[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by nekokami

That's where the disagreement seems to lie. If "that" and "this" are related, I see a distinction from "stealing."

You do. Others may not.

Particularly as one might make a point of not using both of them at the same time, and the item you're categorizing as being "stolen" is not a physical item and does not reduce the inventory of the seller. In terms of IP, one has paid for the license (via the paper book). As long as there is no simultaneous use, I don't see how this is logically different from scanning one's own book to digital format.

It isn't, really. But the fact that you're being a good guy, and not using both at the same time (though how could you, really, if it's just you involved), isn't relative to the concern.

The issue isn't inventory shortage of a physical book to the retailer. It's the idea that once you have an unprotected electronic copy, you can then copy and share the book with others, and the seller loses revenue because those folks grab your free copy rather than buying one of their own.

That's why publishers use DRM to begin with.

In my case, it's pretty critical. I have a substantial collection of p-books to which I do not have physical access. The only way I can re-read them (and I re-read a lot) is in ebook form. My plan is to inventory all the books this winter, a box at a time (I have a barcode scanner to make this process more feasible) and start the replacement project. I've located a nearby science fiction store that deals in second-hand books. It can be quite difficult to resell old books, or even get anyone, e.g. a library, to take them as donations. Where possible, the replacements will be legal copies. This is not always possible.

Bar code scanners are handy things. I've been looking at a product called Readerware. It's a cross-platform book database, available for Windows, Mac OS/X, and Linux, with a Palm client to hold extracted subsets like your "want" list. One of the features is a bar code module. If you have a bar code scanner, the software can take the bar code info and use it to retrieve info about the book and fill in the DB entry.

Go here: http://www.readerware.com

Meanwhile, whenever possible, I'm buying new titles in ebook form to start with. I just won't buy anything in a DRM that I can't remove. If I'm going to forgo paper copies, I need some assurance that I'll be able to re-read into perpetuity. (Again, I re-read a lot.)

That makes perfect sense.
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Dennis