From: Alex Young <alex@...>
Date: 2007-03-24T20:17:20+09:00
Subject: Re: free pdf ebook

Jerry Blanco wrote:
> My 2 cents:
> I bought Agile Web Development, even though I could have downloaded it
> for free.
> Dave put a lot of hours writting that book and he deserves to be paid
> for it. (BTW, great job, Dave!) Pragmatic Bookshelf guys put a lot of
> hours publishing it and they deserve to be paid for it too. BTW, no,
> I'm not related to PB or Dave in any way.
> 
> This whole conversation sounds a bit unrealistic to me. Forget the
> whole 'is it theft', 'the law says blahblah', etc.
> You go to a cab stop, and say 'I want you to take me to the airport,
> but don't feel it's fair for you to charge me'. See what happens.
> You go to a cafe and say 'I'll have a coffee but since coffee grows
> from the Earth, and we ALL humans are entitled to a part of it, I
> won't pay you.' See what happens.
> You go to Barnes and Noble and say 'I'll take this book, but since the
> ideas contained thereof are not truly ownable by anybody, I won't pay
> for it.' See what happens.
> 
> How is Dave's book different? Please people, let's forget the 'is it
> legal', 'is it moral'... is it logical to rationalize downloading
> books and not paying for them? (Please don't answer me. I know where I
> stand, I know where you stand, and don't want to be bothered arguing
> about this)
Excuse me for answering, but I don't believe that you do know where I stand.

I don't think anybody is arguing your point - in fact, I think you're in 
violent agreement with most here.  Nobody is trying to rationalise 
getting something for nothing - that is to entirely miss the point, at 
least as I understand it.

While I've only been peripherally following this thread, and so may have 
missed something along the way, the main point of those saying "is it 
theft?" has been to emphasise the practical and moral difference between 
depriving someone of a physical item which they then no longer have 
access to, and obtaining without consent something for free which would 
otherwise have to be paid for, *without* denying the original owner 
access to it.  Nobody (that I've seen, other than possibly the thread's 
originator) is saying that either is right, or trying to rationalise 
either.  Conflating the two (as the big media owners like to do) is 
overly simplistic and highly emotive for those who understand the 
difference, because they understand what can be lost when that viewpoint 
becomes entrenched.

My own personal feelings on the matter are that the situation would be 
much simpler if copyright was not transferable, but that really *is* a 
conversation for another day...

-- 
Alex