Plagiarism

[birdeen's call]

No, it certainly does NOT. Nothing in a copyright prevents others from reading it, seeing it, or enriching their mind from it. It prevents them from using it for a monetarily profitable purpose without the permission of (and in some cases payment to) the person who created the work.

I disagree. I think you're oversimplifying it. A copyrighted book can be read of course. But it often (not always) must be bought first. It's not said in any law that a copyrighted book must be paid for. But it happens in practice because people who have the right to make copies of the book want to make some money out of it. Books which are not copyrighted can often be fully, easily and legally downloaded from the internet. It doesn't happen very often with copyrighted books.

[Barb_D]

I think everyone needs to go read Atlas Shrugged.

[5jj]

I think everyone needs to go read Atlas Shrugged.

Perhaps. But start with the less turgid Fountainhead.

[birdeen's call]

I think everyone needs to go read Atlas Shrugged.

I understand you want me to read this book to learn something about ethics and economy. I'm not going to do it, it's not interesting enough to me. I haven't stated anything about what people should do or what is morally correct. I said some people thought this way. I don't. All I'm saying is it's usually more difficult to me to get my hands on a copyrighted book than it is in the case a non-copyrighted book. Do you disagree?

I also said that it was cool that people publish their works without claiming copyrights. I should perhaps have said it was cool to me. I like it because these works are usually easily accessible and free of charge as opposed to their copyrighted counterparts, which I often can't afford.

I don't believe I have a right to get free stuff or anything like that. I only like it free.

PS: I started reading one of her books some time ago and didn't manage get to the end. I think I must have been improperly taught ethics as a child as I can't read anything about it now.