Quote:
Originally Posted by Randeep
Is that what the law says? I've never heard that before. But that is what many people here are saying: if you want to make your own digital copy, then fine. There's a flaw here too, someone else has made a digital copy already. In the case of the CD, it's akin to my owning a CD, and then copying the mp3 album from another server or friend.
Well if someone has made the eBook already and I download that, why is that any worse than if I created my own e-book? Are we suggesting that having to perform the labor of the media's creation legitimizes its ownership?
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With your example, that is not legal, because someone else distributed what they had no right to. In the US (and many other countries), you're allowed to make a copy for personal use only, and you are not allowed to redistribute it. When you yourself make MP3s of a CD you own, you're making a copy which is consider legal. If you then give a friend copies of those MP3s, regardless of if they own a copy of the CD, then you are redistributing. That is the cold hard truth. The same logic applies to eBooks. The creation of the digital copy can be done by anyone, and be legal, but distributing it is not.
Realistically though, there are methods to where you don't have to do the work yourself and remain legal. One that I can think of, is if someone else does the work using your equipment. In this case, the copy being made is still considered your copy for personal use, and no redistributing is made since the entire time it resided on equipment that you own. I know under British law, the only snag to this, is that the person doing the work may not profit from it. The only money that can be exchanged in this scenario (again, under British law), is to cover any expenses occurred.
Under US law, it may be argued that you can use the first sale doctrine to legally transfer ownership of something, including copies made for personal use. For instance, if your friend buys a book, makes an ebook copy of it, he may legally sell you the book, along with any copies he made. After the sale is done, he may no longer possess any copy, and you must retain what would be considered the source (the paper book) in order to keep hold of the digital copy. This is a bit more of a legal grey area, due to various contests to the first sale doctrine.
Still, in all of this, it boils down to, you cannot redistribute willy nilly, regardless of whether or not the person can legally have a copy.