Ebook scanning service?

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

Hello,

I am based in Louisiana. Would it be legal to set up a website and business to scan books and textbooks and charge a fee for that service? We wouldn't be giving the books to anyone who didn't already own a hard copy and sends it in just to get a digital copy.

Thanks in advance!

One of the exclusive rights held by a copyright holder is the right to reproduce their copyrighted work.

The Copyright Act, in 17 USC §101, defines copies as "material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."

A reproduction, or copy, of the work, in other words, includes scanned copies, photocopies, computer disks, printings, recordings, carbon copies, ROMs and RAMs (even for a brief period of time). The 9th Circuit addressed this in Mai v Peak, 991 F.2d 511, 1993.

To make a copy of a copyrighted text, without permission from the copyright holder, would be an infringement on the copyright holder's rights.

Thank you so much for the quick response! If I may ask then, how is it legal for copy shops to make copies of certain pages of books? They have such a shop in my university right now.

It may or may not be legal for the copy shop in your area to make copies of certain pages of books. It depends on the facts.

If the copying has been authorized through a license agreement with the copyright holder, the copying can be legal. If the book is a university product (ie, authored by a university professor), the copying may be legal if requested by the professor. There is also a fair use exception to the copyright law that could allow for the legal copying of portions of texts if these were used for educational purposes (ie, in a classroom setting).

Then again, the copy shop could be infringing on the copyrights of the text authors or publishers and could find itself sued if caught. Kinko's, for example, was sued for copyright infringement (see Basic Books, Inc v Kinko's Graphics Corporation, 758 F. Supp 1523, March 28, 1991) for copying off portions of copyrighted texts.

Again, it really depends on the facts but, generally speaking, it will be infringement to copy without permission anyone else's copyrighted material.

I would guess that the owner of the book could do this for the owner's own benefit under the fair use doctrine.

But for the owner to send it to another party for this activity may be outside the fair use exception.

I know of no one who does this for any book of significant volume -- just due to the time associated with it.

Your business model does not seem sound either - it would likely cost more for your service than to buy an extra hard copy or buy the digital version (if one existed) anyway.

Your "guesses" really are of no benefit to anyone seeking advice on this forum, wrong, unless they are somewhat educated guesses (which yours do not appear to be).

A copyright holder can make a copy of his own work. That is one of the copyright holder's exclusive rights. No "fair use" exception is needed.

quincy said:

Your "guesses" really are of no benefit to anyone seeking advice on this forum, wrong, unless they are somewhat educated guesses (which yours do not appear to be).

A copyright holder can make a copy of his own work. That is one of the copyright holder's exclusive rights. No "fair use" exception is needed.

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My opinion is correct. There is the fair use exception .. once could make a back-up copy (hard copy or digital) of a book they purchased.

But a non-book owner doing this is another matter...

Again, wrongsometimes, cite your source for this "opinion" of yours, show me the law and case law that indicates making a back-up copy of a purchased book is legal, and tell me why a copyright holder must rely on "fair use" to make a copy of his own work.

While waiting for wrongsometimes to do this (and he won't because he can't), blindmelon may wish to look at the Authors Guild et al copyright infringement lawsuits filed against Google, and against HathiTrust (and the University of Michigan, the University of California, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University and Cornell University).

From the complaint filed against the HathiTrust by the Authors Guild, the Authors Guild claims: "By digitizing, archiving, copying and now publishing the copyrighted works without the authorization of those works' holders, the universities are engaging in one of the largest copyright infringements in history." This case involves the unauthorized scanning of over 7 million copyright-protected books.

The Google lawsuit was filed by Authors Guild et al in 2005. It was settled in 2008 with Google agreeing to pay $125 million, in part as royalty payments to the authors and publishers of the books that were scanned without authorization. This settlement agreement was rejected last year, however, by a US District judge, and new settlement agreement terms are being worked out.

The Google lawsuit, like the HathiTrust lawsuit, can be an educational read on the legality of book scanning (as can the Kinko's suit mentioned earlier).