Authors’ Alert – Cheap Consumer Scanning Service will Digitize your Copyrighted Work

Authors, your digital life is about to change, once again. Publishers Weekly announced a new scan service, 1DollarScan, that will allow anyone the ability to have books they own scanned for one penny a page. The book is destroyed in the process, but upon payment you are presented with a brand new PDF of your book.

“1DollarScan’s scans are compatible with all platforms, and use Fine Tune technology, a free service that optimizes the reading experience for all devices with high resolution and color quality.” — Publishers Weekly

1DollarScan writes on their main page: “Our service respects Authors, Publishers and Copyright Holders.” And, although this might seem to the consumer a very convenient service, many in the profession are concerned:

 “…the Authors Guild’s executive director Paul Aiken said: ‘If the information on its website is accurate, this is a copyright infringement service. Their fair use defense is laughable.’ ” — Publishers Weekly

Mainstream press have their take:

“1DollarScan will scan your paper books cheap” — Los Angeles Times

“iPad makes space in tiny Japanese homes by removing bookshelves” — Bloomberg

” ‘We’re book advocates, too,’ says Ohki, ‘but at the same time, we’ve brought a truly disruptive and compelling value to our customers. The only way to achieve this is to cut the spine.’ ” — Forbes

And further knowledge about e-book publishing in Japan is gained by reading the quote link below from Publishing Perspectives:

“With just 30,000 e-book titles, Japan’s publishers have been reluctant to support e-books out of fear losing revenue and challenging their own distribution monopoly.” — Publishing Perspective

Whatever your stake in the publishing world, it seems wise that you take this up with your professional associations, email your colleagues, post comments on any media stories you find, and write your legislators to ask them to discuss this with the Register of Copyrights.

Your collective voice needs to be heard!