What is the law on scanning pages from a copyright book for a friend?

Question

What is the law on scanning pages from a copyright book for a friend? Not the whole book, but a section or whatever the friend needs. What about if the book is out of print?

If it is illegal, then what's the difference between this and lending the friend the book? If the person lends the book and the friend does his own personal scanning with it, is that a different scenario, and if so what is the legality of it?

I live in the UK, but knowing the international side of this is probably important too. Could a person in the UK scan pages for a friend in another country, for example? Can we generalise?

If it's black and white, what about in practice? Would a friend copying for a friend as a one off for no malicious intents or purposes be something many publishers would allow? Is it common for single authors to allow this? Or is this never allowed and either gets generally overlooked, gets prosecuted regularly?

I am asking this because I am studying the ethics of this concurrently, and knowing what the law is is an important side of that.

Answer 1

It should not surprise you that copyright protects the right to (among other things) make copies. There are limited exceptions that are considered "fair use", like if you reproduce a limited amount of text for educational, reporting, or review purposes. Giving your friend a copy of a large portion of the text just because they want it would almost certainly violate copyright. Whether the book is available or out-of-print has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on who holds the copyright or whether your actions violate it.

This is very different from giving your friend the book itself. The book itself is covered under the "first sale doctrine", meaning that by buying a copy of the book, you buy the right to sell, transfer, or dispose of that particular copy, but it doesn't give you the right to make more copies.

I will note that in practice, it is vanishingly unlikely that the copyright holder would ever learn of your isolated instance of limited infringement in the first place (especially since it's out of print), much less bring legal action against you for making a single copy that did not affect their bottom line.

Answer 2

It depends on the use your friend will make of the copy

Any amount of copying is prima facie copyright infringement.

UK law allows fair dealing copying for specific use cases. You don’t tell us why your friend wants a copy so we can’t tell if it fits one of the exemptions. If it does, the copying must still be fair - a small portion of the work and not the total work, for example.

Lending your friend the book is not a problem because there is no copying involved. If they make copes while they have it - see above.

Answer 3

Copyright law generally reserves to the owner of the copyright the exclusive right to copy the material:

• United States. 17 U.S.C. § 106: "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..."
• Canada. Copyright Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42, s. 3 "copyright... means the sole right to produce or reproduce the work..."

These are just two examples of domestic legislation giving effect to the countries' commitments as parties to the Berne Convention to ensure that "[a]uthors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall have the exclusive right of authorizing the reproduction of these works, in any manner or form" (art. 9).

Many countries also provide a fair-use exception or fair-dealing right, consistent with art. 9(2) of the Berne Convention. For example, see:

• In the US, when is fair use a defense to copyright infringement?

Answer 4

germany

§ 53 of the German copyright law got you and your friend covered. Specifically, the first subparagraph says:

Zulässig sind einzelne Vervielfältigungen eines Werkes durch eine natürliche Person zum privaten Gebrauch auf beliebigen Trägern, sofern sie weder unmittelbar noch mittelbar Erwerbszwecken dienen, soweit nicht zur Vervielfältigung eine offensichtlich rechtswidrig hergestellte oder öffentlich zugänglich gemachte Vorlage verwendet wird. Der zur Vervielfältigung Befugte darf die Vervielfältigungsstücke auch durch einen anderen herstellen lassen, sofern dies unentgeltlich geschieht oder es sich um Vervielfältigungen auf Papier oder einem ähnlichen Träger mittels beliebiger photomechanischer Verfahren oder anderer Verfahren mit ähnlicher Wirkung handelt.

Individual reproductions of a work by a natural person for private use on any medium are permitted, provided they are not used directly or indirectly for commercial purposes, unless a template that was obviously illegally produced or made publicly accessible is used for the reproduction. The person authorized to make copies may also have the copies made by someone else, provided this is done free of charge or the copies are made on paper or a similar medium using any photomechanical process or other process with a similar effect.

You presumably obtained the book legally. Therefore, you're not violating " unless a template that was obviously illegally produced or made publicly accessible".

If you're making copies on paper, your friend can even pay you for it. If you're scanning the pages, your friend must not pay you for your trouble or scan the pages themselves.

There is no strict definition for what "for private use" means. I learned in law classes that you should stay in the single digits for the number of friends you make copies for.

Answer 5

Any copying, which includes photographing, xeroxing, scanning or retyping is copyright infringement. Copyright protection exists for books that are out of print. Infringement exists with any amount of copying, though in the US there is the "fair use" defense, which is marginally applicable.

The difference between you scanning the book, versus lending (or giving) the book to the friend and having the friend do the scanning is that in the former case you violate the law and in the latter case your friend violates the law. There is a third case where nobody violates the law and you lend the friend a copy of the book. Also, borrowing a book from a library (governmental or otherwise) does not change the outcome, because the law prohibits anyone making any unauthorized copy, regardless of the ownership status of the physical original.

Generally speaking, wherever you are you cannot infringe copyright. Eritrea and Iran are hard cases, since Iran does not enforce copyright from other cases though there is Iran-internal protection of Iranian material; and Eritrea simply does not have any copyright protection.

Answer 6

switzerland

Published works may be freely shared among "people closely connected to each other, such as relatives or friends". Copyright owners are compensated collectively through a tax levied on devices and media capable of facilitating such copies.

This exemption from copyright is stipulated in the Federal Act on Copyright and Related Rights, article 19, which writes:

Published works may be used for private use. Private use means:

a. any personal use of a work or use within a circle of persons closely connected to each other, such as relatives or friends;

[...]

This Article does not apply to computer programs.

("use" encompasses any use of the work, including making copies for those people)