Re: Scanning books into electronic format

Samuel:

Forgive me if someone else has brought this up, but I'd look to see if your country (I'm assuming from the domain name that it is not the United States) has a section analogous to our Section 108, which allows certain acts of copying by a library or archives if the work is threatening to become unavailable via technological obsolescence or deterioration. There are too many factors that weren't mentioned (or I missed), but instead of a default "no" position on these things, I look for exception besides fair use.

 From the limited amount of information I have here, the first thing I thought of was that if you're working in the U.S. for a library or archive, then Section 108 might apply. Even before that, I'd determine if the books still qualified for copyright protection. If this was under U.S. law, I'd try to determine originality and fixation, then term, before I even got to the possible Section 108 exception.

Again, all this is from a U.S.-centric viewpoint, which may or may not apply here. Still, I think the analysis is transferable.

I agree copyright must be respected, as must the public's right to fairly use protected works pursuant to codified exceptions to codified.

K. Matthew Dames
Executive Editor
CopyCense

On Aug 30, 2006, at 14:55, Samuel Murray wrote:

> G'day everyone
>
> What would you say about the legality of scanning a book into
> electronic format so that you can more easily search it? The book
> is owned by you and you do not distribute the scanned copy, and the
> hardcopy is by nature of the scanning process destroyed in the
> process. In what sort of cases would this be okay? The scanned
> book will be used in an office setting.
>
> Samuel
>
>
>
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Received on Thu Sep 07 2006 - 00:15:00 GMT