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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 1471792" data-attributes="member: 2013">Disclaimer: IANALIt MIGHT be legal... depends on what country you're in.  In Canada, for example, the law allows you to make copies of anything - even stuff you DON'T own - for personal use only.  A recent Canadian court ruling has essentially made filesharing legal in Canada...The downloader is making a copy for personal use.  He's fine per law.The judge in the case ruled that the uploader placing a file in a "shared directory" is acting no differently than a library placing a photocopier in a room full of copyrighted material.  (Since he doesn't have to "Approve" the downloads one by one, he can exercise a "good faith" guess that everyone who is downloading is doing so legally).Thus, you can't hit either the downloader OR the uploader of the material in Canada... making P2P sharing effectively legal.In essence... the legality of the act of downloading a PDF copy depends very much upon where you happen to reside.Ethically/morally... I would venture to say that ethically, it is okay to download a PDF copy of a book you own a physical copy of, provided that copy is for personal use, yadda yadda yadda.Without waxing too political, there is in fact a BIG difference between something that is legal and something that is ethical/moral... because all too often, the "legal" space does not completely map to the "moral" space, making moral acts illegal and legalizing moral acts.EDIT: The above paragraph represents the classic paladin's dilemma in choosing lawful or good but not both. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Whether you are more worried about staying in the ethical/moral space or the legal space will determine your actions relative to this.For me, in most cases, I prefer to be both on the side of both ethics and the law... but if I cannot do both, I will be an ethical breaker of the law rather than using the law as an excuse to violate my code of ethics.  That doesn't mean I use my code of ethics to excuse violating the law!  It merely means that my first choice is to avoid an arena where ethics and law do not overlap (such as P2P) but if that choice is denied me, I follow ethics.  Fortunately for this discussion, I have the choice to not participate in P2P and can sidestep the conflict on this one.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Of course, I happen to think current copyright law is unethical in scope and length and in the burden it puts on a would-be re-user to identify the copyright holder(s) of a piece, but that's political and not entirely relevant to this discussion, as most stuff on P2P networks has a pretty clear copyright holder that can be contacted and in this particular case, the copyright holder (FFG) is known. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Short answer:  It's probably not legal, but it MIGHT be.  You must decide whether it is ethical.  I happen to believe it is.--The Sigil</blockquote>

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