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Originally Posted by GA Russell
But where is this guy Randy Cohen coming from? Are his ethics based upon anything other than his own ideas about what makes him comfortable? He never says.
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To be fair, this is where most people get their ethics. The three main sources for ethics are (1) Tradition, (2) Reason, and (3) Doctrine. After attending Jesuit schools, my approach is (2) Reason. In light of this, I'll listen to anyone's argument as long as it appeals to reason.
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I would not object to a proposal that we agree that one need purchase a book only once. But Cohen acts like his opinions are based upon some view already arrived at, and I don't think that we are there yet.
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You hit the nail on the head here! Cohen fails to provided a reasoned argument for this, and while I agree with the concept of the "permanent license" to a book, we need to carefully consider where this takes us.
Copyright law is not about ethics, sadly. The idea behind copyright is to give writers an incentive to write. Copyright law grants creators control over the copying and distribution of their work. Downloading an eBook is an act of distribution and copying, thus the copyright holder, legally, has the right to decide what type of payment is required for this.
So now on to ethics. I see two approaches to the ethics of buying a book:
1) If your position is that the ethical reason you buy a book (as opposed to steal) is to pay the author, then "format shifting," even with the help of a third party, is ethical.
2) If on the other hand, your position is that the reason you buy a book is that this is the terms the creator has set forth for acquiring his/her work. Essentially, you are entering into a contractual arrangement with the author (publisher really, but let's not complicate things) in which you agree to pay them money, they agree to give you an item, and you agree not to copy said item. In this case, downloading an eBook would constitute violating this agreement, which is unethical.
Cohen fails to give a reason to go with (1) rather than (2).
I personally feel that as a society we need to reconcile in law, practice, and ethics, versions 1 and 2. In other words, book sellers should SELL YOU a license giving you permanent rights to a work, rather than a copy of said work.