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Originally Posted by HarryT
How about if there were a commercially available eBook? Would you buy that if you'd previously bought a paperbook version, or would you feel "morally justified" in downloading that without paying for it?
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In the case of HP7 there is no ebook available. I did purchase the book. So, if I was to have downloaded it to read electronically, I would not be taking away any profits from anyone.
Lets say there was an ebook edition of HP7, would my downloading it be any different then taking a CD and converting it to MP3 for my use when some online record shops sell an MP3 copy of that CD? So if I found MP3 of that CD online someplace and downloaded it to save myself the hassle of doing the conversion, is that still wrong?
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At the risk of repeating myself, it is a completely false analogy to compare borrowing a book from a library to downloading it from the internet. Firstly, every library from which someone borrows a book has bought that book, perhaps several copies of it. This HP eBook was created from photographs of a illegally-obtained manuscript which nobody paid for. It's a totally different situation. Secondly, in the UK at least, authors get paid for library loans on the basis of how many of their books are borrowed by libraries, nationwide, over the course of a year. Not a vast amount, but popular authors get a few thousand $.
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Here in the US, I don't think the authors get a cut from borrowing from a library. They do get the standard profits from the library having purchased the book(s).
The photos of HP7 were from a book that some shop released before the release date. The shop allowed this customer to purchase the book before it's time. This said customer then took photos of the book and posted the photos on the net. The second electronic copy was a copy typed in from these photos. I think there is also at least one scanned/ORCed copy out there as well.