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Company Scans Your Books For a Dollar – Ship ‘Em In, Get a PDF via Email

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Re: Company Scans Your Books For a Dollar – Ship ‘Em In, Get a PDF via Email

#21

Post by pavel_lishin »

dman wrote: post #15
pavel_lishin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect that will prevent students from borrowing books from the library, getting them scanned via this service, and returning them. Now I'm curious, how much does a library charge for a lost book?

Dont go down that road - please. If you "borrow" someones book you rob one person of the privilege of reading it in the future. If you pull the same stunt with a library book you potentially rob many people well into the future. For some reason libraries are very slow to replace lost books. I guess just knowing with good certainty that the book is actually gone for good rather than placed in the wrong section would b…

I wouldn't. But it's not like I'm the only person who would think of this. So, really - are lost book fines low enough to incentivize students to steal them, ship them to get scanned, and pay the fine?

Especially in the case of required textbooks.

Re: Company Scans Your Books For a Dollar – Ship ‘Em In, Get a PDF via Email

#22

Post by caryme »

caryme wrote: post #9

My grandmother, who passed away last week, was an author. She self-published two novels through a printer who typeset her books and printed a few hundred copies. I don't know what happened to the original text files she gave her printer and I know she never got a digital typeset copy. I've been wanting to re-release her novels as ebooks, but haven't had a way to digitize them. This is perfect for me.

By the way, if anyone is interested, I'm also republishing my grandmother's short, inspirational writings on this blog: http://goldenwriter.caryme.com/.

Re: Company Scans Your Books For a Dollar – Ship ‘Em In, Get a PDF via Email

#23

Post by sigil »

Bud wrote: post #19

What I noticed about this company, after checking their website: 1) They list an "Accept direct shipment from Amazon" option (coming soon). Think about it: this means a book could be printed, sold, shipped to this company, scanned and destroyed without ever being read. Something is very odd here. 2) The business is located four blocks from my apartment. Maybe I'll try them out...

Re 1), what's odd is that current ebook pricing makes this an attractive option.

Re: Company Scans Your Books For a Dollar – Ship ‘Em In, Get a PDF via Email

#24

Post by kwamenum86 »

Bud wrote: post #19

What I noticed about this company, after checking their website: 1) They list an "Accept direct shipment from Amazon" option (coming soon). Think about it: this means a book could be printed, sold, shipped to this company, scanned and destroyed without ever being read. Something is very odd here. 2) The business is located four blocks from my apartment. Maybe I'll try them out...

printed, sold, shipped to this company, scanned, and then resold

Re: Company Scans Your Books For a Dollar – Ship ‘Em In, Get a PDF via Email

#25

Post by hector031 »

kwamenum86 wrote: post #16

They're not scanning your books for a dollar. They're letting you pay them to give them books. Then they resell them at some discount. Speculation...but that's what I would do.

The 1DollarScan site says they cut the spines off the books to scan them, so unless that isn't accurate, they aren't reselling the books.

Re: Company Scans Your Books For a Dollar – Ship ‘Em In, Get a PDF via Email

#26

Post by Bud »

kwamenum86 wrote: post #24
Bud wrote: post #19

What I noticed about this company, after checking their website: 1) They list an "Accept direct shipment from Amazon" option (coming soon). Think about it: this means a book could be printed, sold, shipped to this company, scanned and destroyed without ever being read. Something is very odd here. 2) The business is located four blocks from my apartment. Maybe I'll try them out...

printed, sold, shipped to this company, scanned, and then resold

Not resold as physical books, no...since they cut the spine off the book so that they can scan it.

Resold as PDF files? Not by this company, anyway...I don't think that business model will work out legally.

Resold by shady third parties? Maybe.

Copied and bittorrented? Definitely.

Re: Company Scans Your Books For a Dollar – Ship ‘Em In, Get a PDF via Email

#27

Post by tzs »

kwamenum86 wrote: post #16

They're not scanning your books for a dollar. They're letting you pay them to give them books. Then they resell them at some discount. Speculation...but that's what I would do.

You'd have a real hard time defending a copyright lawsuit under that model.

The legal key to their business (and to similar businesses such as CD ripping services) is that it is arguably fair use for the owner of a particular copy to make additional copies for his own personal use.

Given that, it is not a copyright violation for a third party (them) to provide a service to help the owner of the copy to make those fair use copies.

Re: Company Scans Your Books For a Dollar – Ship ‘Em In, Get a PDF via Email

#28

Post by jarek »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #21
dman wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dont go down that road - please. If you "borrow" someones book you rob one person of the privilege of reading it in the future. If you pull the same stunt with a library book you potentially rob many people well into the future. For some reason libraries are very slow to replace lost books. I guess just knowing with good certainty that the book is actually gone for good rather than placed in the wrong section would b…

I wouldn't. But it's not like I'm the only person who would think of this. So, really - are lost book fines low enough to incentivize students to steal them, ship them to get scanned, and pay the fine? Especially in the case of required textbooks.

My alma mater charges a minimum of $40; standard books look to be $104: http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/borrowing/sanctions.html

Re: Company Scans Your Books For a Dollar – Ship ‘Em In, Get a PDF via Email

#29

Post by sixtofour »

mp3jeep01 wrote: post #18

The way the current rules are written for fair-use, if two people send in an identical book, are they allowed to send the same PDF to both rather than scanning twice? I wonder how the governing bodies would view that. Side-note, I think it'd be interesting if if they collected/published data about what books are sent in, and from where.

To be very accurate, they'd have to keep track of slip streamed versions. I had a maddening email debate with some friends some years ago over what the ARM said. We were all using the same "edition," but we finally worked out that they were actually different. Stroustrup or his publisher wanted to correct something without actually changing the edition number.

So for your scheme to work accurately they'd have to try to keep track of that.

I think it's too risky, and would go with "scan the exact book in."

Re: Company Scans Your Books For a Dollar – Ship ‘Em In, Get a PDF via Email

#30

Post by nooneelse »

hector031 wrote: post #25
kwamenum86 wrote: post #16

They're not scanning your books for a dollar. They're letting you pay them to give them books. Then they resell them at some discount. Speculation...but that's what I would do.

The 1DollarScan site says they cut the spines off the books to scan them, so unless that isn't accurate, they aren't reselling the books.

If they get the same book to scan twice, why actually do the second scan? Why not just use the scan from the first copy of the book? And if that is the case, now they have a fresh copy of the book with its spine intact.

It would be a waste of the resources invested in the production of that physical book to not find some productive use for that copy.

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