If we fear that they might not be available in the future, yes, buy the physical copies. But if we fear that ownership of such material may be made illegal in the future, purchasing of objects is probably not the safest thing to do. A digital copy of an illegal book acquired anonymously and then hidden carefully using encryption is less likely to be discovered in the back of a closet years after you have forgotten you owned it.

If anyone here keeps a porn collection saved on a drive somewhere, or on a bookshelf, be careful. Mistakes happen. Struggling upstart actors lie about their age. Material that was purchased legally on day one can suddenly become very dangerous to possess on day two. The laws in this area are draconian. If you have any reason to believe the material dangerous, such as a website disappearing for no apparent reason, delete the material. (This is not rare. It happens regularly. Though they would never admit it publicly, nearly every large porn studio has had some sort of issue at some point.)

Of course I would never advocate for the breaking of laws. If material is deemed illegal to possess then it must be destroyed. I speak only in the hypothetical in order to better educate those in authority on how they might discover and destroy illegal works of art.

People should buy things they want to own. When you rent things, there is explicitly no guarantee you'll have access to it later. Books, music, videos - the only way you can guarantee you'll have access to it is by owning it.

That said, we are not even remotely in farenheit 451 territory. And the author of this article doesn't spend much effort even trying to claim or defend that position.

No. Having a taboo book in your zoom credibility bookshelf is a very bad idea.

Why physical copies? You can keep DRM-less digital copies on your storage, and you are as safe as with physical copies.

Books were burned not digital copies.