Scanning Copyrighted Works -- reissuing old material digitally

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Marty Lyons <marty () martylyons com>
Date: August 12, 2005 11:00:52 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Scanning Copyrighted Works -- reissuing old material digitally



Dave, for IP, if you wish:


The Google copyright issue is a larger and more complex version of  
what to do with personally acquired written works.  I've got a room  
full of technical books, or the equivalent of a big dead tree with  
ink on it.  The value in those possessions has little to do with the  
craft of bookbinding or layout, but in the information itself.  Often  
I'm on the road and need access to something in the library -- having  
it where I'm not doesn't do any good.  Not to mention reference/text  
books are heavy and take up way too much physical space.

I've had several interesting discussions with intellectual property  
lawyers of the legality of making my own personal digital archive as  
PDF files.  That would certainly solve the problem of access to the  
material, and even make it searchable.  The wall-o-books might be  
reduced to several DVDs, and I could reclaim part of my office.  In  
the process, the books would likely be destroyed, as the bindings  
would be removed to feed the pages into a scanner.

Unfortunately, every book seems to have its own unique language on  
what I can do with it, but the gist of all the copyright restrictions  
is that I can't do what I need to do -- make a digital backup copy.    
Just to cite an example, here's the copyright statement of Knuth's  
Fundamental Algorithms:

"No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval  
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,  
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior  
permission of the publisher."

I already paid (a substantial sum) for the books and see no reason to  
buy them again.  A digital library would be for my own use, and would  
have much greater value if in digital form.   But if I follow the  
(implied) contract inside every cover, I'd be breaking the law.

But here's the reason it hasn't happened:  doing the work would take  
months of time.  I'd rather *buy this stuff again* digitally as DRM- 
free files and then donate the books I have to a university or high  
school.   But no one will sell them to me.

O'Reilly is doing something interesting with it's Safari Bookshelf  
product, but I found it too cumbersome and slow to use.  Somewhere in  
the bowels of publishing houses, I imagine most books printed in the  
last 20 years are still archived in some digital form.  It would cost  
little to make those files available as PDF files -- maybe for sale  
at reasonable prices.

What would I pay to have a PDF file of the three volume set of  
Knuth?  $5 per book seems reasonable.   At those prices, engineering  
students could own a legal copy of the best reference works in their  
discipline without going broke (ask a student about the absurd price  
of textbooks nowadays; only slightly less ludicrous than the price of  
academic journals).

Forgetting for a moment the problem with putting new books online in  
digital form, think of the value the publishers of the world could  
provide by selling un-DRM-encumbered copies of long forgotten texts  
they've already invested in.

/Marty








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