1. Rafael Chodos on December 29, 2005 7:25 PM writes...

Here is what I think about it:

The question of whether one may make a complete copy of a copyrighted work for his own personal use seems settled: he may. He may then mark up the book - either the original or his copy - again, for his own use. Whether he does this "as a student" or "as a management consultant" or even as a "crass commercial operator" appears to be irrelevant: the making of a copy for one's own private use seems clearly to be a "fair use" under the copyright law.

I draw this conclusion from a re-reading of the Michigan Data Services case (1996). That very long majority opinion, as well as the vigorous dissents, all seem to conclude that the STUDENTS might have made copies for themselves, but that the COPY SERVICE's use was not comparable. (One of the dissents disagreed vigorously with this idea and thought that since the student could clearly have made the copies, and all the copy service did was relieve them of the tedious work of copying, the decision should have gone the other way.)

There are a couple of interesting subterranean issues here. One of them is privacy: It would be outrageous for a copyright holder to think that he, or the courts at his instance, might invade my home and snoop around to see what use I am making of a purchased copy of his material. But in the MDS case, the objectionable use involved people going to a commercial copy service - and so there were no privacy interests to consider. -- The other subterranean issue is community - what Larry Lessig talks about as "the commons". The desire of the copyright owner to control every single possible use of his material interferes with the healthy discussion on the commons, and so a balancing of these interests has to be done carefully.

The analysis in the world of books is very different from a similar analysis we've been trained to make in the software world. In the early days of computing, we used to "buy" our software, but lately we have had to become mere "licensees" of the software. During the 1990s Microsoft, realizing that "fair use" would allow purchasers of software to make copies for their own use, moved to "licensing" plus "activation" - the result being that you cannot make a useable copy of a software product without "hacking" deliberately. Now virtually all major software vendors (e.g. Adobe, Alias Wavefront) have followed suit. This trend would not be possible in the publishing world because there is no computer required to read a printed page and once a buyer has possession of the page his use of it cannot be monitored. (Of course, if the scanned page were to become an interactive tool in its own right - as for instance, if it were enhanced with fill-in fields and active buttons - it might itself become a "program" which could then be "licensed" rather than sold. But then, the programmer would own the copyright in the program under the theory that the original was "transformed". I wonder then whether he would require permission from the copyright holder to incorporate the original page into his program or whether his use would be excused as a fair use.)

The privacy issue may not be completely resolved yet -- even in the computer software field. The extent to which a computer user's privacy is compromised in today's world is offensive (at least, to me): one solution to the problem would be to invalidate all shrink-wrap licenses as attempts to circumvent the copyright law -- an idea which many courts have struggled with but which has so far not carried the day. [See ProCD v Zeidenberg, also 1996]. And the balancing of the social interests in the "commons" versus protecting private property was done well until the 1960s when reproduction technologies started to shift the scales and make new kinds of distribution possible.

But notwithstanding all the subterranean issues, Eric's questions seems to me to have a clear answer today.

2. Paul Edwards on January 2, 2006 3:09 PM writes...

As an author, I am concerned about copyright protection. At the same time, I am equally interested in our readers being able to make full use of our work (my wife, Sarah and I are co-authors). This, after all, is driving reason I write. I welcome readers making the kind of use Eric Mack wishes to make of our works.

-- Paul Edwards

3. Sally on January 16, 2006 5:46 PM writes...

I think, probably, it's not a big deal to quote something from the book, but you should always mention who is the author

4. Anonymous on December 21, 2007 7:20 AM writes...

Cool!

5. Anonymous on January 25, 2008 7:23 AM writes...

interesting