Law regarding digital book rentals

[eme...@gmail.com]

Suppose an entity (person, business - for profit or non-profit) owned
many books physically.

This entity then scanned all these books so they have them in digital
form.

Under what circumstances could these digital copies be legally loaned
for free or for money?

If these books were made available over the Internet, so that _only_
one person could download a particular book something like once every
two weeks, and before being downloaded, the renter/patron/downloader
_agreed to permanently delete_ any downloaded books after two weeks,
and when someone downloaded a book, the physical and digital copy
would then be made unavailable to anyone else for the duration of
those two weeks, would this be legal and relieve the loaner of any
legal liability?

Thank you.

[steve.hol...@gmail.com]

Having studied copyright law some, my understanding is that when you
purchase a book, you are buying that one particular physical
manifestion of a copyrighted work. You are not buying the right to
make or distribute a copy of it in any form. In fact, it may be
legally impermissible to even rent out your hard copy because you are
then profiting on the copyrighted work of another, and in theory,
depriving the author of a potential sale to the person who rented the
book from you.

Whether an author would chase you down and sue you for any of these
activites depends on how much you threaten his/her income, or how much
of your income might be recoverable in a successful lawsuit.

You can find additional information at http://www.intellectualpropertyadvisor.com

[Cashman Law Firm, PLLC]

While I'm replying to a very old thread, for those new lurkers, isn't
it funny that this is EXACTLY what the Google Books project did.

Last I checked, they are still up and running.

-Rob