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Pirating eBooks

Motokid

Motokid

New Member
Is taking an eBook any different than reading a book you take out of the library?

By taking, I mean downloading a copy which may, or may not be offered legally. If you don't do plenty of detective work you may never know if the eBook is being offered legally.

So what do you think?
 
I don't read ebooks because they're so awkward to read. The ones I do have are public domain and legal though. But personally, I don't see a difference between borrowing a book and downloading it. Kind of like a global library.
 
Motokid said:
Is taking an eBook any different than reading a book you take out of the library?

By taking, I mean downloading a copy which may, or may not be offered legally. If you don't do plenty of detective work you may never know if the eBook is being offered legally.

So what do you think?
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Consider this: a book in a library is a book is a book. There is just one. You could go to a photocopier and make copies of it but it is cost prohibitive. An e-book is electronic; it exists as 1s and 0s on media somewhere. You can make as many copies as you want for the cost of a few seconds off electricity.

So, no pirating an e-book is not the same as borrowing a book from the library. And, for better or for worse, thanks to the DMCA copying an e-book would be a crime. Copying a public domain e-book or an e-book that an author has chosen to give out for free would be the same as borrowing a book from a library since the expectation is that it is to be freely disseminated, where with DRM enabled e-books, that is not the case. Every time you pirate a DRM enabled e-book, you are denying payment to the owner.
 
From an ethical standpoint, if it is in a free, public domain there is nothing wrong with it. At the public library, you sometimes pay a tiny fee ($5 or so) for a lifetime membership. You merely borrow the books for a period of time until somebody else wants it. Sometimes libraries are funded by taxes also or foundations dedicated to allowing you to have access to things.
You aren't BUYING the books from the library. If you don't return them, you get charged late fees.

Illegally downloading is obviously ethically wrong.
Legally downloading is ethically acceptable.
 
i much perfer reading fiction in book form, but books on doing stuff like say programming or starting a business arnt bad as ebooks.
 
Stewart said:
I don't care about ebooks. I think they should be burnt, if they were printed.
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I have a Sunday cartoon in color cut out from the funnies page and taped to my wall, it's an Opus comic by Berkeley Breathed, dated 12-30-07, where Opus is given a e-book reader, starts to read "To Kill a Mockingbird" on it, and tosses it aside in favor of curling up with the actual book. Priceless.
 
I heard on the radio a company called HarperCollins.ca put up a few free e-books and also give you like a chapter from other books and if you like you go by the book. They were asking him isn't book sales going to go down, and he said that from the data they have most people don't read the whole book all the way through and prefer to buy it. I think it's a good idea actually to have more then the back of a book to grab your attention, and giving like a chapter would give me more info. I personally would not download or sit in front of the pc to read a book. You can't cozy up with a blanket and a pc:D
 
Miss Shelf said:
I have a Sunday cartoon in color cut out from the funnies page and taped to my wall, it's an Opus comic by Berkeley Breathed, dated 12-30-07, where Opus is given a e-book reader, starts to read "To Kill a Mockingbird" on it, and tosses it aside in favor of curling up with the actual book. Priceless.
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I just looked at it again, and he didn't toss it aside; he uses the light to illuminate the hardcover book. Clever.
 
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