[scintill76]

Why should abstract cost matter? You think the authors are saying, "Oh good, at least they're paying the local utility companies to keep their copy of my book air-conditioned!" ?

In both cases, a single copy is paid for and shared with potentially tens of thousands of users. Now, you may have had the cost and physical inefficencies in mind as a rate-limiter on the unpaid (to the IP holder) consumption of media, but Falkvinge called that a quantitative, not qualitative, difference that doesn't matter. Honestly I'm not sure I agree [1] -- but who gets to define "how many" or "how cheap" is too far? I'm pretty sure the IP lobby would kill all libraries, lending, and re-selling if they could. Is that fair?

[1] It's perhaps too much like saying that deploying automated networked license plate scanners in every inch of a city is OK, because it's "just like a cop standing on the public street corner observing which cars are driving by", and I would definitely be against the scanners.

[kethinov]

Exactly. We long ago accepted the compromise of buy it once, share it with many for free so long as only one person got to experience that copy at a time. (Or more accurately one household at a time at least since some content can be experienced as a group.)

In the digital age that "one person at a time" limitation seems far more arbitrary and limiting, which calls into question whether or not the original "one person at a time" compromise is still relevant in this day and age.