|  Copyrights often confuse people, but they are easy to understand if you think about what rights a person has in any private property. These are rights that no one but the owner of that property has. For example, only you may change, sell, or give away your property. Same here. This is my property, so only I may change, sell, or give it away. Hence I alone retain all "copyrights" that I don't explicitly sell or give away. Since this stuff is a special kind of property known as intellectual property, that amounts to a prohibition on making copies of it — except that you may keep one backup copy of digital intellectual property like computer software or an ebook (in case your machine crashes). Of course you may give away your copy of digital intellectual property, just as you may give away a paper book: but then you may NOT keep a copy for yourself. That's stealing someone else's property and treating it as though it's yours to give away or sell.
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