8 ms·

Interesting point though I'd go with another analogy. You can go to a library to borrow a book, but you can't go to the library and copy all the books for your

Interesting point though I'd go with another analogy. You can go to a library to borrow a book, but you can't go to the library and copy all the books for your own use.

terrytanys 3y ago
I would put it a little differently. You can actually copy all the book but the things is you can't publish it as your own book after you copied. Because obviously it is not your work.
Google234 3y ago
If the library owned an effectively infinite copies of each book why wouldn’t they let you borrow one copy of each book?
- gfedtbyby 3y ago
  Because authors and publishers wouldn't be very excited about that and would lobby governments to limit that (and I 100% believe they would be right to do that).
- chongli 3y ago
  The online library known as archive.org tried exactly this. They got sued, to no one’s surprise.
barrell 3y ago
I used to go to the library, find books with the relevant chapters related to what I wanted to learn, and the librarian would photo copy all the pages I wanted to take home. So I guess technically you could copy all the books for your own use. It's just impractical to photocopy every page of every book in a library.
- mejutoco 3y ago
  When I was in libraries you could photocopy a percentage of a book (15% maybe?), although I doubt it was enforced. One could do many trips, but it is impractical, as you say.
pprotas 3y ago
Not really sure that this analogy applies, because I could definitely photocopy as many books from the library as I physically can. No one is going to stop me.
- datagram 3y ago
  As far as I'm aware, photocopying an entire book does in fact violate copyright law and librarians will refuse to help you do it: https://guides.cuny.edu/cunyfairuse/librarians https://guides.cuny.edu/cunyfairuse/librarians
- ricardo81 3y ago
  Well it's not so much about the physical act of doing it, it's the trying to convince the world it's for your own private use and not for commercial gain. Otherwise, intellectual property laws can perhaps apply. It'd be a hard push to claim it's fair use, a wholesale copying of other's works.
tick_tock_tick 3y ago
?? You can it would take a long time but you could.
astrange 3y ago
You can do that. Google literally already did that.
sekai 3y ago
> You can go to a library to borrow a book, but you can't go to the library and copy all the books for your own use. Why? What's stopping me from doing that? The only limitation is time.

Interesting point though I'd go with another analogy. You can go to a library to borrow a book, but you can't go to the library and copy all the books for your own use.

terrytanys 3y ago

I would put it a little differently. You can actually copy all the book but the things is you can't publish it as your own book after you copied. Because obviously it is not your work.

Google234 3y ago

If the library owned an effectively infinite copies of each book why wouldn’t they let you borrow one copy of each book?

gfedtbyby 3y ago
Because authors and publishers wouldn't be very excited about that and would lobby governments to limit that (and I 100% believe they would be right to do that).
chongli 3y ago
The online library known as archive.org tried exactly this. They got sued, to no one’s surprise.

barrell 3y ago

I used to go to the library, find books with the relevant chapters related to what I wanted to learn, and the librarian would photo copy all the pages I wanted to take home. So I guess technically you could copy all the books for your own use. It's just impractical to photocopy every page of every book in a library.

mejutoco 3y ago
When I was in libraries you could photocopy a percentage of a book (15% maybe?), although I doubt it was enforced. One could do many trips, but it is impractical, as you say.

pprotas 3y ago

Not really sure that this analogy applies, because I could definitely photocopy as many books from the library as I physically can. No one is going to stop me.

datagram 3y ago
As far as I'm aware, photocopying an entire book does in fact violate copyright law and librarians will refuse to help you do it: https://guides.cuny.edu/cunyfairuse/librarians https://guides.cuny.edu/cunyfairuse/librarians
ricardo81 3y ago
Well it's not so much about the physical act of doing it, it's the trying to convince the world it's for your own private use and not for commercial gain. Otherwise, intellectual property laws can perhaps apply. It'd be a hard push to claim it's fair use, a wholesale copying of other's works.

tick_tock_tick 3y ago

?? You can it would take a long time but you could.

astrange 3y ago

You can do that. Google literally already did that.

sekai 3y ago

> You can go to a library to borrow a book, but you can't go to the library and copy all the books for your own use. Why? What's stopping me from doing that? The only limitation is time.