a copy of a book and download that same book off of the darknet is it any worse than scanning it myself, and if so why? If you already own something should you have to pay for it in another form even if there is a free version of what you already own available? Should we all turn ourselves in to the Sony police for making mix tapes of their precious CDs? There are gray areas in this whole matter and no matter how you look at it there are plenty of defensible reasons for downloading ebooks without the express license to do so. Remember that VCRs were considered controversial when they first allowed people to copy tv shows and movies...that is until it was declared legal by a court of law. We may be in the wrong, but things change and so do ideas.