Isn browsing a book on a CDS the same as free bookstore browsing or library borrowing?
It’s different for these reasons: (1) The library paid for the copy you’re borrowing. (Or somebody paid for it, in case the book was donated to the library.) Thus the author was paid for that copy. If you read a whole copyrighted book via a CDS and never buy the book, the author wasn’t paid. Copyright law is about creating new copies; you’re not creating a new copy when you read in a store or from a library. (2) Browsing in a bookstore is pretty inconvenient. You can’t take the copy with you to look at any time you want. (Unless you buy it! That’s sort of the point.) Bookstores know that few people really read entire books in the store — else they’d go out of business. However, reading a book from a CDS doesn’t have that limitation: You can take it with you, on your laptop, etc. This is particularly critical in light of digital paper, when the digital copy is the paper copy. (3) Libraries and bookstore reading isn’t anywhere near free: You have to move your physical body to the bookst
