Quote:
Originally Posted by carld
That's bull, you have no right to own that file, and you've stolen the owner's IP in copying it. He owns that copy that you have, it isn't yours, it's his.
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I buy a book at Barnes and Noble. I own it, not the author. The book is mine. I can read it, read it to my kids, loan it to a friend, give it away to a co-worker, sell it at a yard sale, or tear the pages out and use them for paper mache. Legally, I can do any of those things with my property: a physical book.
I buy a USED book from a yard sale. I own it, not the author, who got no money from that sale. I can read it, read it to my kids, etc. The author and publisher get no money whatsoever from my use of this book, but I still haven't broken any laws.
I buy an ebook from Fictionwise.com. I own it, not the author. I can read it. I can read it aloud to my kids. I am *legally* permitted to loan it to a friend, give it away, or sell it. I can copy & paste the text into my digital art project. Plastering DRM on the book doesn't remove those legal rights; they are inherent in the purchase. If Fictionwise intends its sales to be limited-purpose leases, it needs to say so in very clear language. Saying "this is a sale, except you can't do X Y and Z with it," has been held unenforceable in court. A seller may not put such conditions on sales.
I do not have the legal right to publish a sequel based on that book, nor to copy it in a larger font & resell that, nor to translate it to Esperanto and sell that version. However, I do have the right to write & publish a parody of the book, or a scathing review that convinces thousands of people not to buy the book. I have the right to make transformative use of the book to create a new work of art that surpasses the original so much that nobody will buy the book.
I am legally allowed to do a great many things that prevent the author from getting future sales from his book. He has no inherent right to payment for his work, nor to be paid for every pair of eyes that read it. He has the right to a limited monopoly on the use of his book, which is strongly related to, but not directly linked to, money-per-reader.
Do you think that libraries and yard sales are theft as well, since those involve readers who aren't paying the author? Are free books also "theft?"
Theft, legally, doesn't just mean "you get something you're not entitled to." It means "someone else DOESN'T have it." It doesn't mean "you prevented someone from making money." There are lots of ways to prevent people from making money, some legal, some not.
I own all of the Harry Potter books. I've got a friend who hasn't read the last two. If I loan her my copies, have I "stolen" money from JKR? How is that *morally* (not legally, not technically) different from making a copy of an ebook? The end result is the same: two people have read content that only one person paid for.