Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
the physical properties of the book make it more difficult to " share" the book. The legal restrictions on sharing are precisely the same .
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The physical properties of the printed book actually make it very EASY to share the book. I can just hand it to them. No copy is being made, and the person can just read it and hand it back to me when they are done.
(I am talking from the perspective of someone who has no desire to break the law. Clearly if I wanted to break the law, I could do so with the click of a mouse).
The fact that an e-book requires copying to "share" makes it so that the legal restrictions on sharing are extremely different. To share an e-book, automatically makes a copy of it, by its very nature. So the properties of it alone change the legalities of "sharing" without even trying. With an e-book, sharing IS copying.
With a DRM book, I would have to loan my whole physical e-reader to someone to share one book, legally. (and I do loan my e-reader itself to my children if I am not currently using it, or making dinner or something).
Since the flexibility to share and own a printed book is easier to do so without breaking the law, then that is the format I choose to (mostly) hand my money over to publishers and authors for.