Is reading an illegally copied book illegal on its own? Let's say there is a copyrighted book which is published illegally by someone. Is it also illegal for the people who have received the book to read it?
Copyright law regulates copying of protected material. In the US, there are no laws that specifically prohibit reading anything. It may be illegal to be in possession of something (classified material), but if it is legal to be in possession, it is legal to read. (Do not confuse "read" with "read aloud to an audience" a.k.a. perform, which is a separate copyright protection). It is not illegal to be in possession of material that was copied without permission.
You misunderstand the nature of copyright. Holding copyright allows you to decide how the work can be copied: there is no obligation on you to publish it if you don't want to. After your copyright expires you don't have to publish it either: the only thing that has changed is you can no longer prevent anyone making a copy. The lost works of Aristotle are in the public domain - if you can find them you can make as many copes as you like.
Would any offence be committed for: Having this on your person? Buying or selling this? Leaving it around for people to plug in to a computer? In the abstract, I don't think that this conduct would violate either Section 36 of the U.K. law or U.S. law, although, obviously, purposefully destroying a computer itself (i.e. actually using the device without the consent of the owner of the computer) would violate many U.K. laws and would also violate many U.S. laws at both the state and federal level. I also don't think that possession or buying or selling this product would be a crime absent some intent that it be used illegally, in which case there might be an "attempt" to commit a crime offense, or an offense that would make one part of a conspiracy to commit a crime. In the "leaving it around" example, there is arguably an intent to use it to harm another improperly, although the phrasing is ambivalent. While many statutes in the U.S. criminalize possession of burglary tools, or drug paraphernalia, sometimes with an associated intent element (although even these crimes often have an express or judicially implied intent to use element), I'm not aware of any statute that criminalize possession of tools for malicious destruction of property. So, if the tools aren't possessed or used in a manner intended as a step in the facilitation of a crime, I don't think that any law is violated. So far as I know, the U.S. does not have a counterpart to Section 37 of the British statute cited above (it isn't a terribly easy thing to search for to definitively rule out the existence of such a law because federal law has many uncodified crimes in unexpected statutes and there are many sets of state criminal statutes, not all of which are codified either). The example giving in the comments by @gnasher729 of possession of a hammer which could be used to do the same things that this object could be used to do is instructive. Arguably, this USB-like tool is more specifically targeted at malicious conduct. But, for example, when I used to work as a radio news reporter, we had a machine that was basically a high powered magnet that was specifically designed to destroy all information on magnetic media. This was, in part, so that it could be reused, but it was also so that confidential interviews wouldn't fall into the wrong hands once they were no longer needed, in much the way that one might shred paper documents. It isn't so implausible to think that a device like this one might be necessary for individuals or firms with national defense secrets embedded in their hardware and software to have on hand in order to destroy a sensitive computer in order to prevent a security breach, if necessary. In a case like that, leaving one of these devices around the office unlabeled might be negligent, but wouldn't have the intent necessary to be an intended crime. And, it is hard to imagine that the device itself, which seems pretty simple, would itself involve any technology that is a national security secret, so it probably wouldn't violate export control laws. Of course, possession, purchase or sale of such a specialized device, or leaving it around unlabeled would certainly be powerful evidence of an intent to use the device in a wrongful manner, and hence, of an attempt to commit a crime. Indeed, possession of such a device or purchase of one might very well be sufficient to establish probable cause to seize the device and arrest the person holding it on charges of an attempt to destroy a computer. But, this device would be merely powerful evidence of an intent to commit a crime, rather than something that is a crime to commit in and of itself. There are no international laws that govern this kind of thing. The only international laws applicable to individuals pertain to war crimes and nuclear and chemical weapons. Even then, most international laws direct member nations to adopt domestic laws on the subject rather than being self-executing.
It is illegal to make copies of copyrighted materials without license. In the case of software, obviously it will be illegal to make copies by copying and installing the software without a license, but we are not talking about that. If I have a legitimate license of say Photoshop, and I start the application, parts or all of the code will be loaded into the RAM of my computer, which is a copy. According to copyright law, it is legal for me to make that copy. You are allowed to copy legitimately owned software into RAM to execute it. If your copy of Photoshop is illegal, and you start the application, the copy that is made into RAM is again copyright infringement. Having read the software license for the software that you get when you buy a Mac, it seems that if you steal my computer and just start the operating system, you are committing copyright infringement, and it seems that if you buy such a stolen computer and just start the operating system, you are committing copyright infringement as well, because the license that I received when I purchased the computer covers anyone using it with my permission, and covers anyone who legally buys the computer from me, but doesn't cover a thief. Now does this affect the work that you did? No, you have the full copyright on your work. Copyright law doesn't require that your tools are all used legitimately.
Yes. This is infringement. This infringement might be excused by a &quot;fair use&quot; defense but it probably isn't. At a very small scale tailor to a very specific educational program, for example, for just members of a thirty person English class that they are currently taking, it might qualify as educational fair use. But I get the impression that the contemplated translation project is far more ambitious than that. The underlying content of the events reported in the news are not protected by copyright, but the language used to report those events and any translations of that language, is protected. The only reliable way to solve it is to get permission to do so from the holder of the copyright of the source of the new reports you are translating.
No. That clause does not give other users a licence to reproduce the work (other than what is necessary to access or use it) or create derivative works. The copyright owner has the exclusive right to do those things. (See 17 USC 106.) The clause you quote only indicates that other users can "access" (download for viewing) your "information" and use it, too. It doesn't give away any of your exclusive copyright in the work. You do grant Facebook a licence to do certain things with your work in section 2.1 of the Terms of Service, though.
Most of the works available on Libgen are illegal: they have infringed copyright by putting copies there. Any copying of a protected work, done without permission of the copyright owner, is copyright infringement. That includes downloading from libgen.
The text may be public domain in the United States It depends on when it was created/published. The eBook is subject to its own copyright The eBook itself is a derivative work and subject to its own copyright protection. The translation of an ink and paper book into an eBook contains enough artistic choice to trigger copyright protection. If the original is really public domain, you can copy the text but not the eBook.