Asked in Copyright and Intellectual Property

Q: Is there any way I can legally allow other persons to view an eBook I've bought?

1 Lawyer Answer
Jason Brooks
Jason Brooks
Answered
  • Intellectual Property Lawyer
  • los angeles, CA

A: By law, not really, unless you’re using a service -- like Amazon’s share for Kindle books --which allows you to share ebooks you buy once.

eBooks are licensed, not sold, which means that ebook stores get to control what rights you have with the books. Even if the books are DRM-free, “lending” them to someone necessarily involves making a copy of the ebook—a violation of copyright law. Accordingly, the only way to legally share an ebook with another person would be to physically give your e-reader device to that person -- akin to sharing the the hard copy of the book with that person -- but if you did that, by law you'd' also have to destroy whatever other copies you have in possession on any other devices.

Of course --and this is not legal advice, but practically speaking -- there’s no ebook police who will monitor how you’re using their ebooks, if it's just a one time thing. As long as you’re just sharing them with close friends or family, and not building a consumer business out of it and sharing with everyone on the Internet, there’s probably no need to worry.

Will Blackton agrees with this answer

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