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> the paperback will outlive you and probably your grandchildren On Monday I had in my hands a book bought in 1843 by an ancestor of mine, 6 generations ago II

> the paperback will outlive you and probably your grandchildren On Monday I had in my hands a book bought in 1843 by an ancestor of mine, 6 generations ago IIRC. A few page were damaged, but it could still be read. So a book lasts far more than 3 generations. > We all know that purchase doesn't give you the right to replicate the text of the book -- probably not even as a backup copy. A backup copy is legal in my country, and IIRC it's the same in most countries. More importantly, it's also legal to share the book with family and friends, to give it, and to sell it. That very different from a lease where the rights depend on the contract (and the aptitude of the leaser). > the paperback will outlive you and probably your grandchildren, but it's not eternal, and so technically you don't own it. There's a confusion between the text and the paperback. When I buy a physical book, I own the object. The seller can't take it back from me, and I'm allowed to share the object and do whatever I want with it, just like any physical object that I own. But I can not own a text, unless I'm the sole author or it is in the public domain: the copyright holder can forbid me from sharing the text. This is the same for anything patented you buy: you own the object, but if you replicate it, you do not fully own these copies. This concept of copyright appeared during the 18th century in Europe.

gcanyon 4y ago
> On Monday I had in my hands a book bought in 1843 by an ancestor of mine, Of course there will be exceptions, but the majority of paperbacks published today likely won't exist in 180 years. > A backup copy is legal in my country, and IIRC it's the same in most countries. This seems to be fuzzy in the U.S.? "if you are making a copy so that you may use a copyrighted product in case the original is stolen, damaged or destroyed, your conduct may fall within the doctrine of fair use." [1] Others seem more confident in a yes answer. [2] re: the several advantages of physical books: yes, of course. My thought experiment was on the (slight, mostly long-term) impermanence of physical books compared to the potentially infinite, but perhaps revocable nature of digital books. re: the distinction between the text as a concept and the medium in which it is stored: yes, that was the point I was thinking about: that each has drawbacks. > The seller can't take it back from me While true in general at the present, there have been many instances in the past where physical media were confiscated -- albeit generally by governments, and I'm not sure that digital copies would fare any better in that scenario. 1. https://legalbeagle.com/12719016-copyright-law-making-personal-copies.html 2. https://www.quora.com/Is-it-legal-to-digitize-paper-version-books-I-bought-into-PDF-copies

gcanyon 4y ago

> On Monday I had in my hands a book bought in 1843 by an ancestor of mine, Of course there will be exceptions, but the majority of paperbacks published today likely won't exist in 180 years. > A backup copy is legal in my country, and IIRC it's the same in most countries. This seems to be fuzzy in the U.S.? "if you are making a copy so that you may use a copyrighted product in case the original is stolen, damaged or destroyed, your conduct may fall within the doctrine of fair use." [1] Others seem more confident in a yes answer. [2] re: the several advantages of physical books: yes, of course. My thought experiment was on the (slight, mostly long-term) impermanence of physical books compared to the potentially infinite, but perhaps revocable nature of digital books. re: the distinction between the text as a concept and the medium in which it is stored: yes, that was the point I was thinking about: that each has drawbacks. > The seller can't take it back from me While true in general at the present, there have been many instances in the past where physical media were confiscated -- albeit generally by governments, and I'm not sure that digital copies would fare any better in that scenario. 1. https://legalbeagle.com/12719016-copyright-law-making-personal-copies.html 2. https://www.quora.com/Is-it-legal-to-digitize-paper-version-books-I-bought-into-PDF-copies