Quote:
Originally Posted by lotusblossom
In the old days when one bought a book - whether in hardcover, paperback or whatever, the copyright laws were very specific - you could read the book, but do not try to quote or paraphrase it without the author's (publisher's[?]) consent.
Nothing, however prevented me from reading the book, passing it to my friends, then giving it to a book swap store to sell or barter or selling it at a flea market (after tearing off the front cover, of course). Many times one of the books I purchased was passed around many, many times - and this with but one sale to the author.
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Tearing off the front cover? Why did you do that?
The fundamental difference between a physical and a digital book is that none of the activities you describe above involve making a
copy of the book, and that is what copyright law concerns itself with. You're passing the one, original, copy around from person to person, and that is entirely outside the scope of copyright. With a digital book, if you give a copy to another person, it is rather difficult to do so without copying being involved somewhere in the process, and hence copyright
does matter.