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Probably just throwing petrol on the flames, but...
Here's the scenario; I have several dozen metres of books in my study, Hardback editions of authors I particularly like, Paperbacks of many, many, others. In some cases I have multiple versions of the same book, different covers, earlier editions, etc.
However, I have the opportunity to download the collected works of these two of my favourite authors to fill my new eReader, in non-DRM'd ePub format. These authors are Stephen King and Iain Banks, for example.
The Stephen King collection contains all of the Dark Tower series, which I don't like and have no physical copies of. It does have all of the books I own as well.
The Iain Banks collection has all of this SF and non-SF books, all of which I own, multiple times.
Now, it seems I have no legal right to download any of this, even though I would not be depriving anyone of revenue as I would not have bought the Dark Tower books and have paid for original copies of all of the others.
Would I be on stronger ground if I exclude the books I don't like/own from the download? Legally, of course, it makes no difference what-so ever as it seems that I am depriving someone, somewhere of profit. This is, in fact, not the case.
But, in the same way that no-one has yet been successfully prosecuted for recording music from the radio, taping LP's or ripping their CDs to MP3 - Home Taping Is Killing Music, right? - I cannot see how a case such as this involving books would also be successfully prosecuted.
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