About three weeks ago Randy Cohen, the Sunday New York Times columnist who guides the morally perplexed in a feature called “The Ethicist”, told a supplicant that there was nothing unethical about downloading a pirated e-book version of a Stephen King novel so that he would not have to lug the heavy hardcover around on a journey.
Cohen’s grounds for blessing the customer’s patronage of the pirate site were that the legitimate e-book version was not yet available, and besides, the customer had paid for the hardcover and was therefore entitled to help himself to whatever e-book was at hand, which in this case happened to be a stolen one.
Though we think of ourselves as judicious we reacted to Cohen’s advice with unwonted intemperance. We were almost unanimously supported by a host of indignant people, many of them authors who had no need of an ethics counselor to distinguish between right and wrong. However, one author, John Scalzi, took exception and defended The Ethicist. Scalzi’s rationale goes like this: “You bought the book once and I got paid once; after that if you get the book in some other format for your own personal use, and I don’t get paid a second time, eh, that’s life.”
We’ve had three weeks to review all the comments and reflect on the position put forth by the Cohenim and Scalzistas in the hope of finding some redeeming values that we overlooked in our initial hotheaded reaction. We’re sorry to report that we have found nothing to alter our sense that their views are pernicious and stupid. (Oops! There we go being intemperate again. There must be something about apologists for piracy that brings out the mean spirit in us.)
Our feelings about all this were reinforced by an eloquent comment submitted by Tony Burton, a writer and publisher of Wolfmont Press. As we’re not content to let this issue disappear from our front page we’re printing it in full below with Mr. Burton’s permission.
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My first thought is, if this is an ethicist speaking, then the blind truly are leading the blind.
Situational ethics. It’s OK to do something wrong in certain situations. So, it’s OK to speed way over the posted limit if… what? If you are late for an appointment? If you are fleeing from a raving lunatic? If you have to catch a plane? Breaking the law, breaking the established rules, just because it makes life more convenient for you is unethical. As someone else noted, just because I have purchased a ticket to see a movie does not make it legal or ethical for me to secretly videotape the movie while I am in the theater.
As to the comment that “you’ve done no harm or so little as to meet my threshold of acceptability,” what malarkey. Then again, perhaps not. Perhaps the level of acceptability of “the Ethicist” is so low that just about anything meets it, as long as apparent and immediate harm are not seen. It’s not unethical, then, to throw a single candy wrapper out the window. And if everyone who eats a Snickers bar thinks that way, the landscape will be plastered with wrappers. It is an insidious way of thinking, that “it does no apparent harm, or so little harm, so if it is convenient for me it must be OK even if it is illegal.”
It’s OK to steal a little bit. It’s OK to tell just one racist or homophobic joke, every once in a while. It’s OK to view child pornography in the privacy of your own home because, hey, you didn’t pay for it… just managed to find it on a file-sharing network and after all, it’s not YOU who coerced that child into doing those things, and even if you hadn’t downloaded it, the child would already have been molested anyway, right?
Yes, I’m being extreme. I’m being extreme because it’s too easy to accept unethical behavior when you candy-coat it. Call it what it is: dishonest, immoral, illegal, and UNETHICAL. That anyone intelligent is able to rationalize it into something else is somewhat frightening, because it is so easy to move from this sort of “harmless” theft to something worse, and every time you succeed in convincing yourself that you are OK, that you are in the right, it just makes it that much easier to do something more heinous. And that someone in such a position, writing for the NYT where so many thousands of people can use his words to justify their own unethical behaviors… it is reprehensible.
A user bought the printed book and downloaded an e-book version to read it while traveling. If he is stoling, then he is a stupid robber. It is better if he downloads the book and doesn’t buy the printed edition, he saves money.
Are you seriously arguing that a guy who gives money to you is stealing you?
You have to keep in mind that it costs almost $500 to produce an e-book from a printed book. Scanning, formatting and proofreading is not cheap. So yes, you are stealing when you pirate the e-book.
I am in the group who, as you said,”had no need of an ethics counselor to distinguish between right and wrong”. Not Cohen, not Scalzi, not even you. You made your points the first time. It was interesting to read and consider. But enough.
@jap,
Your English is a little labored, but I get that you are asking if Richard and I are really serious that we regard this as stealing.
I know I do. No matter how inconvenient it is for me to remain within the boundaries of the law, to go outside them without a really pressing reason (saving a life, protecting yourself) is wrong and unethical. Laws exist to help us have a harmonious society. Most of us voluntarily remain within the boundaries of the laws because we know that, reasonably, if more and more people move outside the law pretty soon it becomes unsafe and unhealthy.
Here’s an example: I go into a store and purchase a DVD of a movie. Two weeks later, my DVD player breaks and I buy a new BluRay player. Now, I can play the DVD in my BluRay player, but I don’t get the full HD effect. So, since this inconvenient for me, I go back to the store and rip off the BluRay version. Now I have both versions, and I can enjoy the full BluRay HD effects. “Hey, I had already paid for the original DVD, and it was a pain not to be able to see it in HD when I have a BluRay player, so it was ethical for me to do this, right?” Almost everyone would disagree with that assessment.
I may never have seen an ebook that someone illegally produced from my print book, but it came from my intellectual property. The scanning or outright electronic piracy of an ebook is theft, whether you choose to believe it is or not. Unfortunately, many people like to think that if the owner never notices or knows about it, then it’s not theft.
Tell me something–if your life partner cheated on you because he/she was horny and the other person was “convenient,” would it be OK and ethical just because you didn’t know about it? If your accountant ripped you off but was good about hiding the numbers in the books and you never even realized it, would it be OK and ethical? If the politicians in Washington (or any other seat of government) lie to their constituents in order to make a little extra money, but you never notice that they are lying or that they are taking money out of your pocket, is that ethical and OK?
Character is represented more by what we do when no one is watching, rather than by what we do when we are publicly visible.
Even if you call it long-term borrowing, it’s still theft. Otherwise we would have been issued VHS copies of our Beta tapes at no charge for the same movie. I fail to see why an ethicist can’t see that.
And this needs to continue to be discussed since not everyone has adopted the proper attitude about the subject.
‘Character is represented more by what we do when no one is watching, rather than by what we do when we are publicly visible.’
How refreshing.
I consider myself fortunate because my parents are incredibly honest and they raised us to believe in and live this maxim; in addition, I think I could safely say that most of my friends would agree with you.
With all the morally bankrupt content one must slog through on the web, it’s always a treat to come across these gems, where individuals are willing to speak out for truth.
I enjoyed your entire post; thank you for sharing!
@Tony
Someone records a movie from tv, is he stealing?
Nope. Stealing physical property is not the same as copy intellectual property. Ethical arguments aside, you can say a legal falsehood until you’re blue in the face, but you still won’t be right.
It’s called phase-shifting, and it’s legal if you scan the book yourself. Yet it’s infringement if you save time and download a copy someone else has already scanned (production costs of ebooks don’t affect torrent arguments, as almost all torrent copies are OCR scans). Tell me in what crazy world it makes more sense for me to spend hours making something I can download in 30 seconds.
If there is no legal ebook version, I will buy the pbook version and download an illegal ebook copy. I don’t want the pbook copy. I COULD have just torrented the book without paying the author at all. I will go out of my way to support authors, yet you still say I’m a ‘thief.’
Not the best way to endear me to supporting the publishing industry.
I will never feel unethical about using one copy at a time of a product that I have already paid for. I suspect many other consumers feel the same way.