3 ms·

The way the current rules are written for fair-use, if two people send in an identical book, are they allowed to send the same PDF to both rather than scanning

The way the current rules are written for fair-use, if two people send in an identical book, are they allowed to send the same PDF to both rather than scanning twice? I wonder how the governing bodies would view that. Side-note, I think it'd be interesting if if they collected/published data about what books are sent in, and from where.

sixtofour 15y ago
To be very accurate, they'd have to keep track of slip streamed versions. I had a maddening email debate with some friends some years ago over what the ARM said. We were all using the same "edition," but we finally worked out that they were actually different. Stroustrup or his publisher wanted to correct something without actually changing the edition number. So for your scheme to work accurately they'd have to try to keep track of that. I think it's too risky, and would go with "scan the exact book in."
dctoedt 15y ago
> if two people send in an identical book, are they allowed to send the same PDF to both rather than scanning twice? In somewhat-analogous circumstances almost 30 years ago, a court said "no." The case was Micro-Sparc, Inc. v. Amtype Corp., 592 F.Supp. 33, 34-35, 223 USPQ (BNA) 1210 (D. Mass. 1984). The defendant offered a keyboarding service: It typed in the source code of programs published in a hobbyist magazine, then sold disks to purchasers of the magazine. The court rejected a fair-use defense and held that this infringed the copyright in the programs. (Adapted from a chapter in a treatise I published long ago.)
- pontifier 15y ago
  After reading this case, it seems to me that a different section of the copyright code was tested here. I believe space shifting of media other than computer programs has a solid history... That the subject was a computer program is what seemed to trip up the case in my opinion.

3 ms·

The way the current rules are written for fair-use, if two people send in an identical book, are they allowed to send the same PDF to both rather than scanning

by mp3jeep01 15y ago

sixtofour 15y ago
To be very accurate, they'd have to keep track of slip streamed versions. I had a maddening email debate with some friends some years ago over what the ARM said. We were all using the same "edition," but we finally worked out that they were actually different. Stroustrup or his publisher wanted to correct something without actually changing the edition number. So for your scheme to work accurately they'd have to try to keep track of that. I think it's too risky, and would go with "scan the exact book in."
dctoedt 15y ago
> if two people send in an identical book, are they allowed to send the same PDF to both rather than scanning twice? In somewhat-analogous circumstances almost 30 years ago, a court said "no." The case was Micro-Sparc, Inc. v. Amtype Corp., 592 F.Supp. 33, 34-35, 223 USPQ (BNA) 1210 (D. Mass. 1984). The defendant offered a keyboarding service: It typed in the source code of programs published in a hobbyist magazine, then sold disks to purchasers of the magazine. The court rejected a fair-use defense and held that this infringed the copyright in the programs. (Adapted from a chapter in a treatise I published long ago.)
- pontifier 15y ago
  After reading this case, it seems to me that a different section of the copyright code was tested here. I believe space shifting of media other than computer programs has a solid history... That the subject was a computer program is what seemed to trip up the case in my opinion.