[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Randeep

If I buy a CD, however, I am within my rights to digitize my music on my computer, store it on an MP3 player, etc.

So I don't feel like I should be obligated to buy a separate eBook after having purchased the real deal.

You're not--you are free to scan it, just like you're free to rip your CDs. Nobody's obligated to provide you a digital version and do that work for you. Owning a CD doesn't give you a free download of that album from iTunes.

How about trying to digitize Martin's Song of Ice and Fire to stick on an eReader? Forget about it! And yet this would be legal as long as I didn't distribute it to the masses.

I scanned, proofread & formatted Wilson's The Occult so I could read it on my ereader. It's 800 pages. I've scanned several shorter books.

The initial learning curve is steep, as are the setup costs, but once those are past, scanning books for personal use isn't too much effort. It's frustrating that the effort's only for one person; it feels horribly selfish to spend all that time on a project that only benefits me. But plenty of people spend more effort on personal projects.

I think there could be some alternatives that bookstores might be comfortable with, like selling both as a package deal, an RFID chip in the spine of a regular book to give access to the digital one, etc.

Bookstores would be thrilled to do this; it's publishers who are dragging their feet. A few have experimented with releasing the digital version along with the physical--Baen's CDs are the most well-known example--but most publishers are holding very solidly to the notion that every format should be purchased new separately.