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Marcus, who over at Dear Author has said–and I quote, because it’s just mind boggling–all of the following:

Starting on comment 32:

If you absolutely feel that you have to buy some DRM-restricted ebooks then you should at least have the decency to crack it and upload it to some file sharing site, just to hasten the end of such anti-progress, anti-mankind shenanigans that DRM is.

Anti-mankind? Hyperbole much? But he continues (comment 68)

Think, please. If I make a copy of a chair I’m not stealing the chair, I’m copying it. See the difference? The same applies for ebooks. However, it’s not the ebook (or even the contents of it) that is claimed to be stolen, but the monopoly of copying it. However, after you’ve “stolen” the copyright you still don’t have the copyright, so the whole idea of “stealing copyright” doesn’t even make sense any which way you look at it. So, no matter how you try to look at it copyright infringement simply can’t be compared to “stealing” as the word commonly is used.

To which I asked,

Please. Copyright infringement is not stealing?Intellectual property is not property, then?

Talk about not having the same definition of decency, stealing, and a host other things.

and got this little gem from him (comment 72)

Exactly. No matter how many times I “steal” some copyright I’ll never have it, so it obviously can’t be taken and thus not stolen.

Not inherently, no. It’s “property” only because it has been redefined as such for some (but not all) legal purposes, but it’s not “property” in the same way as is understood by the common man. (E.g., you don’t pay any property tax on “intellectual property”.)

Well, then. Let’s chuck some laws out the window, and have authors work at something else for a living, since they can’t make money off their writing.

Or we could say that there are people who’ll claim anything, no matter how irrational, to justify their lack of ethics.

Either way, what a fucktard.

First off, please keep in mind that the following rambling reflects only my internal dialogue, and as such, it is not meant to set down parameters for anyone else’s behaviour—just mine.

(If you wonder why on earth I bother to blog about it then, I’ll just say: ‘cause I like to hear myself talk, that’s why. And obviously, no one forces you to read 😀 )

Now that it seems I write reviews with a *cough* certain *cough* regularity, I have been pondering even more what reviews themselves mean, in terms of responsibility for me as reviewer.

As far as I am concerned, a review’s purpose is to provide information to other readers—information beyond the often inaccurate and occasionally spoiler-ridden back cover blurb, or the well chosen excerpt on the author’s or publisher’s sites—so that they, the readers, can make a more informed decision to buy, or pass on, a particular book.

To me as a reader, any review that consists exclusively of “great book! highly recommended!” is completely useless. Unless I know the so-called reviewer’s reading tastes really well, and how they mesh or differ from mine, I’m left with exactly the same frame of reference I had before reading that praise. And even if I do know that person’s tastes, I’m likely to ask a couple of pointed questions before buying the book. In my experience, blind words of praise are probably worse than nothing. (See Street Teams at Dear Author) (more…)