Quite frequently I come across scanned books that are viewable for free online. For example, the publisher put them there (such as preview chapters), a library (old books from their collection that are in public domain), etc. Since I like hoarding data, and the online viewers that are used to present the book to me might not be very practical, I frequently try to download the books one way or another. This requires toying with the “inspect element” tool and various other methods of getting the images/PDF. Now, all that I access is what is, well, accessible; I don’t hack into the servers or something. But - the stuff is meant to be hidden from the normal user. Does that act of hiding the material, no matter how primitive and easily circumvented, mean that I’m not allowed to access it at all?

I suppose ripping a public domain book is no big deal, but would books under copyright fare differently?

Mainly I’m asking out of curiosity, I don’t expect the police to come visit me for ripping a 16th century dictionary.

Note: I live in EU, but I’d be curious to hear how this is treated elsewhere too.

Edit: I also remembered a funny trick I noticed on one site - it allows viewing PDFs on their website, but not downloading, unless you pay for the PDF. But when you load the page, even without paying, the PDF is already downloaded onto your computer and can be found in the browser cache. Is it legal to simply save the file that is already on your computer?

  • oxjox@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    If you have legally obtained something, you have agreed to the terms of ownership with the provider / owner / creator of the content. Whether you find a document on your computer or you have paid for it, it does not explicitly give you full ownership of that data forever.

    For example: if you buy a DVD from a store, you’re actually purchasing a license to watch the content of that DVD. If you were to give or sell that disc to someone else, you are transferring your permission to watch that disc to them. So, if you were to rip that movie to your computer, legally - you only have permission to watch that for as long as you are in possession of that physical media.
    Conversely, if you were to “buy” a movie from an online platform, they may relinquish your right to watch that movie if the publisher of that content (or a government agency) no longer permits them to stream that content to you. If you were to download that movie, that does not change the agreement you made with the service to watch it. This is why it’s not possible to save an iTunes video purchase to your computer in a non-encrypted format.

    In other words, you’ve got to read the terms and conditions. Even then, they may change the terms and conditions of the agreement.