Quote:
Originally Posted by jmaloney
I actually spoke to an Intellectual Property lawyer about this. The difference between physical books and ebooks is that the very act of downloading an ebook means that you're making a new copy of the ebook. The first sale doctrine only applies the the original product: I can't, for example, go out and buy a physical book, make copies of it and pass around those copies. This is why the legality of lending ebooks is not as straightforward.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Connallmac
And this is why a pound of gold is considered far more valuable than a pound of wheat, because people believe it to be so.
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My point is that how we perceive the differences in ownership and rights to p and e books is entirely in the perception. Gold is only more valuable than wheat because many people
agree that this is so. If we all agreed that e-book buyers had the same ownership and rights that p-book buyers did, we would. We allow ourselves that to be deluded that they are different; you show me a p-book and I show you an e-book that hasn't been hatched yet. If I buy a copy of a story I should have the same rights without regards to the format it's in.