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There is no reasonable definition of "copy" that would make the lending of a physical book a copy. The word "copy" literally exists to differentiate other actions from that action.
> There is no reasonable definition of "copy" that would make the lending of a physical book a copy.

But it could count as distribution. Copyright covers that. Library style distribution could be just as illegal as CDL style copying, by barely changing anything.

The point is that yes, digital items get treated differently by the law because using them requires "technical" copying. Moving them requires copying, using them requires copying, lending them requires copying. The law as written means that digital works will give their buyer far fewer rights than identical physical copies of the same. And yes, that's precisely why the current law is bananas, because it turns digitization into an excuse to enclose the commons. But I have no confidence in the courts to stop it, because that's not what courts do.
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It is however not much a stretch to say that someone reading a book and committing it to memory is making a copy not inherently different from the "copies" being made when viewing something over the Internet. Now if you go and lend/sell a book after reading it you still retain the copy in your mind. Yet somehow that is legally fine.