Quote:
Originally Posted by jjmgreen
A private citizen may loan her/his legally purchased, printed copy
of a work to another person. That is acceptable.
A torrent is very different - no loan is involved. A new copy
is given to the person receiving the torrent. Then the acceptability
is based on the legality of making a copy.
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How do you propose that a library "loan" an ebook, instead of allowing a copy to be made? All the current methods involve making copies, with software locks to discourage the copy being functional after a limited time, and to prevent the library from allowing another copy until that time is up.
I would agree that it's reasonable for people to be able to loan out their purchases, but publishers have been incredibly reticent to do this with ebooks, even when the DRM software allows it. They very much want to enforce "1 purchase; 1 reader" rather than "1 purchase; 1 reader at a time" like pbooks do.