Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

Do you ever find yourself in situations where you make decisions regarding moral or ethical dilemmas that are unusual and creative?

My most recent example, that I hope is a legitimate creative solution to a dilemma, is as follows;

I recently became interested in revisiting a series of books I enjoyed as a child / young teen. I discovered that after I stopped reading the series quite a few more books in the series were produced but all have been out of print for a decade or more.

I started searching for used copies online at Amazon, Ebay, etc. In the past few weeks I have purchased around 10 of the books in varying conditions.

Before I started all of this my first stop had been the Kindle ebook store to see if perhaps these out of print books were available as ebooks since that is a simple process that many publishers are doing with out of print books (doesn't cost them hardly anything). Alas this series was not available as ebooks.

Just for grins I did a google search for the title of this series with "ebook" behind it. I discovered quite a few torrent sites where people illegaly download music,movies, etc had them listed. I avoid those sites like the plague but kept on looking.

I ran across a site that only deals with books and only a few authors. It had this series of books as free downloads in the mobi file format which kindle readers can use.

I don't want to defraud a publisher or author of compensation so my solution was that I downloaded the ebook copies of all of the books in the series but will continue to pursue purchasing hard copies of all of them. I feel that this way I have legitmately purchased each book and the ebook edition is just a convenient format to read them in. Much like buying CD's then transferring them to your mp3 player to listen to them.

What do you think? Does my rationale of purchasing used copies of all of the books make my download of the ebook versions somebody put online moral?

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

It seems ok to me.

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

Hear that knock on the door? It's the FBI.

:lol

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

I would have been a bit more suspicious, and checked them out a bit more. However, you made a choice. It was not mine, but I do not know that I can fault you for it. I just would have inquired of the laws a bit more before I did anything like that. Probably not that big of a deal, but not something that I would do twice.

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

Their willingness or unwillingness to pursue those who make copies actually helps define and determine it's illegality. If you were making them to sell it would be different I think.

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

It sounds like the site you downloaded the ebooks from was pretty similar to any of the torrent sites you bypassed. They offered a free download of a book that you otherwise would have had to bought. You still downloaded it illegally, just from a site you were comfortable with.


Buying hard copies of the books later does not change your initial actions, IMO. If you really didn't want to defraud the publisher/author, you probably would have paid them first.

I am not saying it was wrong or right, and the above does not reflect my opinions on downloading. I was just trying to be unbiased.

If the FBI ever knocked on my door, they would find me wiping my HDD with a magnet and then setting it on fire. Inconspicuously, of course.

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

Twisp, the point is that the books are out of print and the publisher has not chosen to make them available as an ebook. I feel I am morally in the clear by buying used hard copies of all of the books I downloaded the ebook files on. It is no different than buying a CD and transferring songs to your mp3 player to enjoy it in a different medium. I have legally purchased the books.

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

Copyrights are in force, regardless of whether a book is in print.

Originally, you said you plan to buy hard copies. How would that be any different from shoplifting, and planning to pay for the goods when you could afford to?

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

BTW, I'm not necessarily saying you're ethically wrong for doing what you're doing. But I'm pretty sure it's not really legal. You could ask for permission.

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

If the book is out of print then the only people he might be stealing from are those who are trying to sale the used copies of the book. He's not stealing from the author or publisher...

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

Legally, you are still infringing on his copyright. It makes no difference if he offers them in ebook format or not. That is his choice, as creator. Buying the books or planning to buy the books makes no difference either. It does not cover up or make the original copyright infringement null.

It is very different than buying a cd and ripping the songs. In that instance, you bought the product first, and then did with your purchase product as you wished.

In this instance, you infringed on the author's copyright first, and are trying to make up for it by buying the actual product at a later date.

Now, if you had purchased the book first and then scanned the pages onto your computer to make an ebook, that would be the same as buying a cd and then transferring the music off of it.

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

Well CC1 I think you're probably going to hell! Just ask Elder Epley! lol j/k

I wonder if all of those who are condemning you are "clean as a baby's butt" on all of their downloads. I doubt it! :foot tap (What's wrong with all of the smilies? I didn't want the words foot tap, I wanted the foot tapping!)

Been Thinkin

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

Ya, I still have a few hundred tracks that I 'acquired' during Napster's original heyday. But... I am really making use of Amazon's DRM-free MP3 downloads.

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

Have you repented? I think that still works! Ask Elder Epley lol j/k

Been Thinkin

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

There! I fixed your smiley for you.

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

Well, Timmy and I are the only one that said it was legally wrong, but we prefaced that by saying we were not commenting on the morality of it, so we should be good. And if you read my first post on this, I pretty much said I do it as well.

I think we all have our own personal morals, so it is hard to critique morality. I certainly don't want anyone commenting on my morals (or lack thereof, lol). It is not as hard to critique legality.

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

AreYouReady, you are awesome. Now when I use it the next time will it work? Good to see you were "Ready" to help an illiterate poster!

Been Thinkin

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

Wouldnt' have bothered me to use your plan at all...

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

Seared conscience, eh?

J/K! :heeheehee

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

I actually wasn't looking for approval or disapproval in this thread as I have already come to my conclusion but I was curious as to others views on this and was hoping folks would join in with examples of very different situations where they handled an ethical or moral matter in an unusual way.

The first part happened as some of you have shared your opinion of the scenario I posted about. Now some of you need to broaden it to other situatons!

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

CAN I start a prison ministry? Timmy is coming with the FBI...answer no knocks on the door....

Re: Ethical / Moral Muddy Waters
 

I never condemned it either, but I do believe that some research was in order so as to acertain whether or not it was a legal download.

That would not have been a plan that I would have proceeded with, and it makes my internals crawl at the thought of possibly doing that. That gut reaction keeps me out of more trouble than I can imagine.