Quote:
Originally Posted by RobertDDL
In what way would that be more harmful to the author than when I borrow a printed book from a library, lend it to a friend, buy a used copy, or inherit a book from my parents? In each of these cases, neither the author nor the publisher sees any money, but to my knowledge no one has ever considered any of this to be dishonest? Books have always had more readers than they had buyers, and haven't we all been encouraged, in the pre-digital age, to read books, without having been warned not ever to read any books we haven't personally bought? Only with ebooks the vendors had the glorious idea of selling non-transferable personal "reading rights" to individual readers, for about the same price as the printed book -- a very good idea from their POV, particularly since their costs per additional licence sold are approximately zero. But if sharing a book with a friend is harmful to the author and thus (as you've said in a different post) dishonest, then buying a printed book, where this can be freely done, would inherently be less honest than buying a DRM'd ebook?
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+1 This is the way consumers tend to look at things.
Fundamentally, copyright is basically about who has the right to make money on copyrighted material. Who has the right to sell copies of that material. Sometimes people who discuss copyright get caught up in the mechanics of making copies or preventing copies from being made, when that isn't really the point of copyright. It's all about who has the right to make money selling copies of a specific work.