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NekuraHitokage t1_j5lc258 wrote

Reply to comment by Disparition_2022 in Is it ethical to pirate books I already own if I just want an E version? by whydoesyourbedsmell

Yes.

As one would be purchasing their initial copy of the book.

I have been handed an entire plastic punch-bound cover to cover copy of a book to read along in class only to turn them in at the end.

Part of copyright is the distribution aspect. I was incorrect on my statement of "1000." An exaggeration. But for fair use it would be a simple lack of sale or distribution. It is not being distributed, sold, or otherwise causing some undue commercial impact to the party that sold the book as it was already purchased. The purchaser cannot read two books at the same time, will not be offering one book to one person whooe they read theirs (which, in the case of a book club, would it not be fair use for educational purpose?)

Copyright is intended to protect the sales and ownership of a work. If a person is making a copy for personal use, they may as well have made no copy at all as only that one person will ever use it.

I suppose I could also argue archival context, but again... I'm not a lawyer. What I do see is a law that is made to protect the integrity and ownership of a work as well as to make sure the owner of that work is fairly compensated for their work. As long as that is not broken, no law is broken.

This person has a very good reason to need this copy. It helps them read what they already bought without further undue hardship. No law is broken.

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Disparition_2022 t1_j5lglvx wrote

Again, there is an element of "fair use" you are missing. Here is the law:

>"Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—(1)the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;(2)the nature of the copyrighted work;(3)the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and(4)the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

I bolded the third point because it's the one you seem to keep ignoring, the relationship between the portion used and the work as a whole. You can use a portion of a work for educational purposes or criticism, that doesn't mean you are within rights to copy the entire thing.

Note also that the specific reasons mentioned for "fair use" include education, criticism, reporting, and teaching. There is absolutely no mention of personal archival copies, nor anything related to if your eyesight gets bad.

I'm certainly open to other definitions of fair use which is why I asked where you are getting yours, but this is the law as I found it.

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NekuraHitokage t1_j5lipwu wrote

I did not miss it. You ignored the three surrounding clauses and leaned heavily on one. All parts are important and the other three simply outweigh that one, so it was never mentioned. Not ignored.

> (1)the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

Nonprofit educational. Degrading eyesight makes a digital copy with scalable text make sense. Individual has agreed to one personal use digital copy.

> (2)the nature of the copyrighted work;

A physical book that I will boldly assume is available in one font purchased through a proper author to retailer chain.

> (3)the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

The entirety.

> (4)the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

None, as this copy will remain on this individual's personal device and is acting as a replacement for their physical copy which they are retaining.

With all these factors in mind, i think it is perfectly acceptable to allow it. These are a set of criteria. It doesn't even say that it cannot be done, merely that these factors will be considered when judging a case. It is then up to the judge to rule on the criteria set forth.

Were I the judge, I would deem it well within rights for fair use since it is a personal copy allowing the purchaser to continue enjoying what they purchased in spite of their degrading health. Maybe with a cheeky warning about having the foresight to buy the digital copy first next time with thr amazingly and frustratingly connected world we live in.

I didn't ignore anything. You're focusing on one thing too much.

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Disparition_2022 t1_j5lxrfq wrote

>*Nonprofit educational. Degrading eyesight makes a digital copy with scalable text make sense. Individual has agreed to one personal use digital copy.

But the OP didn't purchase a digital copy with scalable text, they purchased a physical copy with the text set in one specific size. No agreement between the individual and the copyright holder regarding a digital copy has taken place.

>A physical book that I will boldly assume is available in one font purchased through a proper author to retailer chain.

That is indeed a bold assumption, and raises a good point: Many books are indeed available both in a regular font *and* in a separate, larger-type edition specifically for people who are visually impaired. If you purchase a book in a regular font and then your eyes go bad, do you believe you are entitled to go to the store and grab a large-type edition for free? If not, then why would you be entitled to do the same digital version with scalable text?

Also nothing in the OP mentioned educational use. As far as their post indicates, this is purely personal and for all we know the book could just as easily be just entertainment. There is absolutely nothing in the fair use code that mentions personal archives, and I'm very curious about where you got that stuff you were talking about as far as "three copies" and "as long as it doesn't leave the premesis" none of which appears in the law. What is your source for that stuff?

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NekuraHitokage t1_j5m95jt wrote

No. That is different. Making one's own larger copy does not equal walking into a store and taking a second copy that happens to be larger. Someone else made that for sale. That a twist of fate made it so a paying customer suddenly cannot read the copy they already purchased should not remove their access and allows exception in this case and in this manner. Any other "whatabouts" you can come up with do not argue that point.

Walking in to a store and taking a premade copy is far different from digitizing a copy for personal use or -in this specific case - downloading a digital copy. Assuming there are no large print copies - especially on release - is only so bood. Large print is only so marketable.

Further, the store theft... You would be stealing the materials and work done on that individual book regardless of access. The supply chain and etcetera that went into producing a number of access points to the story. That is removing one paid for access ticket from the pool of tickets, if you will. That is another entirely transferrable copy. They could, for instance, buy thebigger print one and happily gove away the other copy because it is a legally distributable cooy.

Stealing a published copy is not making your own copy of something you already paid for for your personal use. That is stealing a publically sold and published copy. To make one's own copy for a very good, personal use reason causes no commercial strain on anyone in that chain as the book was already purchased by one person once. You can only ever ask for that first purchase, really. Especially of a book. The hope is that many will like it and the sheer volume of sales make it worth it... But if you have 10,000 copies and all 10,000 sell and someone makes their own personal pdf on a phone somewhrlere, never distributes it, never even tells anyone... Then there is no impact. Maybe on the... Falsified rarity of making only 10,000 copies, but since we started with ethics... That's hardly ethical to me. Art is to be shared. Fairly compensated for, but made freely available.

The skirting here is downloading of a digital copy rather than making one's own copy. What you are describing is not the same as what I am describing. It is not having a single digital copy of the physical work already purchased. This is a false equivalance.

I got the amount of copies from the law. The archival section. I said it was arguable under either, but you stuck on fair use.

Archival allows archives or employee of archives to make no more than one copy for archival purposes. If she were to argue that it was being stored for personal archival purposes, it could likely be arguable under this. Bit again as stated multiple times, I am not a laywer. I am a person giving an asked for opinion on the internet.

It also allows up to three reproductions for the purposes of replacing damaged works.

And an archive is an archive. As long as they follow certain rules, even a personal archive would be an archive.

Law is flexible. What works in one situation does not fit another. In this situation no law is broken in my eyes. That's it. You aren't going to convince me otherwise, I'm not going to convince you otherwise. We both stated our opinions, neither of us are lawyers (i assume) and i'm certain we are merely going to disagree on this interpretation of the law. Shall we merely agree to disagree and move on?

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Disparition_2022 t1_j5mf8or wrote

Fair enough.

My understanding of "archival law" is that it applies specifically to libraries and other kinds of professional archives, not just any private person who happens to own books, and thus wasn't particularly relevant to the conversation.

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NekuraHitokage t1_j5mfi1y wrote

Ahh, but that is the beauty of law. I'm certain I could register as an archive or library if I had a certain number of books, allowed public access, etc. With the small scale here i'd say it could be arguable.

Whether or not this all would hopd up? Iunno. That'd be for courts to decide. It's merely how I judge this. Not saying I'm right!

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Disparition_2022 t1_j5mh01k wrote

>Ahh, but that is the beauty of law. I'm certain I could register as an archive or library if I had a certain number of books, allowed public access, etc. With the small scale here i'd say it could be arguable.

You wouldn't have to allow public access, there are plenty of private archives. I used to work at a university library that had one. But there is definitely a difference between an archive and a random private collection of books. The issue is not the number of books nor the degree of public access but rather the question of the historical nature of those books and the methods you use to preserve them (and the methods you make others use to read them. At the archive in the library where I worked, for example, everyone had to have gloves on at all times and no one was allowed to have a pen or any other kind of ink-containing device anywhere near a book while reading it). Also you can't just like, put a book on a normal shelf and call it an archive. Books age, paper yellows and gets brittle, etc. and archives are often specifically designed to counter or slow the effects of this aging. There's a whole science to it. (and fwiw you can't just "register as a library" either. You have to go to school and get a degree in library science to become a librarian, it's not trivial and it's certainly not the same thing as just being a person who owns a bunch of books and lets others borrow them)

Also, you'd have to have set all that stuff up *in advance* of making whatever extra copies you are entitled to as an archivist. The OP didn't mention anything about doing any of that stuff and has not indicated that they are an archivist of any kind.

Again, one person downloading (or making) one copy of one book is unlikely to end up in a courtroom at all, not because of what the law says but because it's incredibly unlikely any authority figure will ever know about it, so the question of whether it's legal is purely academic anyway, but I do think it's an interesting discussion. My issue is less with the OP's actions and more with your claim about the level of "access" that one purchase entitles you to.

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