[HPforGrownups] Re: HP Books in text files - useful for fans

[heidi tandy]

No: HPFGUIDX 9508

Hi - I'm in San Francisco today - I wanted to email
all of you from the airplane, but Harry just would
*not* go to sleep!

--- Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer <pennylin at swbell.net>
wrote:
> I fully expect that by the
> time the 5th or 6th book comes out, there will
> probably be authorized electronic
> versions of all the HP books available for sale to
> the general public.  But,
> until then, we're all out of luck.  As to the legal
> status -- hmmm .... I'm sure
> Heidi could weigh in more accurately than I can. 
> Wouldn't it essentially be the
> same thing as these e-books that people are touting
> as the next great thing?
> Or, are you asking if it's copyright violation to
> have & use an unauthorized,
> unpaid-for electronic version as long as you also
> have the hard copies of those
> books sitting on your desk?  I don't think owning
> the books outright undoes the
> copyright harm of the unauthorized electronic
> version, but I could be wrong.


Under US copyright law, it is illegal to make copies
of a printed work that you own (you can legally make A
Copy For Personal Use of recorded media (such as
dubbing your HP cds onto blank tapes for YOU and YOU
ALONE to use in your car) and you can legally make ONE
copy of software for backup purposes, though).
There's a small exception for Fair Use - i.e.
criticism, reporting, education - which means that if
you want to take a page of one of the HP books, type
it into your computer, and do a textual analysis of it
for your college class on Folktales and Fairy Stories,
or take individual lines of dialog and set them to
music for your Rise and Fall ofthe Great American
Musical class (yes, I took a class with that title in
college - and Penny - we wrote a musical version of
When Harry Met Sally (of course, one of the songs we
wrote had to actual *words*, just, um, sounds...)) you
can do that.
But there is no provision under Fair Use which will
allow you to scan the books and put them on discs and
give them to your students, or even download the
already-created text versions onto your computers.



=====
heidi tandy

What Maureen Dowd thinks David Souter was thinking on Monday, December 11, 2000: I know the Bushes are furious at me. That'll teach 'em to assume that a guy living like a monk in an isolated New Hampshire farmhouse is some kind of Live Free or Die nut.

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