Using "alternative" sources to obtain books you already own?

[lunixer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

We are, but I suspect that there aren't too many of us who would think that making or downloading an eBook copy and then giving someone else the paper book was ethically acceptable. That's a pretty blatant example of copyright infringement. It would be like buying a CD, ripping it onto your iPod, and then selling the CD on eBay.

That is legal. Ripping a CD to your ipod is legal. Selling a used CD on ebay is legal.

[lunixer]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

I have no problem with people who are still buying books obtaining digital copies of them from the Darknet. The people I do have problems with are those who never buy books (or movies or music) at all and obtain everything via the Darknet. Those folks are just cutting their own throats, IMO, because if we don't support the artists, there eventually isn't going to be anything to download.

If more publishers followed the pricing strategy of say Baen, I'm sure more people would be willing to pay for their digital book copies. I'll easily pay $6.00 for an ebook; I won't pay $19.95.

Well, the strange thing is that the people who use the darknet are typically also those who purchase the *most*. I, for example, play a lot of video games. I never buy a video game unless I download and like it first. But if I do like it, I always buy it. Studies (I can't remember where, but I know I read it somewhere) have shown that many who torrent are similar to me. Personally, this is my planned way forward in the future. Download a book, if I like it, buy it. If not, don't. In fact, that can even be done legally with Amazon's 7-day return policy on ebooks ... as long as a digital copy exists.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by lunixer

That is legal. Ripping a CD to your ipod is legal. Selling a used CD on ebay is legal.

In the US, ripping a CD to your iPod and selling a used CD is legal. What is illegal is ripping a CD to your iPod, then selling the CD on ebay while keeping the copy on your iPod. Why is that so difficult to understand?

[captcrouton]

This is such a non-issue to me. I have like 100 books on my kindle I've downloaded that I want to read and wonder when I'll get to them all. By the time I read five of them, I'll have downloaded six more.

There's so many great books I want to read, I just don't see the need to bother with books that
a) aren't available in e-format
b) aren't reasonably priced for me (won't pay more than $9.99)

Authors who refuse ebook format just wave goodbye to me. That's probably ok for both of us.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by lunixer

That is legal. Ripping a CD to your ipod is legal. Selling a used CD on ebay is legal.

Of course both those actions are legal. What is neither legal nor ethical is to retain the music on your iPod (or elsewhere) after you've sold the CD.

[jhempel24]

I can't believe this thread is still alive...there are two sides...and the two won't meet. One side thinks that it's okay (regardless of morals or ethics, or legalities), the other doesn't and shuns all that do (that's what it seems).

There's never going to be a common ground, and in 13 pages the circle just continues...the bottom line, and I think this is even been stated before is...worry about what you do, worrying about everyone else just doesn't make sense.

"The wheel in sky keeps on turning, I don't know where I'll be tomorrow"

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

In the US, ripping a CD ... is legal.

Is it? While it's commonly assumed to be -- with a lot of hand-waving in the general direction of the betamax case as if an analogy suffices in lieu of actual legal precedent -- as far as I've been able to discover the claim has never been tested in court.

Of course, IANAL, just an interested observer. Has format-shifting ever actually been declared legal in the US?

--Nathanael

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Of course both those actions are legal. What is neither legal nor ethical is to retain the music on your iPod (or elsewhere) after you've sold the CD.

I thought that we'd agreed that, in the UK, it was not legal to rip a CD. In the US, I understand that it is legal, although that has been questioned further down the thread.

[Xenophon]

Lunixer (and others): Go back to my post on the (sigh) first page of this thread: here. On reviewing it, I see that I failed to mention that giving away or selling the original purchased copy of that legitimately acquired work falls in the same category as "sharing with 50,000 of your closest friends." The only difference that I can see is that you've violated copyright by creating one extra copy (or thereabouts) rather than N extra copies (one per download, with potentially large N). The extra copy (or copies) in this case are the one(s) you kept when you sold, donated, or otherwise transferred ownership of the original book (or eBook, or CD, or DVD, or whatever).

The penalties in US copyright law are quite different for small numbers of copies than for large numbers. I don't remember what the specified difference is, but I'm pretty sure that "one copy" would fall in the small number case. As a practical matter, you're quite unlikely to be prosecuted for copyright violations of this kind. But it's still quite clear that it's a violation. If, on the other hand, you'd dumped the original CDs (or eBooks, or DVDs or whatever) in a box in your attic/garage/storage unit/whatever you'd have been squeaky-clean legal.

Xenophon
(who is not a lawyer, and is not giving legal advice. If you need legal advice on which you can place reliance, go get a real lawyer!)

[jhempel24]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Lunixer (and others): Go back to my post on the (sigh) first page of this thread: here. On reviewing it, I see that I failed to mention that giving away or selling the original purchased copy of that legitimately acquired work falls in the same category as "sharing with 50,000 of your closest friends." The only difference that I can see is that you've violated copyright by creating one extra copy (or thereabouts) rather than N extra copies (one per download, with potentially large N). The extra copy (or copies) in this case are the one(s) you kept when you sold, donated, or otherwise transferred ownership of the original book (or eBook, or CD, or DVD, or whatever).

The penalties in US copyright law are quite different for small numbers of copies than for large numbers. I don't remember what the specified difference is, but I'm pretty sure that "one copy" would fall in the small number case. As a practical matter, you're quite unlikely to be prosecuted for copyright violations of this kind. But it's still quite clear that it's a violation. If, on the other hand, you'd dumped the original CDs (or eBooks, or DVDs or whatever) in a box in your attic/garage/storage unit/whatever you'd have been squeaky-clean legal.

Xenophon
(who is not a lawyer, and is not giving legal advice. If you need legal advice on which you can place reliance, go get a real lawyer!)

My question about selling is this: Half-Price Books, if it was illegal, then they wouldn't be in business. I know some of their books come from donations and they buy overstock....but if selling used books is illegal because it falls under that same "sharing" category, they wouldn't be in business.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

I thought that we'd agreed that, in the UK, it was not legal to rip a CD.

Sorry, I meant that for the poster in the US it was legal. You're right; it's not legal for us.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jhempel24

My question about selling is this: Half-Price Books, if it was illegal, then they wouldn't be in business. I know some of their books come from donations and they buy overstock....but if selling used books is illegal because it falls under that same "sharing" category, they wouldn't be in business.

Selling used books is certainly not illegal. No additional copies of the book are being created.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by jhempel24

My question about selling is this: Half-Price Books, if it was illegal, then they wouldn't be in business. I know some of their books come from donations and they buy overstock....but if selling used books is illegal because it falls under that same "sharing" category, they wouldn't be in business.

That's the "first sale doctrine" in action. With paper books there's (almost) no issue about creating an extra copy when you sell, so there's no copyright problem with Half-Price books -- as long as they acquired the books through legitimate channels. (Almost no issue, because hardly anyone makes copies of physical books, and then sells the original while keeping the copy.)

The issues I was discussing have to do with additional copies produced through format-shifting, or DRM-removal, or downloading, or uploading, or selling on your CDs while keeping your ripped MP3s. Which is a completely different issue, legally speaking.

Xenophon

[bitemeok]

Not sure if this is the right thread to add this to, but...

I'm curious about the legality of doing with books what some record dealers do with out-of-print LPs, which is to sell a digital copy (on CD) along with the vinyl LP. They charge (a lot) for the service of making the copy, but as far as I know no one has challenged their ability to do so. The record companies own rights to 10,000's of recordings that they have no intention of ever making available again in any format ( I believe the same is likely true for publishers), and so for people unwilling to purchase a vinyl record and make a digital copy on their own there is the possibility of buying the two together.

[Nathanael]

Since no one else seems interested in responding to my enquiry, I'll do so myself, subject to this caveat: I speak English, not Legalese. While the two may intersect, they do not always coincide. So I apologize in advance if I inadvertently offend any lawyers among us by foolishly attempting to superimpose the plain meaning of the former on the obfuscatory nature of the latter. And I am, by all means, open to correction.

Now, to answer my question:

Originally Posted by Nathanael

as far as I've been able to discover the claim has never been tested in court.

While I've been busy scouring legal decisions and the 1976 US Copyright Act, I neglected legislation and, in particular, the 1992 amendment to the Copyright Act known as the Audio Home Recording Act (17 U.S.C.). Depending on whom you listen to, the AHRA either created a blanket protection for any and all non-commercial home copying of copyright material, or only a specific exemption for digital copying accomplished specifically through the use of "digital audio recorders" and "digital audio media".

First, the relevant section (§ 1008) of the Act itself states:

"No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings." (emphasis added)

Now the plain meaning of 1008 (assuming it's written in English, not Legalese) seems to be that personal non-commercial copying is protected only when the consumer uses a digital audio recorder or digital audio medium to do his copying. And the Act explicitly defines such devices and media as those primarily marketed as such; it further explicitly excludes personal computers and their hard drives from that definition, since PCs and hard drives are not marketed primarily as digital audio recorders or media, even though they may be capable of acting as such.

Under such a restrictive reading of the Act, it would seem to allow, say, copying a CD using a DAT recorder specifically onto digital audio tape, but not ripping the CD to a computer hard drive.

End of story? Not quite.

Along comes RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia (180 F.3d 1072 - 15 June 1999). In its decision the Ninth Circuit looked at the legislative history of the AHRA. In citing both the Senate ("The purpose of [the AHRA] is to ensure the right of consumers to make analog or digital audio recordings of copyrighted music for their private, noncommercial use." - S. Rep. 102-294, at 86) and the House (the AHRA "protects all noncommercial copying by consumers of digital and analog musical recordings," - H.R. Rep. 102-873(I)), the Ninth Circuit adopted a much broader view that the AHRA's main purpose was "the facilitation of personal use", without exception or exemption (III.B.2.c). "The Rio merely makes copies in order to render [copyrighted material] portable. ... Such copying is paradigmatic noncommercial personal use entirely consistent with the purposes of the Act."

So there you have it. A legal decision which takes the position that all non-commercial, personal-use copying of copyrighted material is protected by the AHRA and fair use. Case closed.

Yeah, you wish.

Some argue that the Ninth Circuit's musings on AHRA § 1008 constitute an obiter dictum and thus lack legal force. This might seem to be supported by the language of the decision itself (e.g., "We need not resort to the legislative history because the statutory language is clear." (III.B)).

Keep in mind that RIAA vs. Diamond was about neither copying nor fair use, but merely the much narrow question of whether the Rio fell under the AHRA's definition of a "digital audio recorder" subject to the stipulations of the AHRA. To the extent that this is all the court was enjoined to find, its discussions of the AHRA vis-a-vis fair use lay outside the court's main line of reasoning. That being the case, its pronouncements viz. the AHRA and fair use are almost certainly an obiter dictum which cannot be relied upon by any other court.

So what's the ultimate conclusion? Never ask a lawyer for advice, for he will say both No and Yes.

--Nathanael