I said this many times here, understanding of intellectual property law usually requires much more than reading the national legislations. But it seems you English did very well for this act (this is what you call legislations over there, no?) you linked =).
Still, intellectual property law is very much international and mostly governed by international agreements. National law usually reflects international agreements and fills their holes. And, as you probably know, international agreements count as if they are national codes, sometimes even constitutional (Check Thoburn v Sunderland City Council for a discussion of parliamentary sovereignty you British have). Thus, just writing national laws doesn't really explain it. And, most importantly, rulings greatly depend on the case. Letter of the law is usually intentionally vague.
Even if you do not have a law allowing format-shifting, scanning books might well be permissible, letter of the law must be interpreted according to the relevant cases, underlying principles and the international agreements. And if the letter of the national law conflicts with the international agreements, the national law can and should be repelled (Factortame is a very famous case study).
Consider this: Your vision is going bad, you can't read your books anymore. But if you scan them, convert the letterforms to a nice and legible sans-serif, and increase the glyph size; you can read. Then, you might well be legally allowed to scan your books, provided you do not take any part of piracy.
|