DIY Book Scanner

Whether you like it or not, it can't be denied that Google's Book Scan shook the publishing world. What most people have missed is that there's also far more to this subject than Google's efforts. Ignoring copyright issues for the moment, turning printed books into digital archives that can be read on-screen can be extremely useful. Rather than carry around a backpack's worth of reference books, you could store and read everything on a laptop - and even, theoretically, on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

In January 2009 Daniel Reetz, a graduate student, liked this idea so much that he built his own book scanner using a couple of low-cost compact digital cameras, lights and wood. The device can capture each page of a 400-page book in roughly 20 minutes. He has written instructions on how to make the device yourself (provided as a 3.9MB PDF and on the Instructables site) and set up a web site dedicated to the subject.

Now, back to the copyright question. Obviously, if you don't own the books you're scanning you're standing on the wrong side of the law. But if you do own the books, and you're scanning them in order to be able to read them in a more convenient form or perhaps to listen to them using OCR and text-to-speech software (a sometimes valuable accessibility requirement), what is the legality here?

Classic copyright law seems pretty clear: "No part of this publication may be reproduced [...] by any means" etc. is found in the front of almost every book. But hang on, it isn't necessarily quite as simple. These concepts have been challenged successfully in courts with regard to audio and video media; 'TV time-shifting', recording TV for viewing later, is now a completely accepted process, and 'format-shifting' of purchased music for personal use has been declared legal in a number of countries.

Interestingly, although an estimated 50% or more of UK adults have done format-shifting of some sort (usually music), it is still technically illegal in Britain. But this state of affairs is not likely to last. In 2006 the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) called for this kind of copying to be declared officially legal, not just 'allowed to happen'. In a BBC news story the IPPR deputy director said that "it is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have, that is the job of government".

The music industry's efforts to have total control over content use and its inability to distinguish personal use from sharing hasn't helped its case. Sure, book publishing is a different industry, but it is worth considering the parallels in case some of the pitfalls turn out to be the same. Using a homebrew book scanner to capture pages from a purchased book for personal use appears to be currently illegal in the UK. So here are my questions:

• Should format-shifting be allowed for those who have bought a publication, or is this taking fair-use concepts too far?
• If allowed, would this lead to serious file-sharing problems?
• If yes, should this affect the decision on personal format-shifting?
  
• And, looking forward, can publishers add value to new format editions (i.e. ebooks) to make them attractive enough for repurchasing?