Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
AFAIK it's pretty well-established that you have the legal right to change your copy of the book into another format for private / non-commercial use
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I'll assume that people are talking about the US here, since the law is very different in other countries.
The actual position in the U.S.A. is that you have a
affirmative defence ('fair use') which you could use if you were prosecuted for making a copy. Technically that's very different to a 'right', in that the validity of the defence is liable to be tested in court and the burden lies on the defendant to prove that the copying fell within the allowances granted by the fair use clause. The four factors governing fair use are:
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
It should also be noted that the section covering fair use refers to "purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research".
To my knowledge, no-one has been prosecuted for ripping a CD to an iPod, or any other form of format conversion. So its legal status is undefined. Obviously the landmark case in this field is the
Betamax ruling, but it should be noted that this concerned time shifting and was not directed at the people actually doing the copying.
Obviously, format-shifting is widespread and is widely-regarded as a legal activity by ordinary people. The sad fact is that copyright law needs extensive reform to make it more coherent with the wishes of the people.