Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Different situation. You never actually buy the ebook or software, you only buy a licence to use it.
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No, you buy the e-book or software. You own it. You are just restricted by the license by what you can do with it.
This issue is sort of confusing because there is no one platonic ideal of ownership. "Ownership" means a collection of rights with respect to property. (Or, as they say in law school, property is a bundle of sticks).
What that means is that when you own something, you have a variety of rights you can exercise with respect to that property ("sticks"). But you don't have all of the sticks. No one has all of the sticks.
I own my house (in fee simple). This gives me a lot of rights with respect to this property; most significantly, I have the right to exclude people, the right to sell the property, and the right to pass it to my heirs (by will or otherwise).
But there are a lot of sticks I don't have. I don't have the right to install gas pumps in my front yard. I don't have the right to make loud noises that annoy my neighbors. I don't have the right to make major renovations to my house (although I may be able to obtain that right by following certain procedures). I don't have the right to install non-standard electrical wiring in my house, or to install an outhouse in the back yard.
I do have the right to rent my house (although many owners don't), but I am restricted as to how many people I can rent it to (i.e., how many people can live there) and what rooms I can rent (I can't rent the basement as a bedroom because it doesn't have a separate exit).
If I belonged to a homeowner's association, there would be many more restrictions on my ownership rights, including the right to paint my house the color I wanted.
If I didn't own my house in fee simple but owned life estate in the property, I would have most of the same sticks, but not all of them. Most significantly, I would not have the right to pass the house on to my heirs. I would have the right to exclude others from the property, and I would have the right to sell my ownership interest (i.e., I could sell my life estate in the property, meaning that someone else would own the property until I died).
Even renters have an ownership interest in the property they are renting: they have the right to possession of the property and the right to exclude others from the property.
Owners of paperbooks have the right to possession, the right to exclude others from reading their copy (only), the right to sale, and the right to pass by inheritance. They don't have the right to sell copies of the book.
Owners of e-books have the right to possession and the right to exclude other from reading their copy (only). There is usually not an unrestricted right to create and share copies, although there may be the right to do this if no money is charged and the creator receives appropriate attribution. More commonly, people may have the right to share a certain number of copies with a limited number of people, such as other people on your account. You may also have a more restricted right to share your copy with others, such as in the Kindle lending scheme.
The fundamental right of ownership is typically the right to exclude others, although when we talk about ownership as opposed to other type of property interests, we tend to focus on the right of alienation (i.e., the right to sell or otherwise dispose of the property). That's because a very fundamental part society is based on the leasehold/fee simple distinction (i.e., do I rent or do I buy?) Although rental also implies the right to temporary possession, too, in most cases - a distinction not present in the license vs. ownership discussion. Unfortunately, "Do I rent, buy, or accept a land grant from the mayor in exchange for an oath of fealty and promise of military service?" is rarely asked today.
But if you really want to get down into the nitty gritty of ownership of e-books, I don't think that trying to distinguish between "ownership" and "licensing" is very meaningful. For one thing, having a "license" for an e-book says nothing about what specific rights you have with respect to the e-book. Some licenses may be transferred themselves, and may give you the right to sell whatever is licensed, typically on the condition that the purchase accept the license and that you not keep a copy of the licensed property.
So saying that an e-book is "licensed" rather than "owned" doesn't clarify anything in the way that "rented" vs. "owned" might.
More importantly, though, is the fact that for most purposes, people "own" e-books; they just don't have the right to sell them.
I "own" my prescription drugs - there's no other good way to describe my relationship to them - even though I don't have the right to sell them or even give them away to others. But I have the right to permanent possession of the pills; I can exclude others from using the pills; and I can destroy the pills if I want. Ownership of certain firearms and explosives works the same way, I think.