Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

sirbruce t1_jd3wwrn wrote

> How is lending a physical copy different from lending a digital copy?

Because the "license" to lend a physical copy is included in a physical copy of the book. The "license" to lend a digital copy of a book is not included in a physical copy of the book and must be purchase separately according to the price I (or my publisher) set.

> Just because the industry decided to consider digital both digital and physical at the same time does not mean it makes sense.

Fundamental rights exist regardless of whether or not they "make sense" in some utilitarian analysis.

> Just like they consider every pirated copy of a digital IP a theft of a full priced physical item while it is just a license violation. You can't have it both ways.

I would agree you can't have it both ways so I consider it a license violation. Just because someone else makes an invalid argument on a different issue doesn't render my argument invalid on this issue.

1

littlethommy t1_jd4vgn7 wrote

If the license to lend is included in a physical copy, not in a digital, how does that explain the same pricing for either in a lot of cases. How about I buy a physical copy and digitize it, and lend it out as such? Again, not allowed, but for different rules they designed.

Rights that were acquired trough spending a lot on legalized bribery (called lobbying). Just because something was made legal, does not mean it's right or just. You only care about it being so is because you have more to gain from it.

If you have no choice to play the game, but people with more money can actively stack the rules against others, you cannot claim "utilitarian"

The IP system as a whole is rotten, and I'm talking broadly here: music, patents, copyright, academic publishing,... IP protection is necessary, but as it is now, it's built on rules designed by companies to further their interests, not to serve the intended purpose. While it's riddled with protections for them and not for the others. While copyright and patent trolls, misuse the system to deny others theirs. And this is another one of those situations.

1

sirbruce t1_jd5pw3n wrote

> If the license to lend is included in a physical copy, not in a digital, how does that explain the same pricing for either in a lot of cases.

The pricing is entirely up to the creator and the publisher. No explanation is necessary simply because the price does not match your perception of value.

> Rights that were acquired trough spending a lot on legalized bribery (called lobbying).

Rights in this case are what I consider natural rights.

> The IP system as a whole is rotten

While I agree there are problems with it, I do not agree that one problem is that people who buy physical copies of a work should be allowed to make one digital copy and lend it out ad infinitum to people, whether it be one at a time or not.

2