Sale of "free" stuff on eBay

From: der Mouse <mouse_at_Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Date: Wed Nov 24 12:49:27 2004

>> What if someone compiled copyrighted data (giving credit to the
>> owners) onto a CD, and gave it away for FREE, but made their money
>> by having advertising inside the contents -- would that be
>> considered ethical?

> Just giving credit to the copyright owners doesn't mean you are in
> compliance with copyright law.

The question asked "ethical", not "legal". They are very different for
a lot of people (and neither is a subset of the other, for many, such
as me - there are illegal things I consider ethical and legal things I
consider unethical.)

To answer the original question, for my own values of "ethical": maybe,
depending largely on the conditions under which the data in question
were distributed. For example, if the data travels under a license
like one of the common open-source code licenses, I see no ethical
problem with it whatever. If distributing the CD involves violating an
applicable NDA, on the other hand, I generally have much ethical
problem with it. And there's a lot of grey area in between.

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Received on Wed Nov 24 2004 - 12:49:27 GMT