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?

  • simple@lemm.ee
    39·
    8 days ago

    AFAIK web scraping (the act of grabbing and downloading any data you see available on the internet) isn’t illegal, and I would assume downloading PDFs provided to you online would fall under that. Since it is copyrighted it would probably be illegal to share it, though.

    • nvermind@lemm.ee
      201·
      8 days ago

      This. In a case around LinkedIn courts ruled that in the US it’s legal to scrape publicly available data. The company doing the scraping was selling that data to corporate customers, but ultimately use might depend on the information you’re accessing and under what permissions. (Not a lawyer)

  • Vipsu@lemmy.worldEnglish
    363·
    8 days ago

    According to the big tech its ok if you’re training large language model with it.

    • lugal@lemmy.world
      6·
      8 days ago

      You’re confusing the law that applies for the ruling class with the one that applies to common people

  • slazer2au@lemmy.worldEnglish
    29·
    8 days ago

    As with everything with the law, it depends.

    In Australia, distribution is the illegal part, seeding/sharing is where they get you. Not the actual download itself.

    • leisesprecher@feddit.org
      6·
      8 days ago

      It’s usually not a question of legality, but efficiency.

      It’s easy and efficient to bust someone for seeding, but busting hundreds for the odd file you can prove they downloaded is expensive and takes forever.

      • voracitude@lemmy.world
        2·
        8 days ago

        busting hundreds for the odd file you can prove they downloaded is expensive and takes forever.

        And might well not be legally possible if all you have is an IP address, because lest we forget:

        An IP is not an ID

  • aaaaace@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    10·
    8 days ago

    Ask the AI companies who scraped my sites while the media companies were DCMA-ing everything in sight and working with enforcement paid for with publuc funds to prosecute/persecute the “pirates”.

  • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
    9·
    8 days ago

    Laws of course differ from country to country but generally if it is legally publicly available then no, it at best violates their EULA or something if you scrap such data. A company trying to prevent direct downloads cannot really charge you for you finding ways around that, because from a technical point of view the data was already cached onto your PC anyway.

    As a tip, use the browsers F12 console’s Network tab, instead of inspect element. For videos you may also try the absolute right click addon. It breaks the video player controls when enabled but often you can just right click save video if it isn’t timed out and you can also enable regular controls via right click show controls. Tools like JDownloader2 can also often scrap various files but the former methods may work better.

  • The_v@lemmy.world
    7·
    8 days ago

    Not an expert, but in the U.S. making a copy of a broadcast for personal use is legal under fair-use. Anything that loads up on your computer screen you can make a copy and save it for personal use. So screen captures are by definition legal.

    How exactly you copy the material on your screen gets tricky under the DMCA clusterfuck. Breaking encryption to copy the material is illegal unless there is an valid exception for fair-use. What exactly those valid exceptions are is above my paygrade.

  • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
    5·
    8 days ago

    Depends on where you are. Usually if it’s a legal source, you can save it. But you’re not supposed to share it unless given permission. If you downloaded it from a source that’s not legal, things might change, depending on the specifics of your law.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
    5·
    8 days ago

    If it’s in the public domain, it’s almost certainly legal. I don’t have the general answer to your question.

    Really this question shows how outdated copyright law is; in many countries it prohibits “copying”, but in the age of computers nearly all accessing of information involves “copying” it in some way.

  • oxjox@lemmy.mlEnglish
    21·
    8 days ago

    Digital tools as you’ve described could be used by the service to manage access to content. A book’s author or publisher may object to the book being available for free. There may be limits on the amount of time you can read a book. Some content may be public domain but there may be versions of that content which the publisher has altered to in some way making some portions of the book not public domain.

    Knowingly possessing something that was not freely provided to you or the public by the licensed owner, or otherwise known to be unprotected by copyright, is not legal. Just because a file is cached on your device does not mean you are the legal owner of that content forever.

    There’s a number of reasons you may be charged to download a pdf. It could be a means of legally granting ownership and sharing revenue with the content owner. It could be because the authorized provider of the content is simply charging to maintain the service you’ve acquired the content from. It could be both or it could be a sketchy website just trying to get your CC info.

    This is coming from the perspective of someone in the US. I’m not sure about the rest of the world but imagine basic copyright laws are similar around the world.

    • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      2·
      8 days ago

      Honestly much of your reply is confusing me and doesn’t seem to be relevant to my questions. This is what I think is crucial:

      Just because a file is cached on your device does not mean you are the legal owner of that content forever.

      What does being “the legal owner forever” actually entail, either with regards to a physical book or its scan? And what does that mean regarding what I can legally do with the cached file on my computer?

      • oxjox@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        8 days 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.

        • The_v@lemmy.world
          1·
          8 days ago

          Terms and conditions are NOT copyright law. They are a separate agreement that is the companies “wishlist” of things they want the consumer to agree too. It’s common for them to spell out terms in direct conflict with copyright law.

          The reason that an iTunes video purchase is encrypted is because it is illegal to break the encryption in order to make a copy (DMCA). However capturing the playback and transforming it to another medium is for personal use is fair-use.

          There is also no time limit to how long a person can save the copy for. As long as they had legal access to the content at the time of making the copy. For example say I recorded a football game from a streaming service. I can save that copy for personal use for the rest of my life even though I purchased a one time only streaming.

          • oxjox@lemmy.mlEnglish
            1·
            8 days ago

            Sure. Regardless, their terms and conditions should give you some idea of how they’re using technology to permit and/or restrict access.

            The reason that an iTunes video purchase is encrypted illegal to copy is because it is illegal to break the encryption in order to make a copy

            FTFY

            I don’t think content providers are encrypting things because it’s illegal to decrypt things. They’re encrypting things because the content producers (movie studios) want to ensure that (1) they’re getting paid for the content, (1B) it’s not given away for free and, (2) they’re in business to make money.

            To my knowledge, there are no laws about making copies. Breaking encryption is illegal because the encryption itself is protected under law. Selling copies is illegal. Playing copies of something for which you are not permitted or do not legally own a license to watch is illegal. So, if you make a copy of a cassette tape, legal; profiting from that copy, illegal.

            Copyright law is not contract law.

            Some items have time limits - such as renting a movie from iTunes or Amazon or borrowing a book from a physical or digital library. You are entering a contract with the provider where they grant you temporary access to something. If you were to make a copy of something you were given temporary access to, you are breaking the contract.

            I don’t know what the agreement is for football organizations or your content provider. If you’re breaking broadcast or HDMI encryption to record a stream, that’s illegal. If you’re somehow bypassing encryption, that is probably legal. I do know that it’s illegal to re-broadcast the content in public and to resell that program. There are also some fair use rules (in the US) which permit limited use for commentary and education purposes.