Quote:
Originally Posted by FF2
As I have written I purchased the Lost Symbol in hardbound. I did not get to it and actually loaned it out to about 5 other people. Possibly I deprived author/publisher of sales. I don't know if any of those borrowers would have purchased it if they could not borrow my copy.
Can't do the same with a ebook - heinous crime or maybe I should say heinous act since the debate rages over whether copyright infringement is a crime or merely a civil/contractual wrong.
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Certainly you can do the same with an eBook - by physically lending your eBook reader, with the book on it, to other people. That is the exact equivalent of lending someone your hardback book, and is absolutely fine. You break no laws if you do that.
The problems occur when people erroneously mistake the act of "lending" with the entirely separate activity of making duplicate copies of the book. To extend your analogy, "lending" someone a
copy of your eBook is the equivalent of photocopying your hardback, and then providing each of your five friends with a photocopy, while at at the same time retaining the original yourself. It's a completely different activity. It's not the "lending" that's the problem; it's the creation of multiple copies where previously there was only one.