& in "I really hate DRM" news...

[kaberett]

I spent several weeks off-and-on utterly failing to track down a DRM-free ebook of Malignant Sadness by Lewis Wolpert. (Amazon has an ebook for £5.26.)

I was delighted to stumble across it for £3.50 in the second-hand section of a book shop the other day, even though on the whole I greatly prefer ebooks because they don't hurt to read.

But, you know, I would very happily have not waited until I found a cheaper second-hand copy - & more money would have gone to the publisher and author - if a DRM-free edition of the ebook had been available.


- which leads me on to the broader question of: given that most of my second-hand books come from charity shops; and given that dead-tree books are generally harder for me to read these days than ebooks, much as this upsets me; where is the ethical problem with pirating ebooks provided I make regular donations to $charity, anyway? (Obligatory Disclaimer In Which I Note that: I do spent a fair bit of money on "new" ebooks, when I can find them DRM-free; I am aware that this practice would be legally dubious, at best.)

Comments

[tim]

Well, at least if you were in the US, I'd say there's no ethical problem. In the US, copyright law exists to make sure authors keep creating books (and in general, that artists keep creating works of some sort). *Not reading* a book because you don't have the money doesn't make it any more likely that a writer will write more books.

Dunno about the UK, or whether laws determine ethics.

[hairyears]

Paper books have an even higher 'piracy' rate than digital recordings: on average every book is read by four different people.

We call this sharing: DRM proponents refer to it as theft; and they *hate* public libraries.

DRM proponents are the wrong people to be in or near the book publishing business.

[swaldman]

I wouldn't be so generous as to call it just "legally dubious" ;-) Seems But ethically, I think you have a point...

[sidheag]

If you buy a given second-hand paper copy, nobody else can, and there is non-zero probability that one of the people who can't will therefore buy a new copy, thereby feeding the author. So the expected benefit to the author of you buying a second-hand copy is not zero. The expected benefit to the author of you pirating an ecopy is zero. There's the ethical problem. $charity doesn't feed the author (probably) so that doesn't help.