I too have had to build an ethics, so to speak.

Books: For quite a while, I simply downloaded books to see if I wanted to
buy them.  I deleted the download and purchased the book if I liked the
download.  Also download books if I have the paper version.

EBooks: Similar. Then came the problem of formats.  For example, Amazon
only provides kindle format (.mobi/.azw) while tech books provide three
formats (.pdf, .mobi, .epub).  I found myself downloading pdf versions of
.azw's because the silly books referred to "pages".  Hopefully Az will
finally come around, but until they do, and the book is not available in
multiple formats, I'll download a pdf if need be.  Almost all tech books
are ebooks and on my iPad.

Video: I downloaded old TV shows which were not available otherwise.  Also,
our net was DSL, so too slow for streaming, even youtube!  With a new
faster network, cable, we're looking at Amazon primarily, and have Az Prime
so many videos are available free.  We also have NetFlix streaming but
don't seem to use it.  We stopped NetFlix DVDs when they hit a 30% failure
rate. Not sure about Hulu, don't use it now.  We record, TiVo, a LOT of
sports and cooking shows and re-runs on SciFi channel.

Papers/Magazines: Thus far I have not payed for NYTimes.  They let me read
N a month, and I believe allow click-throughs to not count against the N.
 But I admit to defeating their count by going incognito in Chrome at
times, maybe once a month.  I've also found that much of their stuff finds
itself elsewhere.

I believe a "digital library" solution would be helpful for paying for a
lot of media.  I'd gladly pay $D dollars for N subscriptions .. a "book
shelf" like OReilly's Safari .. but much broader.

So I'm sorta in the middle, but mainly due to the media industries not
"catching up".  Between Az Prime and buying ebooks, I'm easily at $250/year
.. yipes!  My guess is that the big TV companies will try one way or
another to make older shows available, but I don't think they've done it
 yet.  Az doesn't offer pdf's yet but I'm sure they'll both improve their
page references etc, and go multiformat sometime.

   -- Owen


On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 1:42 PM, Edward Angel <an...@cs.unm.edu> wrote:

> From an author's perspective:
>
> 1. By downloading a pirated copy, you lower the number of books a library
> will purchase which does cost the author.
> 2. Having a permanent copy has some value over a library book for many
> people.
>
> Ed
> __________
>
> Ed Angel
>
> Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory
> (ARTS Lab)
> Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico
>
> 1017 Sierra Pinon
> Santa Fe, NM 87501
> 505-984-0136 (home)   an...@cs.unm.edu
> 505-453-4944 (cell)  http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
>
>
> On Apr 18, 2013, at 1:19 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote:
>
> But it sounds like it is out of your price range, at least for now. The
> author (nor the 
> publisher<http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/03/reminder-why-theres-no-tipjar.html>)
> gets no money from you checking the book out of the library, so what are
> they losing from you pirating the book? Not that I am suggesting that is
> what you *should* do - it is an individual decision, after all - but I
> always find it interesting what people consider their 'boundary' and why.
> -Arlo James Barnes
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