[fjtorres]

Well, US law works on the principle of default legality so things are considered to be legal unless explicitly banned by law. Absent a law criminalizing personal use scanning of books it will be legal until somebody makes a case in court against it.

Often, in gray areas, all you get is a lot of fist waving and threats and handwringing but no legal action because a loss in court is worse than looking the other way. For example, under the DMCA it is supposed to be illegal to distribute DVD ripping software yet it is readily available both online and at retail. None of the companies are sued because the guiding precedent from the Betamax case is that as long as there are non-infringing uses, the product will be legal. And with the growing popularity of home streaming boxes lots of people are ripping their DVD collections for personal use streaming. Sueing users risks a fair use finding so the software remains available.

In truth, scanning books for personal use is rare and not worth going after in the US. Given the size of legal purchases any losses from the practice is insignificant. Now, other countries are different: in some south american countries the publishing sector is small enough and piracy prevalent enough that legal action can impact the bottom line.