[zwayhowder]

I built one of these out of pine 2x4s and plywood. I thought it would be cheaper than buying one (I was wrong) but I'm also not a skilled woodworker and had to buy most of the tools.

It works quite well and I digitised dozens of textbooks I'd purchased and needed to reference but couldn't carry around every day while finishing my masters. My one had 2 Nikon mirrorless cameras controlled via Pi-Scan. https://github.com/Tenrec-Builders/pi-scan

I had a smaller toggle switch wired to the GPIO pins so I could click the scan next button without having to take my hands of the book. Once I got used to the workflow I could scan about 1000 pages per hour while watching Netflix.

I replaced it with a Czur scanner that isn't as good, but is a lot smaller and is good enough for my less demanding needs now that I'm not doing a masters degree :D

[timeinput]

The dual camera is a design choice I hadn't thought of. I've thought of scanning a couple books, and that's probably the trick for me. Though maybe I'll rotate the book and scan / rotate images separately.

[zwayhowder]

It let me capture the pages with the correct orientation and the cameras have a fixed focus on the Platen so it works really well. Then Scantailer can crop automagically and deal with the rest.

[SamBam]

What was the purpose? Did the digitized books go to the public domain/your university, or something, or was it purely for personal research?

[zwayhowder]

Just for personal use as all the books were still in copyright and I own the paper versions, it was a (probably legal) fair use of them purely for reference while studying.

I often needed to find information in the books and couldn't reasonably carry them all with me every day between work and uni.

[pbhjpbhj]

In my opinion, buying a book (or other media) should give one right to a digital copy from any source.

[SamBam]

I'm a heavy believer in more rights when you buy a digital asset, but I don't think it's reasonable that buying something in one medium should give you automatic freebies in another medium. That other medium still needs to be produced, at a cost to the publisher. Does buying the book give you the rights to the audiobook as well?

That said, there should certainly be no restrictions to creating your own versions of things you own in other media.

[ajford]

Print houses are increasingly using the same source and layout files for printed books as they are for ebooks. This means that there is little to no difference or extra cost to produce the alternate media version here.

I totally agree that an audio book has an entirely different production path and it's own entirely different staff and company that needs to make it's own costs back. But that argument is becoming less and less relevant for physical vs digital books.

Many non-traditional/smaller publishers and printers, such as No Starch Press, offer free copies of the ebook version when you purchase the physical copy and offer the digital copy at a reduce price compared to print.

[pbhjpbhj]

I've not explained well, I don't expect the producer to have an obligation to create a copy, just to exhaust their right to sue you for having a copy. But, if the same work _is_ available in another format then I think it would be reasonable to expect the seller to provide it (it costs them bandwidth, nothing else over what they're already spending).

Audiobooks I'd say are new works. If you buy it on a medium you should be allowed to rip it and vice-versa, however (currently not allowed in UK).

[SamBam]

> But, if the same work _is_ available in another format then I think it would be reasonable to expect the seller to provide it (it costs them bandwidth, nothing else over what they're already spending).

Sure, but it's worth something to you.

I just downloaded a productivity app. The free version is great, so I don't think I need to upgrade, but I noticed that the paid version includes a Pomodoro timer. Would it cost anything for the company to turn on that feature for me? No, of course not. It's clearly just an attempted to make more money. But an attempt to make more money is exactly what they have a right to do. That's why they're in the business.