Re: Scanning books into electronic format

On 8/30/06, Samuel Murray <leuce[_at_]absamail.co.za> wrote:

>

Speaking only from my perspective in my own country (U.S.)...

Based on your description, it seems obvious that it is a copyright infringement. Not all copies are necessarily an act of infringement but I don't see how what you are doing can fall under any non-infringing uses.

It really does not matter that you only have one copy at all the time. There are some people who said that as long as you have one copy, it does not matter if it is in paper form or digital form. My opinion is that they are very mistaken. Copyright concerns both copy as a noun and copy as a verb.

When you transfer a copy (as a noun) from paper form to digital form, you are doing the copying (as a verb) or as what the copyright law calls, reproduction.

However, the reality is far different from what I say above. Far too many people simply disregard the law and proceed reproducing works in paper form to digital form. You may be tempted to disregard the law but it is best to think about the long-term future. What if one of employees in your office becomes your enemy or becomes disgruntled with your company? He or she would report your copyright infringement to the authors of the books that you scan to your PC.

If there is a digital version available for the book, buy it. Else, you are stuck with the book in the paper form until its copyright expires.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<josephpietrojeungriolo[_at_]gmail.com>

Number of days left until 1-1-2019 when all knowledge of 1923 in the land of the U.S.A. will be freed from their copyright owners' prisons: 4,501

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain. Received on Tue Sep 05 2006 - 19:45:30 GMT