I’m opening a bookshop that sells physical books. I have a machine that scans physical books and converts them into digital books. If a customer buys a physical book but wants to get a digital version for free, he can give me his physical book, which I store in my shop, and I can give him the digital version, but if the customer wants to get the physical version of his book, I have to take back his digital version. The only transaction the customer has to make is to buy the physical book, whereas nowadays, physical books are sold separately from their digital versions. Does my bookshop comply with the law?

  • MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I don’t know the exact laws or if they are different between different countries, but I don’t think it’s legal at all to just hand out free digital scans of copyrighted books or even to sell them for that matter. I could see doing that for books that are old enough to be public domain, but anything more current definitely sounds illegal to me.

    Also I have no idea how you could “take back” a digital file from a customer. All they have to do is download the file to literally any device and you would never know or have any way to make them delete it.

      • MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Is someone going to want to invest in a new e-reader just to read books from your shop though?

        It still doesn’t seem legal if the digital copies are of any books that aren’t public domain, unless you have some kind of licensing agreement with the publishers

        • Josselin@lemmy.worldOP
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          2 months ago

          I want to build a way for people to sell their books in my bookshop. From there I scan them and the digital copy is linked to the physical copy. It’s as simple as that. I think there should only be comic books and other photography-type books in terms of physical books, whose production costs are absurd and costly for the environment, it has to be said! My aim is to get people to migrate to digital books.

          • MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            It’s a nobel concept but it definitely doesn’t sound legal. You can’t just give away free copies of books that the authors are still getting royalties/payments for. You’re basically just stealing from the original author or their families at that point even if you’re not getting paid for it. You can’t just redistribute someone’s intellectual property without compensating them or having some kind of agreement. What your describing just sounds like a file torrent on a pirating site lol