Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Forgive me for saying so, but you appear to be contradicting yourself. First you say that you consider that you own an ebook, not merely possess a licence to it, but then you say that intellectual property doesn't exist and can't be owned by anybody. You can't have it both ways: if intellectual property can't be owned, you can't own an ebook.
The dictionary defines the word "licence" to mean "a certificate, tag, document, etc, giving official permission to do something", and this is precisely what a licence to use computer software, digital music, ebooks, etc, is: permission to do something with the item. I honestly can't see how you can consider this to be a misuse of the term.
I can only conclude that if such people exist, they have not actually taken the trouble to research what it is that they are buying, because it is a licence. Amazon specifically tell you this in their Ts and Cs: "Digital goods are licensed, not sold".
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No contradiction. I'm not buying intellectual property, i.e. an idea. I'm buying a book that is stored digitally rather than printed on paper. The only difference between the two is that a digital book is a lot easier to copy than a paper book. I own my copy of the ebook. The intellectual property piece of ebooks is the ability to make copies and give/sale those copies to someone else, i.e. copyright. Copyright applies both the digital books as well as paper books, as I'm sure you are aware. Legally there is no practical difference. There are only logistics differences.