Dilemma

[astra]

Originally Posted by Alisa

*tries to distract the pitchfork-waving mobs with yummy pie*

Apple Crumble Pie

INGREDIENTS

* 1 (9 inch)

Good one.
Hopefull we will have plenty of them in a few years

[nekokami]

Yum! Pie!

What was the question again?

Apple! My favorite!

[Jadon]

Originally Posted by Alisa

*tries to distract the pitchfork-waving mobs with yummy pie* Apple Crumble Pie

I'm allergic to apples. Really. Annoying, since I liked apples. But not half so annoying as being allergic to yellow dye. You wouldn't believe the number of foods that have "FD&C Yellow #5" in them. Everything from pickles to chocolate cake mix.

[nekokami]

Wow, that's annoying.

I think the recipe would work for pears, though. Can you eat those?

[Penforhire]

Hmm, I see the automatic assumption that an unauthorized e-book is pirated. That is, to me, an error. That is your opinion not fact. I argue the morality of owning the p-book and getting the e-book however you want. I suppose the issue will make to court some day but do you REALLY expect a different answer than for MP3's? Why? And to distinguish between digitizing your own p-book versus downloading it elsewhere is Luddite thinking (again, to me).

That means the poll does NOT indicate such a high percentage advocating piracy, just a high percentage advocating something you disagree with.

[jasonkchapman]

Alisa has pie-rated the entire thread.

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

Alisa has pie-rated the entire thread.

[LittleMi]

This question of not downloading because it means you are not paying is rather more complicated then this poll suggests. I buy all my hardcopy books from charity and second hand shops and borrow others from the library, its been over a year since I bought a book from a proper bookshop, so am not giving any money to the author or publisher. How is this differant from downloading from darknet? Are you suggesting that it is unethical for me to buy second hand books or borrow them from friends?

[nekokami]

I guess the idea is that you're giving money to the previous purchaser of the book, who gave money to the publisher (somewhere back in history), so you're sort of splitting the payment to the author. And paper books do limit the spread of copies.

I'd like to see Amazon make a bigger push to get authors to have their own Amazon shops so they can get paid for used copies of their books, personally. I set up a shop for Steven Brust, but I think it would be cool if Amazon would automatically include that shop link on all his books.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by LittleMi

This question of not downloading because it means you are not paying is rather more complicated then this poll suggests. I buy all my hardcopy books from charity and second hand shops and borrow others from the library, its been over a year since I bought a book from a proper bookshop, so am not giving any money to the author or publisher. How is this differant from downloading from darknet? Are you suggesting that it is unethical for me to buy second hand books or borrow them from friends?

(I stopped in, because I heard there was pie.)

Actually, borrowing from the library does pay the author/publisher, albeit at a different rate than bookstore-bought books.

The question of used books, especially compared to e-books, has been a tricky one around here for quite some time. A used book is by definition resold (or donated) by someone who paid for the book originally. Further, it is exactly one book, and it is re-sold as exactly one book... not thousands of copies of the one book.

This is where the comparison between used print books and the darknet falls short: E-books on the darknet are not one book, so the original purchase of one book (assuming it wasn't stolen) results in potentially multiple copies. All offered on the darknet for free. So, instead of one possible print book floating around and not getting paid for, you have potentially thousands of copies of the book, not getting paid for. This means the author/publisher is not theoretically missing out on one sale, they are theoretically missing out on thousands.

But, as others here have ably pointed out, "theoretical" covers a lot of ground here, and renders the entire subject... subjective.

So, if you want to be as ethical as possible, short of buying a book, get it from the library, and the author/publisher will get something for their trouble. Everything else does not compensate them at all, and (theoretically) could be costing them money, which should be taken into consideration if you're concerned about that kind of thing.

Theoretically.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

Frankly, I think we should end this discussion here and now so we can focus on the real problems at hand: My eink eReader isn't backlit and I'm super pissed off that a modern device could possibly be sold without one. And it doesn't have nearly enough DRM protections on it to suit me. Shouldn't we perhaps try to encourage the folks at Project Gutenberg to replace their boring old DRM-free format files with some new proprietary DRM-laden format?

You don't own an eink eReader. Nobody makes an eink device that reads eReader format books with DRM. So the issue if it's backlit or not is irrelevant as such a device exists only in some people's minds.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Alisa

*tries to distract the pitchfork-waving mobs with yummy pie*

Can we replace this recipe with a blueberry pie? I really don't find apple pie yummy as I really dislike apples. All I can say is as a distraction, apple pie makes me want to go out and download illegal ebooks.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

Heh, heh. You said "eReader". Heh, heh. Hey, Jon! Vivaldirules is being bad.

I've just told him he doesn't own the device he thinks he owns cause nobody makes it. So backlit is not an issue.

[JSWolf]

What we need is a pie that we ALL can eat/like. How about a key-lime pie?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've just told him he doesn't own the device he thinks he owns cause nobody makes it. So backlit is not an issue.

Yea, all the generic names for things keep getting eatin' up. You can't even use eBook Library anymore as Sony just grabbed it. Pretty soon we won't even be able to talk about our favorite subject.

Dale