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If you buy a physical book, you have a right to lend it for free or re-sell it (first-sale doctrine). The publishers want to establish a precedent that you cann
by codedokode 2y ago
If you buy a physical book, you have a right to lend it for free or re-sell it (first-sale doctrine). The publishers want to establish a precedent that you cannot do the same thing with digital books: the library must buy a special license and pay for every reading.
So this is about stripping people from their rights regarding to books made with a new technology.
- tptacek 2y agoIt's not the same thing. When you give a book to someone else, you lose a physical object and they gain one. To "give" an ebook to someone, you have to copy it. We have a whole body of law about when it's OK to copy things.
- codedokode 2y agoIA allowed to read books throught the website so no copies are made. When lending a book through file download they used DRM to prevent reading after the lending term ends.
- tptacek 2y agoI'm sorry to have to disagree with you here but in fact every page of a book you show inside of a web browser is under the law a copy of that page of the original book.
- codedokode 2y agoWhen you look at a book you make a copy on your retina (if you want to reduce to absurd).
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> When you look at a book you make a copy on your retina Not how our retina, the optic nerve, visual cognition or visual recall work.
- Dylan16807 2y agoPlease explain how you think retinas work. And they didn't say anything about visual recall.
- tptacek 2y agoIf you all want to nerd out about how eyeballs works that's cool, this is the place for that kind of thing, keep it chill, etc. But the law absolutely does not agree that looking at a painting equates to creating a copy of that painting; under the Copyright Act, the colloquial term "copy" means fixing a work into some physical media from which others can recall it.
- codedokode 2y agoSo if you stream a movie from a hard drive over the Internet without "fixing" it anywhere, so that the viewer cannot "recall" it, but only watch, then you are not making a "copy" and not breaking the law?
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoThere was a SCOTUS case remarkably like this, except for radio, and the answer is no, but the truth is it was complicated.
- pxc 2y agoSo what if the book is never scanned, but there's a video stream of a camera pointed at the book, and a robot turns its pages? If we make a video streaming jukebox for books, is it 'distributing copies'?
- account42 2y ago> When you give a book to someone else, you lose a physical object and they gain one. But you don't lose your recollection of the book contents.