Quote:
Originally Posted by elcreative
There is a big difference between repurposing a physical object in physical ways and converting that object from a physical to a non-physical form when the object is specifically designed to intrinsically require its physicality...
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What an object "requires" depends on the use. The creator may intend one use; the buyer may decide on something else that doesn't require physicality.
While it's rather silly to buy pop-up books, given the relatively high cost, and then scan them to flat PDFs, it may be that someone wants to read them that way, or do research on the art style rather than enjoy the sliding levers and opening doors.
And this *is* on-topic... the difference between creator's and seller's intended use, and buyers' preferred use, is a big part of the problems in finding metaphors for various types of digital file activities, authorized or not. A lot of the buyers had a concept of "book" that included "can loan to a friend." Often, they believed that "purchase" included "can loan to friend" and "can resell if a buyer is found."
The core issues of "what exactly is being sold" and "what are legitimate uses of an ebook" (or mp3, or avi) are crucial to finding metaphors to describe what people do with digital content.
Publisher insistence on "rights" that no reasonable person would ever consider applying to books is part of what spurs piracy... Fictionwise's claim that I cannot "share" my purchases with anyone at all or I would be in violation of copyright law is obviously garbage. Their refusal to acknowledge a difference between "show another person the book loaded on my hardware device" and "make a digital copy & send it through email," likewise discourage customers from thinking these are different actions with different penalties.
We can't find mutually useful metaphors if we don't agree on what laws are relevant, what acts are reasonable, and what rights are actually granted with a purchase. And we won't agree on those things as long as publishers and digital stores making sweeping false statements about copyright law.