Quote:
Originally Posted by alecE
I'm not too sure about the great moral generalities, but let me pose a specific instance for further commentary.
I possess a penguin paperback (Roy Lewis, 'The Evolution Man') published 1963 for which I paid 2/6d (old money = 12.5p new money). It's a very great favourite of mine, but the paper is going brown and it will fall apart one day and I would dearly love an electronic version. I have a number of choices:
1. Find a legitimate e-copy - so far I've failed;
2. Buy a new paper copy (£6.99 at Amazon) scan it and proof it;
3. Scan and proof my existing copy;
4. Find a copy on the darknet (so far I haven't, but I've not looked very hard);
5. Go without.
What are the morality 'ratings' of the above, and the reasons for the 'ratings'?
I'm wondering if the consideration of specific cases might help to clarify the general morality?
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In my often disagreed with opinion all are acceptable and moral, when somebody decided to put drm on ebooks they changed the game, instead of buying a book you buy a license to the content. Your dead tree copy thus gives you a license it just happened to come with paper media that you own. If your windows cd is destroyed by say a rampaging child you're not forced to remove windows from your computer you still have a license, if your paper book is destroyed then again you still have a license, if publishers don't like this they should have thought twice about use of DRM and just sold you a whatever it is that digital goods come as, a bucket full of 1's and 0's I dunno. Your paper book gives you perpetual license to the content.