Oh the irony...

[Question Mark]

Over on Good e-Reader, Michael Kozlowski has been busy writing some articles about ebook pirates:

Last year the ebook piracy industry cost American publishers $300 million
https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-...rs-300-million

Pirating ebooks is an offence against moral justice
https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-...-moral-justice

In the article from April, Michael offers his reflections on the moral depravity of ebook pirates:

I believe that ebook piracy is morally reprehensible. You would not walk into a bookstore or secondhand bookstore and steal a book, because you do not want to pay for it or cannot afford to buy it. The same goes with digital, stealing is stealing. You are fundamentally an amoral person if you engage in theft.

Curiously, he neglected to mention the ebook piracy which seems to have been previously associated with his own website as documented here:

GoodEreader.com – Still Pirates, but Now Also Fibbers
https://the-digital-reader.com/2011/...ow-also-liars/

and here:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=85235

At least, he now seems to recognize that he is an amoral person... And that is something which I can finally agree with him on.

[crane3]

Subjects on "Stealing/Piracy" is include theft of votes by the elective offices; should also include stealing of moneys by companies with false advertising.

Too many claims made in campaigns are never done & misrepresented. I even saw a video clip on "Dr Oz" while watching the news. "Dr. Oz" admitted that the claims printed on a product he is selling is false & not medically true during a congressional hearing; the congress members just let that pass without saying/doing. Oz claims that it is alright to thing like that (lie) when one is selling a product.

So what is the big deal? It is just "human rights" behavior. "Piracy" is also a human rights issue.

[leebase]

Not amoral - immoral

[Mnementh]

Originally Posted by leebase

Not amoral - immoral

Not necessarily, he/she could be either.

Amoral means having no sense of morals which could apply in this case, immoral means someone who knows the difference between "good" and "bad" but doesn't care.

[leebase]

Stealing is immoral...it’s wrong.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by leebase

Stealing is immoral...it’s wrong.

Not always.

I have found that people who accuse you of something are often guilty of the same thing and they're driven to believe everyone does it. Roman Polanski was interviewed about raping a 13-year old and he said the judge in his trial wanted to do it, men on the jury wanted to do it, all men want to do it. No, Roman, they don't.

A acquaintance said, "Everyone will steal if they think they can get away with it." "No, they won't. All you've established is that you will steal if you think you can get away with it."

[leebase]

If I steal, it is immoral. If you steal, it is immoral. It matters not whether you or I steal. Stealing is immoral. If either of us are hypocrites for saying “stealing books is immoral”....it would not change the truth that stealing is immoral.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by leebase

Stealing is immoral...it’s wrong.

There is certainly a sector of the pirating community who does not consider pirating eBooks (or music or movies) wrong. I suspect that quite a few 25-12 year old just look at it as free content and see nothing wrong with it. I may disagree, and certainly society as a whole disagrees, but I do think it's an accurate representation of that particular mind set.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

There is certainly a sector of the pirating community who does not consider pirating eBooks (or music or movies) wrong. I suspect that quite a few 25-12 year old just look at it as free content and see nothing wrong with it. I may disagree, and certainly society as a whole disagrees, but I do think it's an accurate representation of that particular mind set.

It doesn’t matter if a thief feels fine about stealing. I’ve stolen in my lifetime. Not proud of that. Wouldn’t matter if I was.

Still...the writer of the story used amoral when describing immoral.

[Raphi'Elohim]

He says in the first article :

"Not only are operators of piracy websites getting more savvy, but the traditional ebook forum or website continues to be the most popular."

But ebook piracy in a mass organized form has been around for highly technical people for ages now through IRC and Usenet and I would argue those are the most traditional forms not the forums and websites.

I think ebook piracy is rising because it is available to a non-technical audience in professional looking websites and the FBI can't do anything about it, like gather IP addresses, because they are run in foreign countries.

For instance, I did a whois unix command on b-ok.cc and got this :

Domain Name: B-OK.CC
Registry Domain ID: 138308276_DOMAIN_CC-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.eranet.com
Registrar URL: http://www.eranet.com
Updated Date: 2018-10-10T06:29:47Z
Creation Date: 2018-10-08T20:26:11Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2019-10-08T20:26:11Z
Registrar: Eranet International Limited
Registrar IANA ID: 1868
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: cs@now.cn
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +867563810566
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Name Server: PDNS05.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: PDNS06.DOMAINCONTROL.COM


It looks like it is based in China and I think the Russians are in on it too. The Chinese would theoretically have a political motive to weaken the American economy this way as $300 million is significant.

That being said there is a book I know of called Code Reading by Diomidis Spinellis that was released around 2002 and rather than drop in price it goes up in price it is supposed to be the opposite in tech because around 2002 is like ages ago. Also, Amazon has the kindle version for $42.11 and B&N , for my device, sells it for like around $52 dollars. I feel like they are trying to rip me off so I can see the temptation for pirating. If I did buy the book I would buy it for the lowest price available strip it of DRM and put it on my B&N glowlight plus 2.

[Hitch]

Well, not to put too fine a point on it...

but all of these things--amoral, immoral, wrong--are value judgements. We are, when we say that, passing judgement. None of them are, in fact, "facts" or "truth." We all agree that they are truth, beause they are our "truth," but they are not facts like "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line," or "the sun is the light source for the Earth." Those are facts (and if anyone here starts arguing black holes and the like for shorter distances, fuhgeddaboutdit).

As a society and as a people, we've made certain decisions about what we consider to be "right" and "wrong." Others have different values. For example, we think that FGM is "wrong." Others, obviously, do not, as repugnant as it is.

So, we can say that so-and-so is amoral (Polanksi) or immoral (ditto) and we can say that he anthropomorphizes, to justify his behavior. We can say that rape is wrong, and we all agree, as a people, that it is, and if it's possible to be 'wronger,' wronger yet with a child. But it wasn't that long ago, in terms of the life-span of this planet, that we routinely married off girls that age.

Wrong, right, truth, immorality, amorality--all these things are value judgments that are, as well, constantly moving targets. What was considered "wrong" a mere few years ago, in terms of a person's sexuality is promoted as not being "wrong" today.

At this rate, hell, who knows what won't be 'wrong' any longer, tomorrow?

Hitch

[leebase]

If you can’t understand that stealing is immoral...that’s not my problem. I accept the judgement label. It is appropriate....and it is moral.

[haertig]

People label me (and you too!) many things that are not true.

Because I hold the door for someone else, I am sexist if that person happens to be the opposite sex from me.

Because I just said "opposite sex from me" above, I am anti-gay and non-gender-inclusive.

Because I stand for the National Anthem, that makes me a racist.

What? So, because of idiots like the ones involved in the above name calling, I no longer care what people call me.

Another example, closer to the immediate topic of discussion:

If you download something from a very popular service that most all of us here use, it will disappear from your digital device after the loan expires if you are online. However, if after downloading, you simply copy or move that file to a different directory on your digital device, it will stay forever. And it does not contain any DRM. Is that stealing? There is no warning "do not move this file" when you download it, not that I'd even agree that the loaner has the authority to tell you you can't move a file on your own device.

Some might say, yes, that's definitely stealing. And I would play devil's advocate and ask them to tell me why. What law was broken? What contract was breached?

It's not always 100% black and white.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by leebase

If you can’t understand that stealing is immoral...that’s not my problem. I accept the judgement label. It is appropriate....and it is moral.

I don't think that's what I said.

I said, that saying that something is a "fact" or "truth" is not quite accurate, when you're talking about moral judgements, which is what we're discussing here. You can say that "it's a fact that our society, on the whole, considers it immoral." You can say that it's a fact that the earth circles the sun.

But you cannot say that it's a fact that stealing is immoral. That's a value judgement, a moral judgement that we, as a people, make. It's a set of rules that we've collectively chosen to agree to and follow.

That's all I was saying. I am the first to agree that thievery by any name, including copyright infringement, is wrong. But I don't confuse my values with cold hard facts.

It's bad enough that so many people can't separate opinion from fact in this day and age. Given the typical intellect on this forum, we should strive for accuracy and clarity in what we say, that's all. Most people here try for that, right?

Hitch

[leebase]

I never used fact or truth. I made the assertion....stealing is immoral. It is.