[NMLUG] [NMOSUG-L] Ripping book to CD, legally

[wjl at icecavern.net (Wesley J. Landaker)]

On Friday 27 July 2007 17:42:52 Kelly Jones wrote:
> If I own a book, I believe I have the legal right to scan it, OCR it,
> and create an electronic copy of the text. 
[...]
> If this is true, are there any pay services that will do this for me?
> EG, I mail them books and they mail back a CD w/ the "ripped" text?

Yes, you can without restriction make it into an audio-book, etc. You 
couldn't legally distribute the result, of course.

There are actually many services that will convert books to audio-books; 
however, these are generally free or reduced-cost services that are only 
available for the blind. To my knowledge, most of these are done by the 
government (e.g. the Library of Congress) or non-profit organizations, such 
as schools and volunteer groups. For example, my grandmother has read 
portions of many books to help convert them to audiobook format for the 
blind as part of volunteer efforts of the senior center she frequents.

As far as if anyone offers this service to the general public, I don't know. 
(But google may have the answers =). I would guess that this kind of 
service would be pretty rare, because:

  * Many, many books already have audio versions for the blind available.
    (These are generally not the dramatic, celebrity-read ones you see at
     the bookstore.)
  * Scan -> OCR -> Audio is generally a lot of work to get something that
    turns out decent, and has a high cost to produce for a one-shot sale.
  * If it isn't for the blind, they probably wouldn't receive government
    funding to support their work.

Anyway, a quick google search came up with these sites that look interesting 
(I don't see that they provide the exact service you are asking about, 
however):

http://www.audio-books-for-everyone.com/
http://www.audible.com
http://www.loc.gov/nls/

-- 
Wesley J. Landaker <wjl at icecavern.net> <xmpp:wjl at icecavern.net>
OpenPGP FP: 4135 2A3B 4726 ACC5 9094  0097 F0A9 8A4C 4CD6 E3D2
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
Url : http://lists.b9.com/pipermail/nmlug/attachments/20070805/1013877d/attachment.pgp