Re: and visual library once again

["Björn Persson" <spam-away@nowhere.nil>]

Hyman Rosen wrote:
> Larry Kilgallen wrote:
>>Certainly you can.  Harper & Row does that all the time after
>>they buy a book from the author.
> 
> They don't buy a book. They buy the right to make copies, which
> otherwise is restricted to the copyright holder. In many cases
> the contract specifies circumstances under which the publisher
> will lose that right and it will revert back to the author.
> 
>>Perhaps you are thinking of "sell a copy of a book".
> 
> No. When I go to a bookstore and make a purchase, no one makes a
> copy of a book. There are piles and cases of books available, and
> I pick one up and buy it.

This is what happens when we take words like "buy" (or "steal") that 
apply to material objects, and try to use them on information such as 
software or literature. The book example makes the confusion extra 
visible because "book" can denote both a material object, a bound sheaf 
of pages, and a piece of information, a literary work.

Everybody knows what buying a material book means. What it means to buy 
a literary work is a lot less clear.

-- 
Bj�rn Persson                              PGP key A88682FD
                    omb jor ers @sv ge.
                    r o.b n.p son eri nu