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Originally Posted by teh603
The analogy still works, because the argument is still the same; the guy who sold the use tool is "stealing" a sale from the company that makes them. That's the argument against ebook piracy, isn't it? That people who download them don't buy them?
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The guy selling the used tool is not by law expected to compensate the company from whom he bought the tool when it was new, any more than I have to compensate Hyundai when I sell my car to my neighbor. That's by the laws governing physical products.
But I repeat: Ebooks are software without physical packaging. Software assumes different legal expectations than physical property. There is no absolute requirement for software to be resellable, and there are legal precedents for software agreements that prohibit unconditional resale. There are even legal precedents prohibiting resale of physical products (like a car lease), so the idea isn't that far-fetched.
The analogy simply does not apply to ebooks. There's no such thing as a "used" ebook. Every ebook downloaded, shared, traded or resold is "new," and if the copyright owner states that anyone who wants the ebook should pay them for it, and no one can resell the ebook, that's what's expected by law.
Quote:
Originally Posted by teh603
What about the example of the parent who's unable to share their ebook with their child because of copyright infringement concerns? Or if the law were to somehow evolve into a situation where letting someone borrow a computer or laptop with software or ebooks installed would become a crime? Its only one bad court decision away.
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It is also one good court decision (or one good appeal) away from being a non-issue... let's not obsess about extreme laws that don't exist, when we are still in a position of making sure they don't.
There is a middle ground between "only your eyes can view this" and "it must be available to everyone." Part of that middle ground involves mutual agreement over what should and should not be permissible, and better document and usage security, in the same way that cable TV has established mutual agreement and uses built-in security measures (but, of course, everyone's afraid of discussing security, so we'll leave it for now).