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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shades of Green" data-source="post: 4752260" data-attributes="member: 3297">IMHO, while copyright infringement is clearly illegal in all cases, it may or may not be moral depending on the case. There are several types of people who commit this infringement:1) People who use illegally downloaded books as free previews; if they like them, they'll buy them, if they don't, they won't use them in any form.2) People who download books illegally but can't or won't buy them for whatever reason, even if the illegal download did not exist.3) People who download books illegally, but would otherwise buy them (i.e. they can and will buy the books if there was no illegal version available).4) People who copy/counterfeit other people's books and sell them commercially for their own profit.Of these, 1 actually benefits the copyright holder (free advertisement!), 2 does no harm (they won't buy the books otherwise, so no money is lost), 3 is immoral (and causes actual damage) and 4 is downright criminal (making profit out of someone else's work).The problem with most assessments of copyright infringement is that you can't really prove how many of the downloaders belong to group 1, 2 or 3 (and thus how much real damage is caused); only group 4 could be clearly identified and quantified if caught (because they make actual money out of it).</blockquote>