Quote:
Originally Posted by latepaul
My point is that there's a fundamental difference between a file and a book (the object). It's not an object per se.[...]
So you can't "own" a file in the way your can "own" a physical object. What you can do is make copies of it and move them around in various physical media. To do that you need to have the right to make those copies. This right is something you can own, we call it copyright.
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Ok, so when I buy an ebook I get from the publisher the right to copy it as I wish, provided that I comply with the rules of my proposed social DRM scheme. I called this right "owning the file". I don't see this as a problem of my proposal, only as a choice of terminology. I'm not a lawyer, and I didn't word my proposal to withstand legal scrutiny. Here we are only discussing its content and feasibility (or not).
That said, in some countries at least there are examples of authorized copying (e.g., backing up your media collection). So this is not "new legal territory".