Massive wave of ebook piracy?

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

That wasn't the concept you conveyed. However, just deciding what is right and wrong will never make it so.

It makes it so for me. If it doesn't for you, well, it's your problem.

[paaThaka]

Originally Posted by MrPLD

So, you have to shout it out and wear the T-shirt to make it disobedience?

Yes - more or less.

Otherwise it is just mere stealing. Nothing more.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

It makes it so for me. If it doesn't for you, well, it's your problem.

No it's not. You live within a group, a society, you can either agree or disagree with particulars, but it's the group that determines whether your decision is right or wrong not you.

[ManosHandsOfFate]

Originally Posted by kennyc

No it's not. You live within a group, a society, you can either agree or disagree with particulars, but it's the group that determines whether your decision is right or wrong not you.

So then when slavery is accepted as "right" by a particular society it makes slavery right?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by ManosHandsOfFate

So then when slavery is accepted as "right" by a particular society it makes slavery right?

In that society, at that time, yes.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by kennyc

In that society, at that time, yes.

Absolutely - you can't impose the morals of one society onto another.

No doubt, many years hence, there will be things that we currently accept as perfectly normal which are looked back on with abhorrence.

[ManosHandsOfFate]

Originally Posted by kennyc

In that society, at that time, yes.

So what if a society is evenly split, or say 55/45 on a particular moral issue? Is it just majority rules?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

What rationalization?

Of always following the speed limit. You feel silly doing it so you ratioanlise it by calling people breaking the speed limit for immature. Typical rationalisation.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

In that society, at that time, yes.

That is cultural relativism and that moral theory have serious problems.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

No it's not. You live within a group, a society, you can either agree or disagree with particulars, but it's the group that determines whether your decision is right or wrong not you.

By "group" do you mean by majority consensus, or just the dictates of a minority that holds power over the group? As an example, copying a music CD to your computer is illegal in the UK, but it is something that the majority of the population would see nothing wrong with.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by ManosHandsOfFate

So what if a society is evenly split, or say 55/45 on a particular moral issue? Is it just majority rules?

This is a very slippery slope. I suggest we get back to the original topic before we are sucked into the black hole.

[TGS]

Originally Posted by kennyc

This is a very slippery slope. I suggest we get back to the original topic before we are sucked into the black hole.

From where no information can ever....oops, sorry, wrong thread........

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by TGS

From where no information can ever....oops, sorry, wrong thread........

Except for Hawking Radiation....

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by tompe

Of always following the speed limit. You feel silly doing it so you ratioanlise it by calling people breaking the speed limit for immature. Typical rationalisation.

That was just totally lame and doesn't even deserve the little laughing guy. First, I do NOT feel silly obeying the law so that blows that argument out of the water. People who break the law, such as speeding, are doing it for selfish reasons and THAT is immature, along with your lame comeback. To quote KenneyC's post that so aptly describes it:

You live within a group, a society, you can either agree or disagree with particulars, but it's the group that determines whether your decision is right or wrong not you.

[Krystian Galaj]

Well, "might makes right" principle surely still sticks around. I just meant that I determine what is right for me, as Galileo did when he muttered 'and yet it moves'. What public face I keep to appease other primate animals is another matter.

Back to the subject, I don't want to write a 3-page post again, so I'll just summarize my viewpoint in short: ideas and knowledge can't be property, anything you can share and multiply as easily as Jesus shared fish and bread is a common property of intelligent beings (currently mankind), we add to it, each building on what ancestors built, modifying it, expanding. Every writer writes books with words invented by other people, ideas polished and spread through the ages, and very rarely his craft of putting those bits and pieces together produces something comparable in value to the value of bits themselves. For those rare gems I have appreciation, and I donate, and buy hardcovers. For those other thousands of books written every year, well, I'm quite satisfied with public domain instead. In both cases I don't consider book a property, and copyright anything sensible, and I believe copyright should be abandoned (or at least shortened to a few years, kept purely for utilitarian reason). I'm also fine with people who don't want to create without monetary compensation to do something else. I'm sure civilization won't die.

I wonder if you'll believe me that despite having no qualms about reading pirated books I haven't done so for years now, all my reading time consumed by public domain mysteries from XIX century from here and Munseys...