Quote:
Originally Posted by John F
Is this true? People format format shift ebooks (mobi -> epub, epub->epub, ...), can't you format shift pbooks you own to ebooks?
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It's not been tested apart from the attempt to take Google to court, which failed.
Most printed books specifically forbid electronic storage in the Copyright terms.
It's a media & format conversion of a physical hard to duplicate copy to an easy to copy electronic version. It's not a format shift like even a Kindle book with DRM to epub for your own use. What if Amazon abandon the Kindle? Or Adobe turns off the DRM servers like Amazon did for mobi with DRM. It's not at all similar to ripping your own CDs to your own MP3/FLAC and never sharing them, though that is illegal in some countries and not others.
If you can read, then you can read the original paper edition. Obviously what you do in the privacy of your own home AND DO NOT give a COPY to someone else is for all practical purposes irrelevant.
Also the effort involved transferring a printed book to an ebook is such that the only reasonable motive is to share copies. This should ONLY be done if the book is in the public domain. Google is a serial copyright infringer. In some cases so is the Archive dot Org / Wayback machine.
Though non-destructive non-permanent scanning for the blind (Scan, OCR text and text to speech, but without recording the audio) is probably permitted and has been available for over 30 years. Recently though publishers of Audio books are upset at text to speech. They are VERY annoyed about speech to text (subtitles), which is valid as almost no Audio book doesn't have a cheap eBook version first! Unlike text to speech there is also no real need for it. It's an attempt by Audible (wholly owned by Amazon) to increase market share and sell Amazon products.