MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Copyright issues in replicating you library in eBook format

ZacWolf · 11-25-2009, 09:58 AM

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

To clarify:

The poll is intended to be Opinion, not Law.
The post is intended to talk about the Legality of "ownership" of content vs media.

Some very excellent feedback everyone, thanks! From the feedback it seems that there remains a large gap between how we feel the laws should work, and how they actually do. No big surprise there since copyright law seems to be industry written legislation that is simply regurgitate by governments [many of whom have a financial stake in said industries].

My take away is that the judgment against mp3.com is pretty much the gold standard in the US. That being "fair use" covers SELF manipulation of content between formats (ripping, scanning), but does NOT cover "acquiring" (file sharing) different media types based on ownership of a physical copy of the content. It seems so counter-intuitive that the source of the end-result (the electronic copy) should have any legal baring on legality, but clearly it does.

I think the whole issue of loaning/borrowing is the one key point where book publishers differ from music distributors; and I think it will be very interesting how that all plays out in application of recent legal arguments that have been tailored to the music/video industries. The fact that we've had libraries since we've had writing may be the sticking point in jury deliberations regarding ebook cases.

Thanks!

11-25-2009, 09:58 AM	#15
ZacWolf Member Posts: 18 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: stanza on iTouch, nook	Thanks for the feedback everyone. To clarify: The poll is intended to be Opinion, not Law. The post is intended to talk about the Legality of "ownership" of content vs media. Some very excellent feedback everyone, thanks! From the feedback it seems that there remains a large gap between how we feel the laws should work, and how they actually do. No big surprise there since copyright law seems to be industry written legislation that is simply regurgitate by governments [many of whom have a financial stake in said industries]. My take away is that the judgment against mp3.com is pretty much the gold standard in the US. That being "fair use" covers SELF manipulation of content between formats (ripping, scanning), but does NOT cover "acquiring" (file sharing) different media types based on ownership of a physical copy of the content. It seems so counter-intuitive that the source of the end-result (the electronic copy) should have any legal baring on legality, but clearly it does. I think the whole issue of loaning/borrowing is the one key point where book publishers differ from music distributors; and I think it will be very interesting how that all plays out in application of recent legal arguments that have been tailored to the music/video industries. The fact that we've had libraries since we've had writing may be the sticking point in jury deliberations regarding ebook cases. Thanks!