Quote:
Originally Posted by sirbruce
The difference was already explained to you. With a physical book, only ONE person can hold a given copy at a time. With an ebook, most people don't delete the file off their hard drive when they "give" it to someone else; they just make a copy.
An item's worth is directly poportional to its scarcity. If I print only 10,000 copies of my book, yes I may be hurting my sales prospects long-term, but I'm controlling the distribution and ensuring each one has high value. If a library buys one and lends it out, it doesn't create new copies. It may stimulate demand (people like the book and now want to own it), or it may depress demand (people who otherwise would have bought it but now are satisfied with just reading it). But if the library could print new copies of that book on demand and let each person keep it FOR FREE, well maybe some people would still go out and buy the book, but the price per book would still fall because it would be a lot easier for people to get a copy of it than before.
The right of copyright is not just the right to sell at any price; it's the right to control the number and manner of sales as well.
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So what if they don't delete it? It's not an actual book anyway. What you are saying would be like forbidding loaning books to friends or ever buying a book and destroying it after you read it.
That's actually the problem. Books(content) continue to be considered by the law be just like books(objects) but they are not. In this age they will have to be considered different entities there will have to be new ways to reap benefits once the distinction has been made.