4 ms·

No, that is not how copyright works, at least not in this country, but probably not in many countries. You buy a book, not a license. Copyright luckily isn't an

by 3036e4 1y ago

No, that is not how copyright works, at least not in this country, but probably not in many countries. You buy a book, not a license. Copyright luckily isn't an unlimited right to dictate exactly how a work is used. Ebooks sadly are different. I only buy DRM-free ebooks that grant me rights similar to what always exists for printed books, but that sadly limits what ebooks I can buy quite significantly.

kstrauser 1y ago
You cannot coerce me into believing that buying an ebook is any different than buying a physical copy. Either way I’m exchanging money for the right to possess a copy of it. Legal fictions be damned, if I pay for it, I own it, and can do whatever I want with it short of distributing copies of it to others.
- 3036e4 1y ago
  It's because they managed to get DRM-circumvention into copyright laws in most countries, so they just have to put some kind of DRM in the ebook and then they can claim that any attempt to use the ebook outside of the official software is DRM-circumvention and therefore illegal, even if you are not necessarily infringing on any copyright per se.
  - kstrauser 1y ago
    Oh, I understand their arguments. I just wholly reject them as nonsensical. If I buy an ebook, I will happily strip the DRM so that I can read it on the device or app I choose, and I’m morally and ethically fine with that. I use to rip DVDs so I could watch them on my laptop. Same idea here; same lack of moral conundrum. I wouldn’t share copies of those things outside my household, in the same way that I’ll let my kid read my physical books but I’m not scanning and sharing them on my website. But for my own personal use? Of course. I own those copies.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
  I own the hard drive. How I choose to arrange the little magnetic islands on the platter is my business. I do not exchange money to possess a copy of it, but sometimes I have to wait three days while libgen.li is doing whatever the fuck it's doing (being DDOSed, having Russian FSB datamine the logs, downtime to have all 14 million epubs get their covers replaced with the fuzziest 141x296 cover image that's a bad scan of a worn out paperback printed in the early 1980s, etc). Copyright is unfortunately like one of the supernatural demons. You draw the little chalk circle on the ground and voice the incantations, and you think you're in control. That it can't leave the circle. But once summoned, this demon does not go away, and it just ignores the circle... it's just a scribble in chalk. Then you run around gibbering forever, crying about how it should've worked, you should've been safe while ignoring that it's a demonic force hellbent on burning down the Library of Alexandria and plunging humanity into a new dark age. Reject copyright. You'll never get it to play nice. They always feel hungry, always trying to take more. Every book on the New York Times Book Review Notable 100 list is available for 4 minutes of your bandwidth. Every Hugo winner, every Pulitzer novel, ever Nobel winner, every trashy little magazine you liked to skim through when you had to go to the grocery store with mama as a kid, all the classics of antiquity, everything. They're right there, waiting for you.
  - sneak 1y ago
    > I own the hard drive. How I choose to arrange the little magnetic islands on the platter is my business. Most people do not agree, in that they think arranging the magnetic fields in your drive to represent and store child pornography should be punishable. It isn’t a stretch then to presume that storage of other types of data might also be proscribed.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
      > Most people do not agree, in that they think arranging the magnetic fields in your drive to represent and store child pornography should be punishable. I do not do that. Thus, the example is irrelevant. Though it might actually be a good example as to how people use excuses like that to violate others' liberty even when they're not engaged in that particular reprehensible activity. Even before you finished reading that sentence, the little "but you might" thought popped up in your head. >It isn’t a stretch then to presume that storage of other types of data might also be proscribed. I don't dispute that it is proscribed. I simply do not care. When copyright maximalists have to stoop to "what about child pornography" arguments, I think it is more than reasonable that people simply stop listening right at that point. Nothing else they say can or should ever matter.

by 3036e4 1y ago

kstrauser 1y ago

You cannot coerce me into believing that buying an ebook is any different than buying a physical copy. Either way I’m exchanging money for the right to possess a copy of it. Legal fictions be damned, if I pay for it, I own it, and can do whatever I want with it short of distributing copies of it to others.

3036e4 1y ago
It's because they managed to get DRM-circumvention into copyright laws in most countries, so they just have to put some kind of DRM in the ebook and then they can claim that any attempt to use the ebook outside of the official software is DRM-circumvention and therefore illegal, even if you are not necessarily infringing on any copyright per se.
- kstrauser 1y ago
  Oh, I understand their arguments. I just wholly reject them as nonsensical. If I buy an ebook, I will happily strip the DRM so that I can read it on the device or app I choose, and I’m morally and ethically fine with that. I use to rip DVDs so I could watch them on my laptop. Same idea here; same lack of moral conundrum. I wouldn’t share copies of those things outside my household, in the same way that I’ll let my kid read my physical books but I’m not scanning and sharing them on my website. But for my own personal use? Of course. I own those copies.
NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
I own the hard drive. How I choose to arrange the little magnetic islands on the platter is my business. I do not exchange money to possess a copy of it, but sometimes I have to wait three days while libgen.li is doing whatever the fuck it's doing (being DDOSed, having Russian FSB datamine the logs, downtime to have all 14 million epubs get their covers replaced with the fuzziest 141x296 cover image that's a bad scan of a worn out paperback printed in the early 1980s, etc). Copyright is unfortunately like one of the supernatural demons. You draw the little chalk circle on the ground and voice the incantations, and you think you're in control. That it can't leave the circle. But once summoned, this demon does not go away, and it just ignores the circle... it's just a scribble in chalk. Then you run around gibbering forever, crying about how it should've worked, you should've been safe while ignoring that it's a demonic force hellbent on burning down the Library of Alexandria and plunging humanity into a new dark age. Reject copyright. You'll never get it to play nice. They always feel hungry, always trying to take more. Every book on the New York Times Book Review Notable 100 list is available for 4 minutes of your bandwidth. Every Hugo winner, every Pulitzer novel, ever Nobel winner, every trashy little magazine you liked to skim through when you had to go to the grocery store with mama as a kid, all the classics of antiquity, everything. They're right there, waiting for you.
- sneak 1y ago
  > I own the hard drive. How I choose to arrange the little magnetic islands on the platter is my business. Most people do not agree, in that they think arranging the magnetic fields in your drive to represent and store child pornography should be punishable. It isn’t a stretch then to presume that storage of other types of data might also be proscribed.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
    > Most people do not agree, in that they think arranging the magnetic fields in your drive to represent and store child pornography should be punishable. I do not do that. Thus, the example is irrelevant. Though it might actually be a good example as to how people use excuses like that to violate others' liberty even when they're not engaged in that particular reprehensible activity. Even before you finished reading that sentence, the little "but you might" thought popped up in your head. >It isn’t a stretch then to presume that storage of other types of data might also be proscribed. I don't dispute that it is proscribed. I simply do not care. When copyright maximalists have to stoop to "what about child pornography" arguments, I think it is more than reasonable that people simply stop listening right at that point. Nothing else they say can or should ever matter.