Quote:
Originally Posted by BookCat
The point being that it appears to be legal to have multiple copies of paper books, but not ebooks. I realise there's an exception for academic/research purposes, so how does this apply to, for example, academic ebooks?
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In most cases it is not legal. Only excerpts may be copied (fair use). Buying multiple copies is what most libraries do as photocopying an entire book is (a) Copyright violation and (b) Expensive. Scanning to PDF image is far cheaper and ALSO copyright violation.
Note in most but not all countries that Copyright violation is a Civil offence (the rights holder sues for damage and no upper limit) and in some it's a Criminal offence (fixed maximum tariffs and it's up to the legal system/government to bring a case, rights holder doesn't get the fine, they STILL have to separately sue for damages).