Dowloading Legal or not?

The Internet is now one of the main aspects in the modern life, as well as one of the most things that affected the general lifestyle, by making things by far easier to fulfill and more likely to be achieved, like transferring money, buying thigns from foreign markets, gaining knowledge,, and so on and so forth.

Everyday we check our emails and seek information to improve our work experience and performance. We almost spend big portion of our time navigating through the cyberspace.
Without making it long:

When seeking information we come accross so many books and referncess that catch our attention and attract us to download them. We do download them, even though they are not being downloaded from the real source's website {or the owner's website} of this file {The owner of the file does not offer this downlodable fiel}. Is this legal?

At the first sight, it sounds completely legal since there is one out there holds the cmoplete liability for publishing the material.

Sounds strange to ask such a question? Right! I might be a maniac! But....

How would you guys comment on this issue?

Inspired from the experience of downloading Mitnick's "The Art of Deception"

Cheers

A lot of places that have reference pieces (SANS, CERT etc) have their policy published so you know their view.

For a book on-line you could argue it is like going to the library and photocopying. Ease of copying and the fact it is on the internet (larger audience) will go against this arguement.

Based on this thread
http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=265818

The Art of Deception isn't available for sale for a few weeks. If that's true then the copy downloaded is probably illegal unless he and the publisher are giving away free copies.

Those are my thoughts.

Quote:

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Originally posted here by whatthe
The Art of Deception isn't available for sale for a few weeks. If that's true then the copy downloaded is probably illegal unless he and the publisher are giving away free copies.

Those are my thoughts.

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I own the art of deception in paper format. Not sure if they released an ebook format.
The art of deception has been on sale for a long time now.

Maybe its the art of intrusion that you're thinking of?

Either way, I've found a lot of ebook dumps. Most of them are not legal.

Thanks for correcting me.

Black Cluster,

Are you asking if it's legal or ethical...because there's a difference. Some things that are legal may not be ethical, and some things that are ethical may not be legal.

In respect to books or reference materials found on the internet it depends upon whether or not the author has made it available for free public comsumption....whether you plan to use that material for your own private use, free public use ( such as publishing that material on a forum or website ), or for the purpose of resale.

If the author or owner of the material, for instance, a newspaper, decides to print articles on the net...by doing so they acknowledge that it will be available for free, and for general public consumption...or...if an author decides to publish his/her novel on the net and make it available in the same way...I would not consider it un-ethical to use that material for free public or private use.

Regardless of their policy or the legalities...if the author or owner of the material publishes it on the net they in effect acknowledge it is available for public use...whether intended or not.

As long as you do not try to profit from resale without their consent...and as long as you duly credit the author or owner of the material if you decide to also use it for public consumption I do not see an ethical conflict.

By contrast...it would not be ethical to purchase a book and then publish it on the net without the author or owners consent. If the author or owner makes it available on the net then it can reasonably be considered part of the public domain...whether or not that was intended.

I am, of course, only speaking of material placed in the public domain specifically for public use ( eg. if a newspaper publishes an article on the net they want the public to read the article, they want people to discuss the article, they want people to tell other people about the article, therefore they cannot expect that people will not also use the article ).

Egaladeist,

To some extentions, what is legal is definitly ethincal. Since it is not rational to legislate what is unethincal.

From your replies, I think you imply that if the auther did not consent or gave an explicit permission for the book to be for the public usage or consumption, it is by all means illegal and unethical.

[offtopic injection]Sorry to do this radically offtopic thing, but reading Black Cluster's post just now HURT!

Black Cluster - it's not unethnical, it's unethical. Ethics is having to do with morality. Ethnics is having to do with one's race.

[/offtopic injection]

Now comes the question before the court - is it unethical to download a published book before it's scheduled release date? Absolutely unethical - it violates many, MANY of the clauses in the US Copyright laws (check Westlaw if you want to see the specifics, I shan't name them here.) It's also morally reprehensible after reviewing the fact that most authors rely on revenues and royalties from the legitimate sales of their books as their sole source of income. Of the (say 20 bucks US to make it easy, that's about the price of hardcovers these days) money you spend purchasing the actual book, the author receives about a dollar. The rest is completely absorbed by publisher's overhead and fees, advertising, and legal fees to get the copyright on the material. After the paperback is released, drop those royalties down to less than 10 cents per book sold. Just as in music (although the money in that industry is very different in it's distribution) downloading literature without paying for it is outright theft.

Often a publisher will release an early copy or copies of a work to various booksellers and good customers with high volume sales so that their employees may be well versed in its content and be able to carry on intelligent conversations with potential book buyers about the work. This (obviously since there's little or no need of it) doesn't occur in e-books, hence I believe the copy you somehow 'acquired' is either complete piracy of his work, or an older book with the name changed (you might have been tricked..).

Black Cluster,

What I impied...is what I said...if the author or owner of the material puts it out for display for the general publics use...they are in effect allowing it to be part of the public domain ( probably for advertising purposes ) and cannot expect the public to not use it...whether intended or not. Therefore it would be ethical to use such material as I described above...for non-commmercial purposes.

However, if the author or owner was not the one to put it on display for general public veiwing...then it would be un-ethical to use it.

As for your first statement...many laws past and present have/are indeed been/presently un-ethical...as I said... sometimes what is ethical is unlawful, or what is lawful is un-ethical.

Im SO tired of this crap. Why are people tossing the word ethics around? Get hit with a clue. The internet is a medium not a planet. We create terms and relate things to whats happening in the world... in reality, beyond the text and images, one computer is signaling another. Nothing more. You can't tell me that data should be treated as phisical objects and online there is ethics and morality. Thats all bullcrap.

Specialist,

There's ethics involved in everything we do whether you agree with it, or think it's crap, or not. He asked and I answered...if you don't like the conversation then you have the choice to not participate.

Eg