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by triceratops 458 days ago
I was responding to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43356240 which said it "absolutely is fair use".

> The other commenters arguments...seem more convincing

Because you (and I) want it to be fair use. But as I already said in my comment, it potentially fails one leg of fair use. Keeping your purchased physical copy of the book pristine and untouched while you read the photocopy allows you to later, after destroying the copies you made, resell the book as new or like-new. This directly affects the market for that book.

Do you want to spend time and money in court to find out if it's really fair use? That's what "no precedent" means.
2 comments
MostlyStable 457 days ago
Multiple times in this thread you make the very confident assertion that this is not allowed, and that it is only allowed for electronic media. That is your opinion, which is fine. The argument that it is fair use is also an opinion. Until it becomes settled law with precedent, every argument about it will just opinion on what the text of the law means. But you are denigrating the other opinions while upholding your own as truth.

And whether or not I am personally interested in testing any of these opinions is completely beside the point.

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triceratops 456 days ago
Copyright is a restriction on making unauthorized, full copies under almost all circumstances. Default deny. There's only one documented exception on the books right now which is electronic media. None of these are opinions.

The idea that photocopying a book for archival purposes is potentially fair use is an untested opinion. I'm not denigrating that opinion. I just think it's likely to fail as an legal argument in the unlikely event that it comes up. I'm not a copyright apologist.

I myself believed the "fair use for archival"/"format shifting" thing applied to all works for most of my life. I only learned there was no law or precedent like 10 days ago.

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fc417fc802 457 days ago
> Do you want to spend time and money in court to find out if it's really fair use?

No. I'd much rather pirate the epub followed by lobbying for severe IP law reform. (Of course by "lobby" I actually mean complain about IP law online.)

If there's no epub available then I guess it's time to get building. (https://linearbookscanner.org/)

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