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Digitizing a book against author's wishes

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happiness

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I bought a book whose pages I want to scan to convert it to digital form. It's a huge hardcover book that's hard to hold open to the page I want and too big to carry around. The publisher/author didn't include anything in the book forbidding its contents to be reproduced, so I emailed him to ask for his permission to digitize it for my use only. His secretary replied that he is not comfortable approving my request and does not want digital copies in existence.

I'm probably not going to go through with it out of respect for the author's wishes, as he is someone I look up to, but just to play the other side of the argument, would there be anything unethical about doing so? Is there any moral significance to the absence of fine print saying "no part of this book may be reproduced without the author's permission?"

Edited by happiness
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There's nothing immoral about digitizing it for personal use. Copyright laws are meant to protect the author's commercial rights, not prevent you from enjoying his book.But you should be careful to keep it off the Internet.

Do his commercial rights not include the right to forbid people to digitize the information to coincide with his decision to require people who want it to pay for the hardcover book?

Edited by happiness
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It depends on who owns the book.

If the author owns it, by virtue of having written it, then to do anything to it or with it without his consent is a violation of his property rights (regardless of whether you turn a profit from it, or not).  If you own it, by virtue of having paid for it, then it's your property and your decision.

Most Objectivists would say it belongs to the author, which means you aren't allowed to do that.  The general consensus is that this only applies to actions which earn some amount of money but I don't think that position is tenable (and that's all I have to say about it).

 

I think that your copy of the book is your property.

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I took the following from a Government publication.  I would have thought it odd that the words "copyright" would not be on it, but looking at the categories, it might be not allowed by law.

 

What Works Are Protected?

Copyright protects “original works of authorship” that are

fixed in a tangible form of expression. The fixation need not

be directly perceptible so long as it may be communicated

with the aid of a machine or device. Copyrightable works

include the following categories:

1 literary works

2 musical works, including any accompanying words

3 dramatic works, including any accompanying music

4 pantomimes and choreographic works

5 pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works

6 motion pictures and other audiovisual works

7 sound recordings

8 architectural works

These categories should be viewed broadly. For example,

computer programs and most “compilations” may be registered

as “literary works”; maps and architectural plans may

be registered as “pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works.”

What Is Not Protected by Copyright?

Several categories of material are generally not eligible for

federal copyright protection. These include among others:

• works that have not been fixed in a tangible form of

expression (for example, choreographic works that have

not been notated or recorded, or improvisational speeches

or performances that have not been written or recorded)

• titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols

or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation,

lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents

• ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts,

principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a

description, explanation, or illustration

• works consisting entirely of information that is common

property and containing no original authorship (for

example: standard calendars, height and weight charts,

tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from

public documents or other common sources)

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Do his commercial rights not include the right to forbid people to digitize the information to coincide with his decision to require people who want it to pay for the hardcover book?

I don't know what that sentence means, sorry, but his commercial rights mean that he has the right to sell the book to every single person, and no one has the right to get it from anyone else (except by being sold the physical copy you purchased).

But, if you don't intend to either re-sell the book or the copies you make, you making copies, for yourself, doesn't affect him in any way.

Besides, the reason why he wouldn't give you permission is because he's worried that you'd use that permission to circumvent copyright laws and start distributing the digitized version of the book. He doesn't care if you digitize it for yourself.

Edited by Nicky
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It depends on who owns the book.

If the author owns it, by virtue of having written it, then to do anything to it or with it without his consent is a violation of his property rights (regardless of whether you turn a profit from it, or not).  If you own it, by virtue of having paid for it, then it's your property and your decision.

Most Objectivists would say it belongs to the author, which means you aren't allowed to do that.  The general consensus is that this only applies to actions which earn some amount of money but I don't think that position is tenable (and that's all I have to say about it).

 

I think that your copy of the book is your property.

Let's not turn this into another debate about intellectual property. OP made it pretty clear that he DOES believe in intellectual property, not just physical property.
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It depends on who owns the book.

Suppose you buy a home in a development, and it is not a condo, but you have to sign some conditions before you buy: e.g. related to the upkeep of your property. Would you say that you do not own the house, if you agree to bind yourself by those conditions?

The point is that "ownership" is a concept that encompasses all the things you can do with your property. It is open-ended: i.e. nobody needs to list the things you can do. However, you can bind yourself to not doing certain things with your property, or you can bind yourself to allowing others to do certain things with your property (e.g. with an easement). The books by Hernando de Soto have some concrete examples. 

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Let's not turn this into another debate about intellectual property.

Don't worry; I don't intend to.

 

Suppose you buy a home in a development, and it is not a condo, but you have to sign some conditions before you buy: e.g. related to the upkeep of your property. Would you say that you do not own the house, if you agree to bind yourself by those conditions?

That would be a contractual stipulation.

 

The point is that "ownership" is a concept that encompasses all the things you can do with your property. It is open-ended: i.e. nobody needs to list the things you can do. However, you can bind yourself to not doing certain things with your property, or you can bind yourself to allowing others to do certain things with your property (e.g. with an easement).

Yes.  And if I were to sign a contract in order to buy a book, which specified what I could and could not do with it, then I would consider it both legally and morally unacceptable to violate such obligations.  The case could even be made that such agreements are implicit wherever intellectual property is involved, if one accepts the validity of the concept of an implicit contract.

 

If the general point is that he doesn't really own it then all I would like is to make that point explicit.

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And if I were to sign a contract in order to buy a book, which specified what I could and could not do with it, then I would consider it both legally and morally unacceptable to violate such obligations.

What if the book carried the following large text on its cover:

"Warning! This book is being sold under the condition that the buyer will not copy it, and will adhere to the fair use restrictions and durations as specified under current U.S. Copyright law"

Would you consider that an adequate contractual notification of intent, or would you require a specific document that you must sign?

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What if the book carried the following large text on its cover:

"Warning! This book is being sold under the condition that the buyer will not copy it, and will adhere to the fair use restrictions and durations as specified under current U.S. Copyright law"

Would you consider that an adequate contractual notification of intent, or would you require a specific document that you must sign?

 

Yep; that'd work.

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