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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 1559467" data-attributes="member: 2013">No.  The legal doctrine in question is "Right of First Sale."Basically, it states that once a copyright holder has been paid for a copy of the book, the person paying is allowed to do whatever the heck they want with that copy so long as they do not infringe copyright (i.e., you can use a razor to deconstruct the book into its component pages, but you cannot re-print the text and give the re-print to others).This includes turning around and re-selling the book for whatever price they like (including free)... but they have to sell THE COPY THEY PAID FOR, and not "a copy of the copy they paid for" (see the difference).In the case of a used bookstore, WotC probably got paid by the Distributor company.  The instant WotC takes that money, the fate of those copies of the books the Distributor paid for is now no longer WotC's to control.  The Distributor might sell some of them to your FLGS.  Your FLGS might sell them to your local used book store.  All of this is legal... but again, this applies only to "the copy of the work paid for" and not "a copy of the copy of the work paid for."Right of First Sale.  WotC loses control of what happens to THAT PARTICULAR COPY of the content when it is paid for (but not a copy of that copy).  Your friend is within his rights to give it to you.Here, Right of First Sale does not apply.  You did not get the particular copy paid for, you got a copy of that copy.  Your copy (of a copy) was not paid for; copyright infringement has occured.As others have said, the difference in the second case is that the p2p sharer still has a copy.I think that's the essential thing to grasp with copyright.  Don't track the physical book.  Track the "copy of the material."  One book is one copy.  One scan is one copy.  Copying/scanning a book makes an additional (unpaid for) copy of the material.  The fundamental question in copyright is not "book" but rather the arrangement of words and pictures it contains that communicate an idea; if this arrangement is replicated, whether it be as a "book on tape" or a "scan" or "text file" or a "file on CD" or a "physical paper and ink book," that's *still* a copy.The fundamental question then becomes: how many copies exist?  How many have been paid for?  Exclude, of course, "backup copies" that belong to a person with a "regular copy" (this falls under Fair Use, as it is assumed that the single person does not gain extra utility by using multiple copies simultaneously; the material is accessible to the person either way)If the number of copies that exist is greater than the number that have been paid for, copyright infringement has occurred.  The copyright holder agreed to give one copy for X dollars, not two copies or ten copies.Does that help clear up the differences among the scenarios above?  Legal scenarios are those that involve transfer of a single, "already-paid-for" copy.  Illegal scenarios are those that involve transfer of "not-already-paid-for" copies of a copy.--The SigilIANAL, TINLA</blockquote>

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