If I purchase the book, do you consider it fair use for me to scan it in, OCR it, convert the resultant text into whatever format I want, and use it that way (for personal use, that is)?

We had an interesting chatterbox conversation this morning (EDT) in which I defended that position, which seems like an intuitively reasonable one. However, as footpad and Beatnik pointed out (with helpful references from footpad), it is not based in actual law (hate that).

Specifically in U.S.C. title 17, section 106,

Subject to sections 107 through 120, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

1. to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

Ah, but you will say "fair use!" And indeed, that's where we came in. That's covered in section 107:

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The prevailing view would seem to be (though I quote pretty much everybody in saying "Fair use is not an exact doctrine") that copying a chapter for personal use is acceptable, though arguably only if there's a "valid" reason (e.g. to teach about, criticize, or comment on it), but copying an entire book is not permissible under any circumstances.

In the particular case of the ORA Perl books, since they do sell an electronic copy, you are doing them (in some sense) economic damage if you produce an electronic copy without their permission, even for personal use--and the guiding principle of copyright case law (at least according to this guy) is to protect copyright holders from economic damage. Hence, the hypothetical I proposed (and I think what you're proposing here) would be illegal, unless prior permission was secured from O'Reilly.

As a practical matter, nobody's likely to bother suing you for the US$80 the Perl CD Bookshelf lists for, since it's less than the small claims filing fee in many places, but as a legal matter, they could.

Most of this I cribbed from Findlaw (courtesy of footpad) and Stanford's fair use site, should anyone care to poke around for the details.

IANAL but I have it on good authority, including direct quotes from lawyers, that the basis of copyright (and patent) in the US is to be found in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 which reads:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Based on historical documents that have been pointed out to me, the highlighted section is the purpose of copyright. It was felt that the government did a wrong to have such a thing as intellectual property. The government does harm by supporting a temporary monopoly. But it would cause greater harm if people were not encouraged to create intellectual discoveries. Therefore the harms are balanced by limiting the scope of the monopoly and providing exemptions for personal use.

The story that the primary purpose of intellectual property rights is to make holders of these temporary and limited monopolies happy is a myth. It is to provide them enough incentive to work for the ultimate enrichment of the public domain, a fact which Congress seems to have forgotten too often in the last century. :-(

I'm not sure about Belgian law on the subject, but I'm pretty sure that unauthorized reproducing can get you fined somehow...
I would also like to point out that most of the Perl books from ORA (can't tell from other ones), don't include a statement indicating that reproduction without prior consent etc is illegal (and immoral).
The dutch version of the Perl Pocket Reference apparently does have such a statement, but I'm sure Academic Services in somehow involved in that.

Note to people at O'Reilly: is it me or do most Perl books mention Java and The Nutshell series, even though they're not part of any of those two groups.

Greetz
Beatnik
... Quidquid perl dictum sit, altum viditur.

I agree with your original assertion-- buying a copy of the book does not validate downloading someone else's digitization of the same material (and I'd have to assume that ORA books found illegitimately online are not simple OCR scans of someone's real world book, but copies of the digital editions-- not something owning the book gives you any license to, or they'd include it on a CD with each book purchase).

But I must assert that if I buy a book, video, CD, or any other item of that nature, I have every right to create "backups", digitized copies, what-have-you, for my own personal use. Personally, I think I'd rather pay for a legitimate digital version of any ORA book in question, as OCR'ing something like the Camel would take days, and probably result in a poor digital text (even if it gets all the characters right, it's still a flat text file, not my idea of useful).

Well, in the US it is very very legal to make copies once you buy it. Also, not mentioned here is the legal precedent set by the courts in interpretting these laws. Generally, unless you are making money off the copy, OR hurting the business of the copyright owner, THEN you are no longer covered under fair use. SO, I think that in the case of the download, the court would find that:
• You did purchase license for the work
• You were not reselling it, or showing the copy
• You are not costing the publisher anything, so there is no harm. Harm must be demonstrated to override fair use.
Also, the idea you can only copy part of it, that is actually, you can reproduce only parts for distribution but in fact you are allowed to copy the whole work for personal or academic use.

You would have a difficult time finding a judge in the US that would care if you had physically made the copy yourself. For example, if you pay somebody to make you a copy for personal use, neither of you have violated copyright law, even though the person who actually purchased the book isn't the person who made the copy. Generally, US copyright law doesn't consider the physical aspect of the copy, but rather the content. That is, it is not the paper with ink that is copyrighted, it is the pattern of words that is copyrighted.
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