D&D General Is it legal to scan books I own in hardcover to use on my iPad?

[Tome]

Hello,

I have been away for a long time. I own the majority of the 5e sourcebooks in hardcover, but find that traveling with them to play my family campaign is...cumbersome. Especially when, like this weekend, the car is packed full. I know that D&D Beyond would prefer that I purchase their “enhanced” digital files for $29.99 each. My question is ... is it legal within “fair use” to make a digital copy of a text for my personal, non-file sharing purposes. Arguably, I would not be using the hardcover and the digital copy at the same time since one is for home and the other for travel.

thoughts?

 

[Morrus]

Depends on jurisdiction but generally yes; the crime usually lies in the act of distribution. Laws may vary locally though.

 

[tetrasodium]

Hello,

I have been away for a long time. I own the majority of the 5e sourcebooks in hardcover, but find that traveling with them to play my family campaign is...cumbersome. Especially when, like this weekend, the car is packed full. I know that D&D Beyond would prefer that I purchase their “enhanced” digital files for $29.99 each. My question is ... is it legal within “fair use” to make a digital copy of a text for my personal, non-file sharing purposes. Arguably, I would not be using the hardcover and the digital copy at the same time since one is for home and the other for travel.

thoughts?

If you aren't distributing it, pretty much yea(lots of in depth links in that thread covering the "pretty much"). I've sent more than one of my rpg books to various book scanning services that cater mostly to college students wanting to scan textbooks for personal use & having an OCR'd searchable version of those books while I'm GM'ing can be a huge help.

For what it's worth with those services, a destructive scan slices the binding off & scans each page flat so you get really nice quality to the scan without the crease. The scanning usually costs as much or slightly more than the book itself though

 

[The Green Hermit]

Depends on jurisdiction but generally yes; the crime usually lies in the act of distribution. Laws may vary locally though.

This. I don't scan the books, but as my group uses the spells, we type them into a Google Drive file so we can easily copy and paste into our binders without typing them up each and every time. This is basically the same thing. Since we are not selling them and just using them amongst ourselves, no harm, no foul.

 

[dave2008]

This. I don't scan the books, but as my group uses the spells, we type them into a Google Drive file so we can easily copy and paste into our binders without typing them up each and every time. This is basically the same thing. Since we are not selling them and just using them amongst ourselves, no harm, no foul.

FYI, you can just copy past the SRD spells from on line resources I would think. I guess I never thought about the legality of it though.

 

[gyor]

If it's for personal use who cares, no one would ever find out.

 

[generic]

If it's for personal use who cares, no one would ever find out.

Gasps

gyor, I'm surprised by you!

 

[The Green Hermit]

FYI, you can just copy past the SRD spells from on line resources I would think. I guess I never thought about the legality of it though.

This is actually easier for me, because I can format it how I like.

 

[Seramus]

Most places in the US, Canada, the EU, and Russia allow personal digital copies provided you do not distribute them. Technically that includes not distributing them to the other players at your table, but you're not even worth an officers time if that's all you do with them. Some scanning services might not touch your books, just to keep themselves clear of what you might do with it.

I cannot speak to anywhere else.

 

[R_J_K75]

If it's for personal use who cares, no one would ever find out.

What are they gonna do...throw the Book at you?