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...