Permissible Copying of Physical Book

[Turtle91]

I follow your reasoning. It's annoying that US law is so convoluted that under that reasoning I would still be unable to let my kids read the ebook of a pbook I had purchased and format-shifted. I would (like to) think that it was the same concept as making a backup copy of a dvd to prevent them getting peanut butter on it (as someone mentioned earlier). I would want them to use the ebook so they didn't destroy my original, first edition, autographed...yada yada...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

I follow your reasoning. It's annoying that US law is so convoluted that under that reasoning I would still be unable to let my kids read the ebook of a pbook I had purchased and format-shifted. I would (like to) think that it was the same concept as making a backup copy of a dvd to prevent them getting peanut butter on it (as someone mentioned earlier). I would want them to use the ebook so they didn't destroy my original, first edition, autographed...yada yada...

I'm sure that most people would think it entirely reasonable to allow anyone in your household to read your ebooks. It's when you start giving copies to friends and family who don't live with you that it gets dubious.

[murg]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm sure that most people would think it entirely reasonable to allow anyone in your household to read your ebooks. It's when you start giving copies to friends and family who don't live with you that it gets dubious.

But...But...But...If the law said this was illegal, it would be wrong, right?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by murg

But...But...But...If the law said this was illegal, it would be wrong, right?

Can you define "wrong"?

[murg]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you define "wrong"?

Etymology

Spoiler:

From Middle English wrong, from Old English wrang (“wrong, twisted, uneven”), from Old Norse rangr, *vrangr (“crooked, wrong”), from Proto-Germanic *wrangaz (“crooked, twisted, turned awry”), from Proto-Indo-European *werḱ-, *werǵ-, *wrengʰ- (“to twist, weave, tie together”), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to turn, bend”). Cognate with Scots wrang (“wrong”), Danish vrang (“wrong, crooked”), Swedish vrång (“perverse, distorted”), Icelandic rangur (“wrong”), Dutch wrang (“bitter, sour”) and the name of the mythic Old Frisian city of Rungholt (“crooked wood”). More at wring.
Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ɹɒŋ/
• (US) IPA: /ɹɔŋ/, /ɹɑŋ/
• Rhymes: -ɒŋ

Adjective

wrong (comparative more wrong or wronger, superlative most wrong or wrongest)

1. Incorrect or untrue. Some of your answers were correct, and some were wrong.
   • 1592, William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act II, Scene I: Among this princely heap, if any here / By false intelligence or wrong surmise / Hold me a foe […]
2. Asserting something incorrect or untrue. You're wrong: he's not Superman at all.
3. Immoral, not good, bad. It is wrong to lie.
4. Improper; unfit; unsuitable. A bikini is the wrong thing to wear on a cold day.
5. Not working; out of order. Something is wrong with my cellphone.Don't cry, honey. Tell me what's wrong.
6. Designed to be worn or placed inward; as, the wrong side of a garment or of a piece of cloth.
7. (obsolete) Twisted; wry. a wrong nose

Usage notes

• The single-word comparative and superlative forms wronger and wrongest are no longer in common use, except humorously; rather, the locutions “more wrong” and “most wrong” are preferred.
• When wrong is used attributively, before a noun, the noun is usually treated as definite, using the article the; hence, for example, one says, “I dialed the wrong number”, “he gave the wrong answer”, and “she took the wrong approach”, even though there are many possible wrong numbers, answers, and approaches, of which only one was dialed, given, or taken.

Synonyms

• injurious
• unjust
• faulty
• detrimental
• unfit
• unsuitable
• Wikisaurus:false

Derived terms

• on the wrong side of history
• wrength
• wrongly
• wrongful

Antonyms

• right

Quotations

• 2007 January 3, Ken Miller, “The Collapse of Intelligent Design: Will the next Monkey Trial be in Ohio?”, Case Western University, Strosacker Auditorium that statement is wrong. Now that's not an incidental statement, that is the heart and soul of the Intelligent Design argument, and in this case it turns out to be wrong. Now it's even wronger than that [laughter] because it turns out that not only do these proteins make up the Type-III Secretory Apparatus but almost every protein in the bacerial flagellum is strongly homologous to proteins that have other functions elsewhere in the cell.

Adverb

wrong (comparative more wrong, superlative most wrong)

1. (informal) In a way that isn't right; incorrectly, wrongly. I spelled several names wrong in my address book.

1. Select targeted languages

• American Sign Language: Y@Chin-PalmBack, TH mouthing
• Czech: špatně (cs)
• Dutch: fout (nl), foutief (nl), verkeerd (nl), onjuist (nl)
• Finnish: väärin (fi)
• Greek: λάθος (el) (láthos), στραβά (el) (stravá)
• Icelandic: rangt, vitlaust, kolvitlaust
• Interlingua: incorrectemente, erroneemente, a torto

• Norwegian: galt (no)
• Portuguese: incorretamente, erroneamente, erradamente
• Russian: неправильно (ru) (neprávil’no), не так (ne ták)
• Scots: wrang
• Scottish Gaelic: ceàrr
• Slovene: narobe
• Swedish: fel (sv)

• Add translation : More
  masc.masc. dualmasc. pl.
  fem.fem. dualfem. pl.
  commoncommon dualcommon pl.
  neuterneuter dualneuter pl.
  singulardualplural
  imperfectiveperfective
  
  Noun class: Plural class:
  Transliteration: (e.g. ázbuka for азбука)Raw page name: (e.g. amo for amō)
  Qualifier: (e.g. literally, formally, slang)
  Script code: (e.g. Cyrl for Cyrillic, Latn for Latin)
  
  Nesting: (e.g. Norwegian/Nynorsk)

Noun


wrong (plural wrongs)

1. Something that is immoral or not good. Injustice is a heinous wrong.
2. An instance of wronging someone (sometimes with possessive to indicate the wrongdoer).
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Dowland: Can she excuse my wrongs with Virtue's cloak? Shall I call her good when she proves unkind?
3. The incorrect or unjust position or opinion.  
   • 1592, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III, Act IV, Scene I, line 101. — I blame not her: she could say little less; She had the wrong.
4. The opposite of right; the concept of badness.
   • 1607, William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, Act IV, Scene III, line 28. — Thus much of this will make Black white, foul fair, wrong right, Base noble, old young, coward valiant.

Synonyms

• wrength

Select targeted languages

• Interlingua: (please verify) injuria, (please verify) crimine, (please verify) peccato, (please verify) torto

Verb

wrong (third-person singular simple present wrongs, present participle wronging, simple past and past participle wronged)

1. To treat unjustly; to injure or harm.
   • The dealer wronged us by selling us this lemon of a car.
   • 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, Act II, Scene IV, line 109. — Thou dost then wrong me, as that slaughterer doth Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.
2. To deprive of some right, or to withhold some act of justice.
3. To slander; to impute evil to unjustly.

Select targeted languages

• Interlingua: (please verify) prejudicar, (please verify) offender

Derived terms

Terms derived from the adjective, adverb, noun, or verb wrong

• awrong
• bark up the wrong tree
• civil wrong
• go down the wrong way
• go wrong
• in the wrong
• my country, right or wrong
• not that there's anything wrong with that
• put a foot wrong
• rub someone the wrong way
• self-wrong
• start off on the wrong foot
• take (something) the wrong way
• two wrongs don't make a right
• two wrongs make a right
• wrong side of bed
• wrong 'un

• wrongdoing
• wronger
• wrong-foot
• wrongful
• wrongfully
• wronghead
• wrong-headed
• wrongless
• wrongly
• wrongness
• wrong number
• wrongous
• wrong side of the tracks
• wrong side out
• wrong-timed
• wrong way
• wrong-way concurrency

See also

• wrong'd
• wrung

Statistics

• Most common English words before 1923: trouble · die · arm · #645: wrong · afraid · merely · struck

Anagrams

• grown

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA: /vrɔŋ/

Noun

wrong m (plural wrongen, diminutive wrongetje n)

1. (heraldry) wreath, a ring made of two strips of cloth intertwined used on top of helmets to soften any blow

Verb

wrong

1. singular past indicative of wringen

[HarryT]

So now you know the definition, you're able to answer the question yourself. What's your opinion?

[PandathePanda]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm sure that most people would think it entirely reasonable to allow anyone in your household to read your ebooks. It's when you start giving copies to friends and family who don't live with you that it gets dubious.

But...But...But... We all are doing it, we even have a whole library here on MR with format shifted ebooks. And places like Project Gutenberg specialize in format shifted ebooks.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by PandathePanda

But...But...But... We all are doing it, we even have a whole library here on MR with format shifted ebooks. And places like Project Gutenberg specialize in format shifted ebooks.

I think we may perhaps be talking at cross-purposes. If you read the earlier discussion, it appears to be discussing copyrighted works, not books that are in the public domain.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm sure that most people would think it entirely reasonable to allow anyone in your household to read your ebooks. It's when you start giving copies to friends and family who don't live with you that it gets dubious.

Most right-thinking individuals should agree...

But I've seen copyright notices like this in ebooks:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Granted, that is not the majority of copyright notices...but it is on enough that I notice and just shake my head at the lunacy.

Even more lunacy are statements like these:

All right reserved. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form of by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes, if done so constitutes a copyright violation.

Do they not realize that the simple act of loading an ebook from ANY service, or side-loading onto your reader, is a "transmission" and that they are by definition being "stored" or "introduced" into an information retrieval system?? The copyright statement itself does not provide "express permission" to do so...

Just pure lunacy - and they wonder why there is so much room for error and misinterpretation... or, unfortunately, just outright ignoring.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Even more lunacy are statements like these:
Do they not realize that the simple act of loading an ebook from ANY service, or side-loading onto your reader, is a "transmission" and that they are by definition being "stored" or "introduced" into an information retrieval system?? The copyright statement itself does not provide "express permission" to do so...

Just pure lunacy - and they wonder why there is so much room for error and misinterpretation... or, unfortunately, just outright ignoring.

You are doing the standard mistake by interpreting legal terms in a technical sense. That never works.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by tompe

You are doing the standard mistake by interpreting legal terms in a technical sense. That never works.

lol probably. But since I'm an engineer and not a lawyer that would be natural.

I wonder how many of their readers are lawyers...or do they not expect anyone to read the copyright? Seems to me that if they wanted people to actually follow their copyright then they should put it in plain, unambiguous, language understandable by the non-lawyers.

In my line of work we try really hard to make sure that individuals do not get used to ignoring the warnings/alerts that are there to save their lives. They do ignore them if they happen too often when they really shouldn't - we call them "nuisance alerts". Copyright statements like these are just begging to be ignored...and thus teach individuals to ignore all copyright statements.

[PandathePanda]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Just pure lunacy - and they wonder why there is so much room for error and misinterpretation... or, unfortunately, just outright ignoring.

one I see regularly, and laugh at is something like this:

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

highlighted the one that makes me think they just copied the pbook's copyright page.

I still wonder if and how one can scan a page from a screen/tablet on a scanner

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

lol probably. But since I'm an engineer and not a lawyer that would be natural.

I wonder how many of their readers are lawyers...or do they not expect anyone to read the copyright? Seems to me that if they wanted people to actually follow their copyright then they should put it in plain, unambiguous, language understandable by the non-lawyers.

In my line of work we try really hard to make sure that individuals do not get used to ignoring the warnings/alerts that are there to save their lives. They do ignore them if they happen too often when they really shouldn't - we call them "nuisance alerts". Copyright statements like these are just begging to be ignored...and thus teach individuals to ignore all copyright statements.

Engineers are an absolute necessity. Lawyers have to create the need for their existence. Hence the deliberate ambiguity and the mindless copy-paste perpetuation of such notices. Removing ambiguity means leaving no margin for interpretation, and interpretation is the bread and butter for lawyers.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by tompe

You are doing the standard mistake by interpreting legal terms in a technical sense. That never works.

Ah but the laws were written in a time when things like ebooks didn't even exist as well I think. 19th century ideas in a 21st century world. No wonder it's so confused.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

lol probably. But since I'm an engineer and not a lawyer that would be natural.

I wonder how many of their readers are lawyers...or do they not expect anyone to read the copyright? Seems to me that if they wanted people to actually follow their copyright then they should put it in plain, unambiguous, language understandable by the non-lawyers.
.

Ah but if non-lawyers could understand the law there would be no need for lawyers.