A device coming from a Rhode Island company this spring promises to shake the publishing industry in the same way CD burners shook the music industry and forever changed copyright laws in the early 1990s.
ION Audio’s Book Saver looks like a miniature overhead projector combined with a cradle and can scan a 200-page novel in less than 15 minutes.
“We guess that this is going to be the same debate they had in music: could you record a CD to digital?” said Nic Boshart, digital services manager with the Association of Canadian Publishers.
Boshart said he doesn’t expect the device to have an immediate impact on book sales because users will still have to flip pages manually. “I don’t see how it’s any different from a scanner.”
But Sydneyeve Matrix, a media professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., predicts demand for the Book Saver and similar devices will skyrocket among groups such as students, who have long complained about textbook prices.
“From a user’s point of view, flipping pages is still a pain. But, there is every incentive for students and consumers to have one person go through the labour and then share this digital copy,” she said. “That’s where the copyright concerns come in really quickly. “
The Book Saver, expected to sell for $150 US, is capable of scanning pages more than seven-times faster than anything available today, its maker says. It creates files that can be transferred to an e-book reader, such as a Kindle or an iPad.
“ION continues to lead the way in smart, intuitive conversion products,” Gregg Stein, managing director at ION, said in a release. “Book Saver is the only device needed to quickly make all your books, comics, magazines or other documents e-reader-compatible.”
ION makes a range of products to help consumers convert old media, such as records and CDs into digital files that can be played on a computer or iPod.
The Book Saver device, which had its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, arrives as Canada is once again trying to amend outdated copyright legislation to better address the digital era.
The Canadian Copyright Act has not been updated since 1997, two years before Napster forever changed the way people obtain music and movies online. An attempt to update the act in 2005 was abandoned. Another attempt was made in June 2008, but the federal election that year stalled the amendments.
A new attempt to update the legislation, led by the Conservative government and introduced in June, is still working its way through Parliament.
A key question in the current round of talks is whether consumers have any right to make personal copies of DVDs, e-books and video games for personal use.
Carolyn Wood, executive director of the Association of Canadian Publishers, said the new Book Saver device is sure to open new copyright concerns for her members.
“It does raise questions,” she said. “The whole business about what it means to own a book when it’s in digital form is not the same as when in it’s in print form. I am interested in this.”
from: National Post
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