Quote:
Originally Posted by murg
A number of reasons. First, it seemed to be a logical branching to the circumvention thread. Secondly, I just moved a lot of books from boxes to shelves, and don't really want to pay for the ebook versions of the physical books I already own.
I'm just trying to see if there was consensus of opinion, and it seems that the practices I suggested in the opening post aren't as objectable as the practises discussed in the circumvention thread (which ended up having nothing to do with circumvention).
Personally, seeing how, without intending to distribute it, we're pretty much allowed to make a copy of a physical book, in either physical or electronic form, I don't really see how acquiring an ebook that someone else did the work of format shifting is that much of a problem.
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The law (in the US and UK at least - I don't know what the situation in Australia is) doesn't give you an automatic right to make a copy of a book. "Fair Dealing" under UK law allows you to copy a portion of a work for three very specific purposes: research and private study (both must be non-commercial), criticism / review / quotation, and news reporting (sections 29, 30, 178 of the 1988 "Copyright, Designs and Patents Act"). Merely wanting an ebook version of a paper book that you've bought is not (under UK law) sufficient justification for making a copy of it.
Services like "1dollarscan" in the US allow you to "format shift" a book, but the reason that's legal is because it's a destructive process - it's a genuine format shift, rather than creating a copy. The original is (and has to be, in order for it to be legal) destroyed in the scanning process.