Oddbean new post about login | logout @58db300d Hmmmm alright you’ve got me thinking. So a book is a product but an ebook isn’t? How does that work? What about apps that you’ve purchased and therefore own in perpetuity?
@2ec2bc22 > So a book is a product but an ebook isn’t? How does that work? Think about the fundamental differences between the 2; * A book is produced. An e-book is copied * A book is sold to you, with an irrevocable license to *that copy* of its contents, to do with as you please, including loaning or giving it to someone else. An e-book is licensed to you, and if you
@2ec2bc22 > So a book is a product but an ebook isn’t? How does that work? Think about the fundamental differences between the two, eg; * A book is produced. An e-book is copied * A book is sold to you, with an irrevocable license to *that copy* of its contents, to do with as you please, including loaning or giving it to someone else. An e-book is licensed to you, and if you try to loan it or give it away, you're a pirate: https://blog.archive.org/2023/09/11/internet-archive-files-appeal-in-publishers-lawsuit-against-libraries/ https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html (1/2)
@2ec2bc22 * Once a book is in your possession, neither the publisher nor the distributor can take it back or alter it without going to the place you keep it. Not so with an e-book; https://www.theregister.com/2009/07/18/amazon_removes_1984_from_kindle/ * You can leave a book to someone in your will. Try it with an e-book. I could go on, but hopefully I've made my point. (2/2)
@2ec2bc22 >What about apps that you’ve purchased and therefore own in perpetuity? On appel's cr..app store and googles played store, it's usually the case that you're paying for a license to use a proprietary cr..app and you don't actually own such software. Previously, proprietary software rentiers would at least provide a perpetual license and allow you to resell the license, but now, on iOS for example, it is impossible to resell licenses or even make a backup that's not 100% dependent on apple and if apple learns that a used has died, they delete the relevant apple account and thus ensure that none of the cr..apps can run anymore, ebooks read or music listened to. Doing so is usually still illegal (for not), as intentionally sabotaging something that would otherwise work perpetually is fraud, but of course apple always gets away with it. Software is not a physical thing, so you cannot own it, but if it's free software, you can control is to do your computing as you wish.