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Originally Posted by Puddytat purr
Are you going to ask the author if it's ok to personally rip a copy of one of your pbooks? What's the difference between doing it yourself or getting it from someone else who knows what they're doing?
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A book's copyright notice should specify whether you have permission to convert or reproduce a book, or not. An example from a Penguin book I recently bought:
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No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights.
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That notice is telling you that you do not have permission according to the author's copyrights... so you should not be making even a single digital copy for personal use. Of course, their real concern is whether you distribute it, and most jurisdictions will look the other way if you make a copy for yourself (unless it gets out, in which case, they stop looking the other way, and you will be charged with a copyright violation).
The difference between doing it yourself and getting it from someone else is just this: Neither of you had permission to make the copy, though the law would not bother to indict either of you for that. However, in the eyes of the law, distribution of the copy is worse than actually making the copy, so the distributor is considered guilty of copyright violation, and the recipient is an accomplice. It's really a double-standard, but there it is.