What's a Reader to do?
Because lending involves a single copy of a purchased object, book owners are
currently used to having the legal right to lend a book to anyone they like.
It is likely, then, that this attitude will extend to the realm of eBooks.
Because an eBook must be copied in order to lend it to anyone who is not at the
same computer, an eBook owner would have to delete his own copy in order to
simulate a true "lend". This final deletion step is highly counterintuitive,
however, when all one wants to do is lend a book to a friend. Copying a book
and giving it to a friend clearly breaks copyright law. While it is definitely
illegal, the financial repercussions are not clear. Very often, those who
borrow books do so in lieu of buying them in the first place. It is entirely
possible that those who receive illegal copies of books do not represent
lost consumers. Conversely, it is possible that the easier eBooks are to get a
hold of, the less people will borrow books from friends at all.
Last modified: Mon Jun 5 07:22:10 PDT 2000