coffee.geek.nz

I read books electronically - i have since circa 1996 on a Philips nino, later many palm pilots.

The illegal trade in ebooks exists - can be found in the same place you'd find music and video shared. (torrents, p2p, irc). Some call this fair use as they already own the book. They just want the digital version now. I'm sure some are reading without buying the book.

I once had a guillotine (sp?) and scanner set up - chop the spine off a paper back, feed through document feeder and OCR into an electonic text. These I still read on my slowly failing Palm TX.

Of course I'd never do this with out copyright holder permission. (New Zealand copyright laws allow format shifting audio, but only audio - nobody can tell me why this is law). But the question remains, who is losing out from this? The author/publisher won't sell the books electronically. I bought the damn book already.

There are also excellent authors who give away books for free, and there are many more who sell their books- some for a reasonable $1 to $3, others for much more than the paper version costs.

So the new copyright act says we're allowed to "format shift" sound -- but only sound.
We're not allowed to format shift video, or images, or text.

from the MED FAQ:

Why is there a format shifting provision and why is it limited to sound recordings?

The new format shifting provision responds to the concern that people want to transfer music they have legitimately bought onto different devices to take advantage of new technology. It also recognises this has been common practice for a long time.

The markets for audio visual works and music are evolving, they are different. There are numerous business models for audiovisual works that do not apply to music. Theatrical release, commercial rental (both physical and online models), free-to-air TV and pay TV do not have counterparts of any significant extent for music. It is also unlikely that consumption of audio visual works "on the move" using mp3 players and the like will ever be as ubiquitous as for music. It is not, therefore, possible to simply apply the conclusions reached about music to audio visual works.

the argument seems to be that something needs to be "ubiquitous", otherwise we'll make it illegal. (It also seems strange to say that people don't want to consume audio visual works on the move - have they never been on a long haul flight?)

The whole document ignores other forms that creative works take.