[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Sorry, j.p.s, but Shopaholic is absolutely right. Lending a book to someone should be just that. Off your bookshelf if a pBook, or deleted from Calibre and your eReader if an eBook. Passing out multiple copies is not acceptable unless explicitely allowed by the author/publisher. I don't think that's splitting hairs, I think that's a very important distinction.

I'm sorry, I never wrote anything claiming that it is OK to copy a protected work without permission. I wrote that just as lending a book is different from copying a book because the lender does not have the book while it is lent, copying a book is different from stealing a book because the book copy owner still has his copy.

Copying a book is not stealing the book. Not stealing does not make copying OK. Copying not being OK does not make it stealing.

All those are similar distinctions or similar hair splitting.