[HeffeD]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Not true.

Under Fair Use, I may make a copy of my legally purchased media, under certain conditions. It's completely legal for me to create an eBook from my pBook. What's not legal under Fair Use is for me to distribute that copy.

So instead of spending all the time and energy, I simply download the eBook. The end result is the same. Therefore it's legal under Fair Use.

Nope. The end result is not the same. There is a very big difference between making a copy yourself or downloading an illegally distributed product. Acquiring an illegal product is never legal regardless of your justification.

Originally Posted by rlauzon

As soon as you bring a physical object into the argument, your argument becomes invalid.

Nothing is being stolen. The person who bought the book still has the book. The person who wrote the book is still getting paid and still owns the book.

Legally speaking, copyright violation is not stealing.

No, the argument still stands. So you're saying the product you've downloaded doesn't exist? I assure you, the book is taking up physical space on your hard drive. It took you actual wall clock time to download it, and you used bandwidth. It's there, I assure you. You can physically interact with the file. You can open it and read it. You can move it from place to place, such as external media. You are indeed in possession of something of substance. A file is a physical object. Just because you can't hold it in your hands does not mean it isn't a physical object. And yes, it has been stolen. Did the author or publisher put it out for you to download? No? Then it was 'stolen'. Whether or not you've paid the person for your hardcopy is irrelevant. You also have an illegal copy.

Originally Posted by rlauzon

You need to learn more about business. Just because something costs more doesn't mean that the consumer pays more.

But you missed my point: Just because there is a cost doesn't mean that it should be passed on to the customer.

Errrmmm... Yes it does. If something costs more, the consumer pays more. Guaranteed. Otherwise there will be very limited product as the producer soon runs out of money to make the product. Sure, just because there is a cost doesn't mean it should be passed on to the consumer. Then where do you suppose the cost should come from? You're right. I need to learn more about business. I was unaware that something could be produced for nothing, and that actual sales have no relation to being able to produce something.

Originally Posted by rlauzon

As we have pointed out time and time again: eBooks that are priced at the same levels as pBooks simply don't sell well. Suckers only have so much money and when they've spent it, they don't buy more.

We know that eBooks simply do not have the same costs as pBooks. eBooks are significantly cheaper to produce. Therefore the price of eBooks should reflect that.

Oh, absolutely! eBooks are considerably cheaper to produce than a paper book. However pretending that the costs to produce the work don't exists isn't a valid argument. There should definitely be a price reduction as the production costs decrease. Much like the price difference between hardcover and paperback. But is downloading the product illegally the way to go about making this change happen? I don't think so. Simply having the product available to anyone does indeed result in theft. A large percentage of the population seem to believe that if they can get something for free, there is no need to pay for it. Sure, you might have purchased a copy of the book, but how many people downloading the illegal file didn't? That's lost revenue.

I'm in the music business, and I can tell you first hand that illegal downloading does indeed impact the bottom line. Do CD's actually cost that much to produce? No. Mass production costs pennies per disk. However, the gear required to make great sounding music is very expensive, and regardless of what you think, you do indeed have to pay for it. Inferior gear = inferior product. Of course, it's just as easy to make an inferior product on great gear, but as with anything, if you continue to make an inferior product, you don't last long... So yes as with books, downloaded music should cost less than an actual CD due to less cost to produce the end product, but the recording still needs to be paid for. To expect anything less is simply unrealistic.

People put time and money into the product whether you can hold it in your hand or not.