Ethics of downloading e-books

As Kopimism is an official religion in Sweden, isn't this entire topic off limits? You are all debating whether or not adherents of Kopimism are allowed to practice their most holy sacrament of copying.

I've bought some chess books, and others I've downloaded. The reason why I did it was: because I couldn't find it, or was very difficult to find it, or I had no money to buy it. I asked myself if I was doing something bad but couldn't find an answer. I think that if I can buy it I would do it, because I'm old style and I really prefer the real books,  and in case I cannot I can download it for free. 

It's such a good feeling to have books and knowledge, ideas and explanations in front of you with a click, so I don't think it will be stopped easily this filesharing. 

Regarding the earnings of the author there are two points to face. The first is if the author wants his book to be bought because he's greed more than in real need. The second if this downloading has a strong effect on his economical life, then in this case to download is ... not the best. I personally think that downloading is hated because of the greed of the authors and editors than for their real situation. But is my opinion, simply. It's like they stand against borrowing books from friends because you'll read it without paying.

I think that soon there will be a solution for all this: everything will be made online, and one day we will pay 2 dollars to download a book. It will be good for readers and for authors. One will have the knowledge and the other the 2 dollars. Otherwise nobody will have anything. 

In Italy you can rent a book for free in public libraries. Everything is made with public money. Following the idea of my imagination we will have more taxes so our poors can download books for free and the country will pay the 2 dollars to authors. A futuristic welfare state! =)

Heh.

I find it funny that most people participating in this discussion are from the US, UK, Australia, the countries where the income is quite high, so you are focusing only on one aspect of the problem.

I'm living in the EU now, but I come from Serbia and I know what things are like over there. Without discussing the war-period (when the average pay was something like 10eur a month), the standard now is on the level of 350eur/month average (though some people get much less) - and the living expenses have gotten much much higher than ever before (comparable to some EU countries, in fact). People (on average) barely have enough money to cover their basic monthly expenses... most of them don't travel on a vacation even once a year... so, the question of whether to download such content in countries like this (which is most of the world, since the majority is poor) is quite a different one. People living there really don't have the money to buy new music albums regularily, buy all the books they need (most of them aren't in bookstores anyway and Amazon wasn't delivering for many years, I don't know if they started doing so in the meantime), etc.

So, you can be pretty sure that 95% of such downloads do not signify a financial loss to the authors, as there would not have been a regular purchase in any case.

Whether it is immoral under such circumstances.... well, it's a matter of opinion.

Of course, I personally like to contribute to the bands I like and the authors I like, especially since I don't like reading pdf-s on computer screens (and I have enough money to do so now anyway)... and if you have the money to do so, forget about 'free' downloads. After all, you might someday write a book of your own and you would like to be able to earn some money on it :)

So, just to conclude: it is my personal opinion that cheating the system IS :bad: if you have enough money for a normal life, while it is not so if you are one of the unlucky ones and you don't. After all, it can hardly be expected for poor people who remain poor throughout their lives not to enjoy :any: culture. Just imagine what sort of a society that would produce.

I know, I am off-topic :)

I have purchased multiple paper chess books, including a puzzle book. But honestly, it's just not feasible to buy all the books I need, especially given that I am a student.

To be fair, I would send Nimzowich money through Paypal, but I'm pretty sure he's dead.

Not off-topic, imo. Your post and others show that the issue of downloading e-books is not as black and white as some may think (or like to think).

(Btw, are you a fan of Iain M. Banks? <-- now that is off-topic )

Haha, yes I am, one of my favorite writers, in fact :) (I've got pretty much all of his books here piled up on my shelf :P)

Same here!  Use of Weapons is brilliant.

On-topic: I downloaded a pdf of Banks's The Algebraist once while I was away from home to answer a question someone had about his sci-fi. I deleted it afterwards since my own paper copy is so much nicer. 

Actually, a book that would be very interesting for most chess players here is certainly The Player of Games :)

I own a couple of thousands of books and two full rooms at my home are declared "library". I always try to have a look at a book before I buy it. But the book stores here in my neighbourhood don't have any interesting chess titles to speak of and the next online store (Niggemann) is an hour away. So yes, I sometimes download at least excerpts of a title before I buy it (and some publishers kindly put some on their sites). I know it is not legal, but it has helped me really quite alot with my decisions. Btw the pdfs to download are of bad quality and a pain to read so even if I downloaded a title, there's still plenty of incentive for me to order the real book.