But I'm not talking about filling in blank information, I mean accidentally replacing information with your own. Like I said, I'm told Doctor Strange has an American accent, but I give him a British accent

I read books with my eyes. Can't stand audio books myself. Great solution for visually impaired people of course. The one reason a book can be many things to many people is the fact it leaves some information out which every reader can then fill in individually. Part of that imagination is visual and part is audio. Having it pre-filled takes away my freedom to experience a book to the fullest.

Not so, I'd say

I would argue that fair use allows for a full "blown up" copy for the sake of a purchaser's eyesight. It allows them to more easily understand the text. A single copy for private use - even if it was to have one in the study and one in the john just in case you forget it - is well within fair use so long as the copy does not leave the premises. A specific caveat made by the law. The caveat is that it is not then distributed as far as the law is concerned.

A lot of the high numbers I’ve seen are people who listen to a lot of pop lit audiobooks while they’re at work. And they listen at like 2X speed.

I’ve been listening to the Dresden Files books on 2X before bed, but I can’t take audiobooks for long.

"I think this would be more akin to buying a book and owning your own printing press. You are making a copy to be privately used in case the original is damaged. This is a practice going back to scribes and handwriting copies."

Scribes predate modern copyright law. In the current day, in most countries, if you copy the entire contents of a book whether you do so by hand, with a xerox machine, or digitally, you are technically violating the copyright.

If you are just making one copy in the privacy of your home for the ease of your eyesight or whatever, it's extremely unlikely that anyone will care or that you will be doing any real harm to anyone. But I was more taking issue with the idea that buying a copy of a book is the same thing as "paying for access" to the text in some greater sense, that's not really how it works, your use of the text is very limited and ultimately, it's not yours.

Usually try to figure out the last paragraph I remember well and then start again from that.

When I read something long, like 700+, I plan to take a whole month to read it.

Though I usually finish early, it’s so nice to dedicate a whole month of reading to one book.

I’ve read plenty of old books. The fact that they’re old doesn’t make them “good”. Sometimes you just don’t feel like slogging through old writing.

Check out r/52books

I have no issue with it. I don't think someone has a moral obligation to buy multiple copies of the same book.

My goal this year is to not let the length of a book play into my decision of what to read.

I’ve read 100+ books in each of the past three years, but I have 20+ unread books at least 700 pages long. I often find myself reaching for a book and wondering if I could instead read 2 or 3 books in the time it’s take to read one long book.

In the past two year, the 700+ page books I’ve read have consistently been my favorites of the year.

I’m three days into my first 700+ of the year, The Tunnel by William Gass,_ and it’s a beautiful, dense beast. It’s been on my shelf for three years, and I’m so glad I finally started it.

In addition to this approach, I each year pick an author and read as much of their work as possible, aiming for completion. Last year was Roald Dahl, and this year will be either China Miéville (four left unread) or David Foster Wallace (three unread). Next year will be Theodore Dreiser, the most famous author from my hometown.

I also read each issue of Poetry Magazine and McSweeney’s.

You can use ereaderiq to alert you when titles go on sale. I like to have digital copies of books I already own in hard copy, and more often than not those books go on sale for $1.99 or $2.99 eventually. I also buy books that I borrowed from the library if I feel like I may want to read them again for whatever reason. Even if I don’t plan to read it again, I’ll buy the ebook at that price point just to give the author a little boost if I enjoyed it. At that price point you can be a lot more flexible, you just have to be patient.

Rarely, if ever. If I finish a chapter or a page and think "what did I just read" then I'll go back.

Yes stealing is wrong even when you have an excuse

That is a term of service and a generic statement of copyright.

Fair use and archival purposes allow for copies for use of many reasons, including educational and research, so long as the copies do not leave the premises.

I would argue "I made photocopies / downloaded an archived copy for the ease of reading on a screen for my own personal use" falls withon fair use when the person has no intention of distribution themselves. Indeed we are skirting an edge by just downloading a copy, but since they have a full copy themselves it is a shortcut and nothing more.

Now, egg on my face, it does seem copies for replacement of a damaged copy are actually limited to 3 in total so... No, no plastering a wall, but copies for personal use fall well within copyright.l imo. Obviously not a lawyer, but it seems fairly clearly stated.

There is more nuance to the law than some blurb on a page and it all has to do with commercial loss and context of use and status of distribution.

The title, the cover, it’s the only thing that matters to me. That’s why I have a bookshelf full of books I haven’t read passed the first five pages.

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I do this with almost every book! I’m glad to know I’m not alone. I’m waiting for the day that the person I cast in my mind is cast in a real life film adaptation of the book.

If it’s high fantasy I typically don’t use real people but outside of that it makes imagining the scenes and story much easier for me.

Most recent examples:

Brad Pitt and George Clooney as the brothers in Sisters Brothers

Adam Scott as Miller and Micheal Peña as Havelock in The Expanse series (and Jeff Bakalar as Holden, but Jeff’s not an actor.)

Buy cheap reading glasses, they're available all over the place. I need them towards the end of the day or after I've spent too much time reading or playing a game on my phone.

I get what you're saying, but it's kind of book dependent. You're already not contributing to the author by reading a book secondhand, but what's the author's view on that? If it's a Cory Doctorow book, sure, I'd do it, he'd encourage it. Or check it out from a library. Other than that sort of a scenario, it's hard to support, but I can see what you're getting at. I'm not really going to say one way or the other.

It’s not a simple thing to answer. On the one hand, it’s great that people create the thing they have in their mind! Your friend probably feels very fulfilled that he put out the book he wanted to. As a reader, and this can also apply to music too, it’s not always audience friendly and if the artist doesn’t mind then ok.. I’ll give it a go and try to experience it as they intended. But if they have high expectations on the response then they maybe need to lower them, and get some advice from professionals who understand how to produce things in a way that doesn’t alienate the target audience.

There’s also that people are always learning, so someone’s first project probably isn’t going to be their best and as long as it’s interesting enough I’m usually willing to go with it and see how their art progresses.

>there is no law stating that you cannot reproduce it

I mean, there is literally a piece of text on the first or second page of most books that reads:

>No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

I set a goal one year of the number of books I wanted to read. Problem is, I like to read long books and I struggled to meet my goal. I’m not going to do that again.

If we went full Minority Report we would have nothing. We cannot prevent the dishonest from being dishonest. We can only punish the dishonest after the fact. A dishinest person doesn't care about ethics. There are none. They do as they please and do anything to get what they desire. We cannot blanket out a simple binar ly switch of whether it is ethical or not. It is too nuanced. The billionaire that steals an apple os a criminal. The starving man that steals an apple is in dire need of help and cannot be blamed. Would he otherwise be condemned to death?

This is not as extreme, of course, but the same ideas can apply. The person who digs a copy out of the trash and goes "haha! Here's my access pass!" Is just as legitimate as the person who purchases it in my book... With some caveats...

The thing is, once that person throws away or sells their purchased copy, they have sood their access. It is the person who sold that tattered copy that now needs to be sure they have no further copies. If they do, they've now copied for redistribution. Doesn't matter that they're selling the original, they've still essentially stolen a copy by gaining access, making a copy, then revoking access while keeping the copy.

The vast majority will be honest.

Are we so worried about that one person costing an author the $15 they were never going to get from that person anyway that we would hover, paranoid, over the shoulder of every person that would want to follow the rules?

After all, in your scenario, they are buying a damaged, presumably used book... So the money doesn't go back to the author or the publisher anyway. It goes to the original purchaser who is now reselling something not meant for resale and making money off of someone else's work after they have already consumed it. If anything, selling the original after consumption and damage is now the unethical thing. At least the person that bought the ruined copy tried to pay for it! They did not steal it outright, they legitimately purchased a copy that the reseller valued at a lower dollar amount.

The vast majority are people like OP. They just want their own personal use copy. They have every means to make their own personal use copy. If someone else already did it the only ethical "break" perhaps is that they are using the shorter road instead of putting in the effort of copying it themselves.

And those two are not participating in redistribution. Only one would be on technicality because the one who purchased an illegible copy does not have that same ability to make their own copy. There it does become greyer, but only because it is indeed being downloaded from an outside source and is not a perfect copy of the exact book in their hands. They are aiding in someone else's redistribution, but their downloading it doesn't change if it was there or not. It was already redistributed illegally.

They have a full, readable copy and could copy it themselves. Thus, I feel it is ethically ok to download a copy that has already been digitalized since it is essentially a shortcut of something they could do themselves.

The person with an illegible book does not have this same ability and, thus, hits one of those caveats on ownership I was speaking of.

Ownership is becoming muddier by default these days anyway. With streaming, digital distribution and other such things it actually is the access you pay for. If I buy a book on Kindle, i have purchased the right to access that book on any Kindle device or App. I do not own any part of that book, even a physical copy... So if I print it for my own use, that is just... Access. Access that can actually be revoked at any time, unlike a physical copy.

The second I give a copy to someone else I break ethics.

I set my goal on Goodreads for 20 books. I am hoping to read more than that, but we'll see. I am going to read through as many books on my shelf as possible, as I have not read most of them yet. So. I won't be buying anymore books this year, until they are all read

I'm going to answer the part you totally didn't ask for an opinion on 😁

As someone that has focus problems after too many hours with a screen:

1. Remind yourself to blink.
2. Take a break at least a couple minutes every 30 minutes or so and change your focus length (like out a window or across the room). At first it's aggravating, I WANNA READ!!, but since you'll be able to read longer overall you'll learn to appreciate it.