3 ms·

its high tech shoplifting, the tech is fine but the morality of the act makes me wonder when he needs to make hard choices professionally will he revert to typ

by ms4720 14y ago

its high tech shoplifting, the tech is fine but the morality of the act makes me wonder when he needs to make hard choices professionally will he revert to type and get over or do the right thing. It is odd that someone who is going into an integrity based profession thinks it is cool to brag about being a thief. I do not have any problems with anyone scanning their books for personel use and its legal, but this was not.

potatolicious 14y ago
I'm not usually one to defend piracy - but this is a lot grayer than you're making it out to be. What is the morality behind stealing (or in this case, infringing upon) something that you've been forced into having, and which as a whole behaves immorally? Professors routinely get kickbacks for using certain books, textbook publishers routinely publish new "editions" with limited to no changes just to obsolete books in the secondary market. They put in one-time-use keycodes that are required to make use of the book, and since they have exclusivity over their courses, there is no free market choice - students are forced to buy these absurdly expensive tomes of questionable use or cannot get an education. The legality of this is clear, the morality here is anything but. One commenter on the blog post: > "Hopefully, you never write your own textbook. Looks like you found an efficient way to steal that $700 of literature. Probably slightly quicker than raising the cash by mugging or defrauding a charity, but ethically no different." What a load of horseshit. Copyright infringement is not at all like defrauding a charity or mugging someone. Incredibly stupid analogy is incredibly stupid. It's funny though, that when we object so hard when the MPAA/RIAA uses the word "theft" to describe infringement, but when it conveniences us we will use the same weasel word for the exact same fucking thing. And more accurately, I think commenter meant "hopefully you're never in a position to defraud your students by forcing them to buy a book you wrote yourself and are receiving significant kickbacks for from the publisher and abusing your position as a tenured educator for unfair financial benefit", but that's a mouthful.
- ms4720 14y ago
  First of all he was not forced into this against his will, it was a voluntary choice on his part to go to college and pick his major. no the morality is clear as well, he could have done many other things to protest or just reevaluate his decision and study/do something else. instead he chose to steal and then decided to brag about it. and having read textbooks I would not call them literature in general. and I am sure there were cheaper/free alternative books out there that he could have made due with. my opinion stands he is a thief with a big mouth. he is not much of a thief but still one.

by ms4720 14y ago

potatolicious 14y ago

I'm not usually one to defend piracy - but this is a lot grayer than you're making it out to be. What is the morality behind stealing (or in this case, infringing upon) something that you've been forced into having, and which as a whole behaves immorally? Professors routinely get kickbacks for using certain books, textbook publishers routinely publish new "editions" with limited to no changes just to obsolete books in the secondary market. They put in one-time-use keycodes that are required to make use of the book, and since they have exclusivity over their courses, there is no free market choice - students are forced to buy these absurdly expensive tomes of questionable use or cannot get an education. The legality of this is clear, the morality here is anything but. One commenter on the blog post: > "Hopefully, you never write your own textbook. Looks like you found an efficient way to steal that $700 of literature. Probably slightly quicker than raising the cash by mugging or defrauding a charity, but ethically no different." What a load of horseshit. Copyright infringement is not at all like defrauding a charity or mugging someone. Incredibly stupid analogy is incredibly stupid. It's funny though, that when we object so hard when the MPAA/RIAA uses the word "theft" to describe infringement, but when it conveniences us we will use the same weasel word for the exact same fucking thing. And more accurately, I think commenter meant "hopefully you're never in a position to defraud your students by forcing them to buy a book you wrote yourself and are receiving significant kickbacks for from the publisher and abusing your position as a tenured educator for unfair financial benefit", but that's a mouthful.

ms4720 14y ago
First of all he was not forced into this against his will, it was a voluntary choice on his part to go to college and pick his major. no the morality is clear as well, he could have done many other things to protest or just reevaluate his decision and study/do something else. instead he chose to steal and then decided to brag about it. and having read textbooks I would not call them literature in general. and I am sure there were cheaper/free alternative books out there that he could have made due with. my opinion stands he is a thief with a big mouth. he is not much of a thief but still one.