Paper books, ebooks and Copyright (UK)

[KyBunnies]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

At KY and Ekbell,
If you see recipes attached to my name, feel free to share them. I just want people to eat good food.

Oh and just so you know the recipe for Angel Food Cake is identical in Good Housekeeping, Better Homes and Gardens, and Betty Crocker. Only the pictures are different.

Will do, and THANKS a bunch. I love cooking and altering recipes to my taste. Or just throwing stuff together and creating something new. The sad part about this is I usually do not write down what I put in something. So it is something new/different each time.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by KyBunnies

Will do, and THANKS a bunch. I love cooking and altering recipes to my taste. Or just throwing stuff together and creating something new. The sad part about this is I usually do not write down what I put in something. So it is something new/different each time.

Oh you mean like my version of jambalaya. It is never the same and a few times it has been cajun/Asian/Mexican.
Or some other variation.

[KyBunnies]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Oh you mean like my version of jambalaya. It is never the same and a few times it has been cajun/Asian/Mexican.
Or some other variation.

lol yep that is about what I do. Throw in what I like and make it my own.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

This sounds bizarre - it would be illegal to send my friend a meatloaf recipe from a copyrighted cookbook via phone or email, or to record myself reading a children's book to my child?

Ah but there is also the idea of 'fair use' as well. With the example of the recipe you are only sharing 1 recipe of perhaps hundreds rather than the whole book. And those who write non-fiction do the same thing at times. They take little snips of text from other books (as supporting research etc) but they don't quote the whole of a book verbatim as they do so. If I were writing a book about the villain in literature and wanted to quote some lines from Steven King's works such as "The Stand" and "Misery" for example I might be able to claim fair use if I took just a few snips of text from here and there but it wouldn't be fair use if I quoted large chunks of Mr. King's text right out of the books themselves. Fair use of that sort is easier to do with long works of course. A song or poem is harder to fit under that umbrella as they are so short to begin with. Then you have to get permission from the author. An example of that is in movies. If a given song (or its performance by a given singer) is wanted for a movie then the movie makers have to get permission first from the songs owner. A good example of what can happen if you 'shift format' a copyrighted work is the old silent film 'Nosferatu.' The film makers didn't get permission to use the story of "Dracula" as written by Bram Stoker before making their movie and so Stoker's widow sued them in court. She won the case and an order was given to destroy all copies of the movie. We only have the movie today because someone somewhere missed a copy or two of the film.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by crich70

Ah but there is also the idea of 'fair use' as well. With the example of the recipe you are only sharing 1 recipe of perhaps hundreds rather than the whole book. And those who write non-fiction do the same thing at times. They take little snips of text from other books (as supporting research etc) but they don't quote the whole of a book verbatim as they do so. If I were writing a book about the villain in literature and wanted to quote some lines from Steven King's works such as "The Stand" and "Misery" for example I might be able to claim fair use if I took just a few snips of text from here and there but it wouldn't be fair use if I quoted large chunks of Mr. King's text right out of the books themselves. Fair use of that sort is easier to do with long works of course. A song or poem is harder to fit under that umbrella as they are so short to begin with. Then you have to get permission from the author. An example of that is in movies. If a given song (or its performance by a given singer) is wanted for a movie then the movie makers have to get permission first from the songs owner. A good example of what can happen if you 'shift format' a copyrighted work is the old silent film 'Nosferatu.' The film makers didn't get permission to use the story of "Dracula" as written by Bram Stoker before making their movie and so Stoker's widow sued them in court. She won the case and an order was given to destroy all copies of the movie. We only have the movie today because someone somewhere missed a copy or two of the film.

And now it is in every cheap Vampire DVD collection.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by crich70

Ah but there is also the idea of 'fair use' as well.

Note that there is no "fair use" defence in the UK. There is "fair dealing", but that's limited to non-commercial research or study, criticism or review, or for the reporting of current events.

[rbruce1314]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

No, because they are selling one copy of one book and they will no longer have that copy.
It appears you have confused copyright (what you are allowed to do with the text) with ownership.
99% of my physical books are used. I am in the US so under the fair use law, I would be able to make or have that company that does it make digital copies for me. I couldn't sell the digital copies and if I got rid of the physical copy, legally I would have to get rid of the digital copy.

Ah, that was what I was getting at in my OP, and what I've been doing. So it seems it's OK in the US but allowed for a year or so then banned again in the UK. The mist is clearing......

[barryem]

I lend ebooks all the time. I have extra Kindles just for that reason. I have asked Amazon if I can get in trouble doing that and they said not to worry about it. I live in a retirement home in a rural area and I don't have a car so I depend heavily on Amazon and I'm very careful with my relationship with them.

So if you want to lend an ebook just lend it on a Kindle.

Amazon didn't tell me this and I'm guessing but my guess is that they want their customers to do things like this so they'll feel more comfortable buying from them. That just means they're easier to buy from and less worrisome. They might be the evil overlords on some level but from the customer point of view they're pretty nice.

Barry

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by barryem

I lend ebooks all the time. I have extra Kindles just for that reason. I have asked Amazon if I can get in trouble doing that and they said not to worry about it. I live in a retirement home in a rural area and I don't have a car so I depend heavily on Amazon and I'm very careful with my relationship with them.

So if you want to lend an ebook just lend it on a Kindle.

Amazon didn't tell me this and I'm guessing but my guess is that they want their customers to do things like this so they'll feel more comfortable buying from them. That just means they're easier to buy from and less worrisome. They might be the evil overlords on some level but from the customer point of view they're pretty nice.

Barry

My library used to lend B&N Nooks (and maybe still does). Since you're licensed to read the ebooks on any Kindle device or application for your account, loaning one of your Kindle devices to someone is indistinguishable from you using it, and since you're not providing them with a permanent copy, you're OK. If you were to strip any DRM, if there is any, and give the copy to someone else, that's when you're violating the ebook license.

[michaeltoye]

the other way to look at this is that authors and publishers always wanted a way to licence book purchases from second owner and couldn't. They couldn't because, well, tangible out of their control paper based books.

So, the fact you can buy a second hand book is certainly not in line with the original publishers' expectation of how to charge you, the second owner, for their book release.

And, with the electronic format, they can. It sucks for us, but I'm pretty sure they always wanted revenue from the 2nd owner onwards.

The fact you can scan your own copy of a book you bought for £1 at a charity shop doesn't please anyone in the publishing industry.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by barryem

I lend ebooks all the time. I have extra Kindles just for that reason. I have asked Amazon if I can get in trouble doing that and they said not to worry about it.

I explicitly asked Amazon about this back on 18 October 2012 by email. I wrote:

This is a question about item 1 of terms of use, specifically the bits

"Use of Digital Content.
[...]the Content Provider grants you a non-exclusive right to view, use, and display such Digital Content [...] solely for your personal, non-commercial use."

and

"Limitations. [...]you may not [...] assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party"

When I buy a Kindle book, who else am I authorised to allow to read it?

e.g.
Spouse?
Child?
Child at University?
Parent?
Sister-in-law?
Nephew?
Close friend?

Or no-one at all?

Their reply on 19 October 2012 was:

In this case, I can confirm that in most cases, Paid Books have on average 6 Licenses and Free books have on average 99 Licenses.

Publishers choose whether they apply digital rights management software (DRM) to their content. There is no limit on the number of times a title can be downloaded to a registered Kindle device or Kindle-compatible device running a Kindle application, but there may be limits on the number of Kindle devices and applications (usually 6) that can simultaneously use a single book. If the limit is less than six Kindles devices or applications for a specific title, you'll see the message "Simultaneous Device usage: Up to X simultaneous devices, per publisher limits" on the website detail page.

This means that your Spouse's, Children's and even your friend's Kindle can be registered to your account and can download and read your books from you Archived items. Provided they do not exceed the limit of licenses.

Therefore, you can buy one copy of a book and have it available to be read on up to six devices (if it is a paid book) and up to 99 devices if it is a free book.

In terms of use, you have purchase a copy of a book with us, and it is your copy. You may authorize any one you wish to read it, but that person's device must be registered to your account to do so.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by michaeltoye

The fact you can scan your own copy of a book you bought for £1 at a charity shop doesn't please anyone in the publishing industry.

It's possible but not currently legal in the UK. It is legal to do this for personal use in the US.

[rbruce1314]

All of which raises another intriguing question . . about 'OpenLibrary'.

You can borrow any of the books in their catalogue, some only to read online, others to download as pdfs or epubs. However the latter two are DRM protected so you can't keep them after the loan period of two weeks . . . .

. . . so WHY do they only allow one copy to be 'out' at a time? If IT is out, you have to join the queue and wait for the current borrower to return it before being allowed to access it.

And that too can be bizarre. A couple of months ago a friend borrowed a copy of something and soon found they didn't like it, and emailed me to see if I wanted a look. SO - they returned it and I immediately went to borrow it. "This book is on loan and you will be the first to join the waiting list". That was two HOURS after their initial withdrawal, and I tried for it within a minute of their returning it . . . .

. . . Two WEEKS later (after the full theoretical loan to my friend) it finally became available to me!! Could have been a computer glitch, so after a few days (as an experiment) I contacted my friend since allegedly they still had it and they found the the book was currently on loan and they would be SECOND on the waiting list!!

Work that one out, but my main point is why, if Amazon issue multiple copies why don't OpenLibrary do the same??

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by rbruce1314

[...] why, if Amazon issue multiple copies why don't OpenLibrary do the same??

It will all depend on OpenLibrary's licence agreement with the copyright holder.

[rbruce1314]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

It will all depend on OpenLibrary's licence agreement with the copyright holder.

Ah - I see.

So, let's get this clear: are you saying that in the case of the two scenarios below, both acts are equally criminal under UK law at the present?

Scenario1
BUY hard copy of book; scan pages into PC; make epub for later use.

Scenario2
BORROW chosen book from Open Library; copy pages into PC; make epub for later use.

If that is indeed the case, the law is even more stupid than I thought, because if both are legally just as bad, then one may as well go down the 'borrow/copy' route and save one's dosh....... - even though one is clearly more MORALLY right than the other. Hey Ho!!!

And on that topic, is DRM-stripping in itself an illegal act? I assume it is, but if not, that opens up another area for acquiring without format-shifting.........