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When I buy a book or computer program, what am I buying? I don't acquire any copyright interest, do I?
When you purchase a book or a computer program, you are really purchasing a licensing to use the underlying information for specific purposes. In fact, the only thing you are buying is the copy — the actual media, the paper, cover, or computer disk, not the data that is stored on that media.
This makes sense in the context of copyright law. Buying a video game doesn't mean that you now own the computer program that underlies it, anymore than buying a novel means that you own the story. If you did, you could copy and sell it freely. This would undermine the author's economic interests which are at the heart of copyright protection.
December 1998
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Content last reviewed 17:43, 17 October 2008.