> 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

> 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