What is the right to reproduce?

The copyright owner holds the exclusive right to make copies or phonorecords of his works. So if you make even a single copy of a book or CD without the original author’s permission, your copying is copyright infringement (unless it qualifies as fair use or some other exception to the copyright owner’s exclusive rights). This right to reproduce relates to making material copies - thus, if you read an author’s book out loud, you are not violating the author’s exclusive right to reproduce (although you may be violating their exclusive right to public performance, which means you would still be infringing the author’s copyright).

In addition to fair use, there are certain other exceptions to the author’s exclusive right to reproduce, where a work can be copied without seeking the author’s permission.