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What they keep telling us, though, is that we're buying a) the physical medium, if any, that the content is delivered on (paper, CD, whatever), and b) a license to read that content. The question is whether we only have the right to read the content from that specific medium, or whether we can format-shift it. It is exactly analogous to ripping your CD collection so you can listen to them on your MP3 player, or burning your MP3 collection to CD so you can listen to it in your car.
My take on it is that I've bought the right to use (read, listen to, watch, whatever) that content for my personal use. That includes whatever is necessary to use it in any particular way, such as format conversion so that it will play in whatever device I happen to be using. The best description of what "content" means goes something like this: "What is a song? If you destroy every recording of it, if you burn every piece of sheet music, if you wipe every computer file, then what's left is the song."
That's also why the straw man of "if you buy a hardcover, should you be able to steal a paperback?" is just that: a straw man. We're dealing with two separate items: One, the content (the words in the book), and two, the carrier (the ink on the paper). You paid for the content, which is an abstract concept, and you paid for the carrier, which is a single instance of physical ink and paper in your hand. If you need more carriers, you need to buy those separately, either with content included (a paperback), or without it (a blank CD). And, of course, you need to take care that you're only using a single instance of the content at a time. It wouldn't be right to give away the content+carrier package (aka the pbook) while keeping a copy of it.
Mind you, this is just my take on it, an IANAL. I consider myself an honorable and ethical individual, and I've given it a lot of thought. Your mileage may vary; certainly, that of the people who want to keep selling me the same content over and over (without even any carriers to put it in) does.
Although it's actually only a question in the abstract. My only overlap between physical and electronic forms of my books is either the Baen Free Library, public domain books, or a handful that I've bought in multiple formats. I'm not actually scanning my books, and feel no particular need to. I've just thought through the ethics of the question as more of an academic exercise.
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