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Originally Posted by murg
You know, I'm a little annoyed at this concept that an electronic file is intangible.
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It's a perfectly true statement. It is intangible.
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While the transmission may not take a physical form, the file is represented in physical form at both ends of the transmission. The file sure does take up residence on my disk or flash card.
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But, unlike a physical book, the copy of the book in the bookstore isn't the same one that arrives on your PC, and the one on your PC isn't the same one that ends up on your reader. It's the same "data", yes, but not the same physical representation. The magnetic field that stores the 1s and 0s on your disk is not physically transferred to your reading device; an entirely new copy of the data is made.
That's why you need to have a licence that specifies how you're permitted to copy it, because creating copies of it is the only way that you can read it.