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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 1542114" data-attributes="member: 177">Let's say my left hand gets chopped off in a tragic accident involving sliced cheese and a copy of the Styx "Crystal Ball" album.  Have I now lost my chance to become a lead violinist in the New York Philharmonic?No, because I don't play a violin, I never had a chance.  You cannot lose that which you never could have had.Now, perhaps some other party is somehow responsible for this accident.  This person has done me wrong, and I may sue.  But I cannot list the income I would have gotten from the New York Philharmonic when I seek damages.The thing is, that folks who have illegal copies of pdfs (or mp3s, or whatever) are inviolation of the law.  Yes, they have stolen.  But not every theft represents an economic loss.Not quite.  We have to be careful when we make analogies between theft of physical products and theft of information.If someone sneaks into a warehouse and steals a radio, it is clear that the manufacturer cannot now make a profit from selling that particular radio, and so suffers a loss.If someone sneaks into a bookstore and walks out with a tome, likewise, since that physical object now cannot be sold, the retailer suffers a loss.But, let's say someone sneaks into the bookstore with a battery-powered photocopier, their own toner, and a bunch of paper.  They photocopy the book and put the original on the shelf in as close to mint condition as anyone could ever tell.  He leaves with only the copy.  The retailer can still sell that book!  Which means that figuring out exactly how much was lost becomes a bit less straightforward.  A game of "what if?"If the theif walks out and immediately burns the copy, the merchant has lost nothing.  If the theif walks out, and starts selling cut-rate copies of the book, the merchant has lost much more than the value of one copy.  The actual loss incurred can lie anywhere in a spectrum from zero to something very high, depending on circumstances.For the record, I don't discuss the "loss of sale" issue to establish moral high ground for the theif.  We have copyrights in order to protect the economic well-being of those who create new intellectual structures.  If we want to have sane copyright laws, we must be accurate and honest about the economics of data theft.  If we only have a naive estimate of the losses, we will also have naive rules, and they won't work well.  Rather like what we have today.In the case of out of print material, the owner of the rights does not allow me the opportunity to give them anything for their work.  It becomes a bit sticky to argue that an illegal copy causes a loss when the owner wasn't accepting money in the first place.  Again, it is the owner's right to publisht he work or not.  It would be illegal for me to copy it, even if they don't publish.  But since they aren't making money off it, and in fact refuse to make money off it, how can a copy for personal use cause them an economic loss?  There are reasons to consider such copying a bit of a loss, actually, but evaluating how much of a loss there is becomes hairy.Good question.Imagine that after the aforementioned tragic accident in which I lost my left hand, I then use the Styx CD to save the life of George RR Martin.  And, in gratitude, he gives me the rights to the current "Song of Fire and Ice" books.  Because I am either a jerk or an idiot, or both, I allow them to go out of print, and refuse to print new copies.  Legally, such is my right.  Nothing you can do to stop me, so there, nyah.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> So, legally, I'm in the right.  But morally?  I'm dong a bit of a disservice to Mr. Martin, who isn't yet finished with the series.  I'm doing a disservice to those who haven't yet read all of what has already been published.  And so on.  Whle my legal rights are not questionable, the morality of my position is not exactly grand.  The moral position of those who thwart me is somewhat better then, no?Which goes to show - legal rights and moral high ground are not necessarily linked.  We prefer to have our laws coincide with solid morals and ethics, but this is not always possible.</blockquote>

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