loves2splooge on 03 March 2010
| EncodedNybble said: Checking a book out from the library is not piracy. Why? Because at any given point in time only 1 person has that copy of the good and that copy was purchased by the library. Library users may have free access to it for a limited time but they don't own it. Only 1 person at a time (putting aside things like reading aloud to a group) can enjoy the book at a given point in time. Now, taking that book home from the library and copying it with a photocopier *IS* piracy. Most people don't do this because it requires knowledge (very little bit of it) and the end result isn't as good as the original in most cases because the good is an analog good. Digital goods are different. Copies are exactly like the original and software encapsulates all knowledge. I don't need to know how to crack DRM or reverse engineer anything I need 1 person to and for them to make programs to do it automatically for me. |
Obviously checking out a book from the library for free isn't the same as copying digital files. But why is it ok for public libraries to make books available for free and not video games? I think we can all agree that Planescape Torment and other games like that have more intellectual/cultural value than freakin Twilight. lol. (No offense to Twilight fans). But yet you can borrow Twilight at a public library for free. But you can't borrow Planescape Torment.
And there are plenty of pirated e-books floating around on the net. People buy e-books and then illicitly share them on the internet for download. So books can be copied 1:1. So I don't see how books are different from other media these days anymore.
