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Originally Posted by Penforhire
"...why do we allow second-hand bookstores? Why do we allow people to lend CDs to their friends"
It is a question of degree. An author or artist was paid once and lent a couple of times. Note the used bookstore made money on that example exchange as well.
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You said that creators deserved compensation when their works were experienced. Now it's, "they deserve compensation for every several people who experience it."
How many people can share a work before there's a moral obligation to re-compensate the original creator? How many people at a doctor's office can read a magazine before it's wrong to keep sharing it?
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Libraries are a better example and they do pay special rates for their content.
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Government-funded libraries pay special rates; private libraries don't. I have several friends with lending libraries.
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There has to be a middle ground between "read once and locked to a single device" (extreme interpretation of those who favor DRM) and Giggle's "all your book are belong to us" attitude.
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I agree; I just don't think we'll find that ground by insisting that the author "deserves" to be compensated per reader, or per
n readers. I also don't accept "it's too easy to copy, so we must prevent legitimate, non-infringing users from full use of their purchases." That argument didn't fly with music and it's not going to work for books.