Reply #59: You were very, very wrong in that. [View All]

[Occulus]

He may have simply been doing research, and had tried the library, which didn't have the book he needed to research.

You made the (blatantly odious) assumption that he was intending to violate copyright for whatever reason- with a notebook, no less!

You were wrong. Period. His was a fair use.

It's one very short step between what you did, and bookstores not allowing patrons to read any of the books at all prior to purchase.

Would you buy a car without being allowed to test drive it?
Would you buy a house without being allowed a tour?

No, no, a thousand times, no. Yet you seem to feel that his limited note taking was a violation of copyright. Thank God we have reasonable people here who know better than that; else, high school students would not be allowed to take notes from their texts because they may violate the copyright on the textbook!

Silly. Utterly silly. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, but as a copyrightist, you aren't. And that's a sad loss for the public domain.