The right to copy is what copyright deals with. You never had the right to buy a book, copy it, and give away or resell the copy. edit: the "right" we have to

The right to copy is what copyright deals with. You never had the right to buy a book, copy it, and give away or resell the copy. edit: the "right" we have to copy them from device to device I think is just granted by the official interpretation of current law by Library of Congress lawyers. It would be entirely consistent to say that when I sell you an ebook, you get to download it to one machine once, and that copying it to a different machine is a violation.