Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghitulescu
Their content is the same (the text). But the medium is different. Ebooks are immaterial, they reside on various media (USB stick, HDD, SD card, internal flash memory, CD, DVD etc.), while a paperbook is unseparable from its support. Until the invention of the copier one could not give a copy of a book to a friend - that book had to be transcribed (in ancient worlds, this was done by scribs and took ages; in middle age this was done by monks, again in decades; later on the printing machine did not change the transcription, only the other half). Today one can copy/paste an ebook to another medium in seconds.
Being inseparable from the paper, the books can only be lent/borrowed as a package, including the support, that means the original owner has no access to it until he gets it back.
Like with the metro ticket example earlier, in each millisecond since printing that paper book is read by a single person (except of course the "reading evenings").
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I don't think your get eschwartz's or DiapDealer's point. What you are talking concerns "process/means". You are saying that if the "process/means" of lending is against the law, then that practice is unethical. But what eschwartz and DiapDealer are talking about is the "end result". They don't care about what the law dictates. They believe that, based upon a clear conscience, if in the end no harm is done to the author, you can do whatever you like with your digital book.
So you see you all are talking about totally different things. You can go on forever with your argument. But it will lead to nowhere unless you start addressing question proposed by eschwartz or DiapDealer.
Of course if you believe that an act of so-called "copyright infringement" (in whatever forms) will always result in author being harmed, you can just say so. I respect that. And I believe eschwartz or DiapDealer will too. And then we don't have to be bogged down by this endless and fruitless argument any longer.