Scanning your own dictionaries for personal use: is it legal?
Thread poster: CafeTran Training (X)
CafeTran Training (X)
CafeTran Training (X)
Netherlands
Local time: 17:44
Jun 2, 2016

Is it legal to have your own dictionaries scanned and OCR'd and use the resulting PDF for personal use on your own computer in your own CAT tool?

 
Andrea Muller (X)
Andrea Muller (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:44
English to German
+ ...
For commercial use? Jun 2, 2016

I don't know the legal position in the Netherlands.

Provided my understanding of the UK and German legislation is correct, I think this would only allow creating of back-up copies or changing the format of your own books CDs etc. if this is done for private use. I might be wrong though, or there could be some kind of loophole.
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I don't know the legal position in the Netherlands.

Provided my understanding of the UK and German legislation is correct, I think this would only allow creating of back-up copies or changing the format of your own books CDs etc. if this is done for private use. I might be wrong though, or there could be some kind of loophole.


https://www.bitkom.org/Publikationen/2009/Leitfaden/Der-richtige-Umgang-mit-dem-Urheberrecht-Leitfaden-zum-legalen-Kopieren/090420-LegalesKopieren.pdf

https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 17:44
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Yes, I think it is Jun 2, 2016

CafeTran Training wrote:
Is it legal to have your own dictionaries scanned and OCR'd and use the resulting PDF for personal use on your own computer in your own CAT tool?


Yes, I think it is, as long as you don't distribute it (it may depend on the country in which you do it, though).

In other words, after you've scanned it, you can't give the paper version to anyone else, and you can't share the electronic versions with anyone else either (except when covered by some other fair usage principle).

When I did this, I threw the paper versions in the bin (I had to do so anyway, because they were no longer bound).

Making PDF versions is a nice idea, but the PDFs can get very, very big very quickly (if you use the original image, with text behind it). What I did was to scan every page to a separate TXT file, and then I used a program like RedTree's Wilbur to index it so that I can do a search instantly. I can then see what page the match is on, and if I think I may be looking at an OCR error, I can find the relevant page in the dictionary's JPG folder.

It's amazing what ingenious tricks publishers have to prevent OCR'ing of text. In one book, the background of certain text was coloured, and the colouration actually consisted of tiny dots which the OCR program couldn't distinguish from the text, so the OCR program couldn't read any of the text with the coloured background at all (fortunately I figured out how to beat it). The program XnView has the option to apply image transformations on multiple images in bulk, which is quite useful.

I used to have a scanner like this one, but the problem is that scanning duplex takes very long because it actually turns over the page physically by feeding it through a series of rollers, and this also makes using thicker paper impossible. I currently have a scanner similar to this one, but although the document feeder often works, you sometimes have to feed it pages one by one. The upside is that you can scan smaller pages, thinner pages, and thicker pages. But you can't scan anything that needs to lie flat.

==

By the way, I don't think it matters whether you do it for personal or commercial use. Personal or commercial does not affect fair usage if the usage is private. In 99% of cases, all subject-specific dictionaries are used commercially, not personally. Very few people who buy e.g. a medical dictionary or a legal dictionary does so simply because they are sometimes curious about medical or legal terms, and so they keep it on their shelf for that purpose only, never to be used in any money-making activity.

Here are two similar opinions about the situation in the Netherlands:
http://www.ouders.nl/columns/wat-mag-wel-en-wat-mag-niet
http://www.iusmentis.com/auteursrecht/nl/thuiskopie/

The odd thing about Dutch "home copy" or "backup copy" law is that you don't have to own something to legally make a copy of it. I can borrow a book from a friend, make a copy of it, and then give the original back to my friend, and keep the copy myself, and in terms of Dutch law, this would be perfectly legal. I would not personally have considered it to be so. In my own moral opinion, a "home copy" would cease to be fair usage if the original is transferred to a new owner. But laws aren't always logical.



[Edited at 2016-06-02 10:34 GMT]


 
CafeTran Training (X)
CafeTran Training (X)
Netherlands
Local time: 17:44
TOPIC STARTER
Yes, for commercial use Jun 2, 2016

Andrea Muller wrote:

I don't know the legal position in the Netherlands.



Yes, it'd be for commercial use: I'd integrate them in CafeTran.

[Edited at 2016-06-02 10:23 GMT]


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 17:44
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Integrate Jun 2, 2016

CafeTran Training wrote:
I'd integrate them in CafeTran.


"Integrate" is a very strong word. When I open a DOC file in MS Word, I'm not "integrating" the document into MS Word. When I open a TM in my CAT tool, ditto. When you open a dictionary in CafeTran, or allow CafeTran to conduct searches within the dictionary, without actually making the dictionary's content part of the software source code of CafeTran, I would not use the word "integrate".


 
RobinB
RobinB  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 11:44
German to English
Not allowed Jun 2, 2016

CafeTran Training wrote:

Yes, it'd be for commercial use: I'd integrate them in CafeTran.

[Edited at 2016-06-02 10:23 GMT]


Then scanning them and storing them electronically is surely not allowed under any circumstances. Actually, it's probably not allowed even for personal (non-commercial) use, even under "fair use" exceptions that may apply in some countries. You would certainly want to consult an IP lawyer in any case.


 
Neil Coffey
Neil Coffey  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:44
French to English
+ ...
On the other hand... Jun 2, 2016

RobinB wrote:
Then scanning them and storing them electronically is surely not allowed under any circumstances.


...unless Hachette have suddenly started raiding people's homes with warrants to search for scanned copies of dictionaries, this may or may not be an irrelevant technicality....?


 
Daryo
Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:44
Serbian to English
+ ...
have you tried Jun 2, 2016

to simply read the copyright notice?

Copyright laws apart - which nowadays shouldn't take long to get hold of - most books have a copyright notice with a substantial list of no-nos - a quick check on few of my books showing that you are basically only allowed to read the book yourself with your own eyes - end of - no copying/scanning of any kind allowed!

Reading small prints can be a really strange experience - I remember buying a second-hand book where the copyright no
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to simply read the copyright notice?

Copyright laws apart - which nowadays shouldn't take long to get hold of - most books have a copyright notice with a substantial list of no-nos - a quick check on few of my books showing that you are basically only allowed to read the book yourself with your own eyes - end of - no copying/scanning of any kind allowed!

Reading small prints can be a really strange experience - I remember buying a second-hand book where the copyright notice was saying that you are not allowed to lend to book to anyone (even for free) and that you can't resell it without written permission from the publisher IOW strictly speaking the bookshop was selling me this old book illegally!
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Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:44
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
[Vast Active Living Intelligence System] Jun 2, 2016

While I suspect that it is not strictly legal to:

▶ scan, say, a large bilingual dictionary,
▶ create a PDF out of it,
▶ use OCR to get at the text,
▶ put said text in a txt file,
▶ use some regex magic to convert it into a delimited format,
▶ access said delimited data in a (local or online) CAT or terminology management tool

...I think that, as a translator in this day and age, you'd be daft not to do it anyway.
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While I suspect that it is not strictly legal to:

▶ scan, say, a large bilingual dictionary,
▶ create a PDF out of it,
▶ use OCR to get at the text,
▶ put said text in a txt file,
▶ use some regex magic to convert it into a delimited format,
▶ access said delimited data in a (local or online) CAT or terminology management tool

...I think that, as a translator in this day and age, you'd be daft not to do it anyway.

There is a very large number of fantastic, paper-bound (bilingual/monolingual) dictionaries out there collecting dust on bookshelves across the globe. Many of these dictionaries can no longer even be bought or borrowed, no matter how hard you try or where you look. If you were lucky enough to get your hands on one of them, you might actually be the last person (read: translator) to do so. By digitising them, you might even be saving them from extinction. The paper format might be cumbersome and nigh on useless, but the data certainly isn't. In fact, this data (in the form of pink light) is probably living information God is firing into our heads from a satellite named "VALIS".



Of course, I myself would never do such a thing (as it is most likely illegal), but would look upon anyone who did with great admiration and delight.

Michael

[Edited at 2016-06-02 19:29 GMT]
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 17:44
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Daryo, @Michael Jun 2, 2016

Daryo wrote:
Have you tried to simply read the copyright notice?


Fair usage supersedes copyright notices. The laws of a country supersede copyright notices.

Michael J.W. Beijer wrote:
Many of these dictionaries can no longer even be bought or borrowed, no matter how hard you try or where you look. If you were lucky enough to get your hands on one of them, you might actually be the last person (read: translator) to do so.


You're referring to orphan works, right? Various countries also have stipulations about such works in their copyright laws. But orphan works are only relevant if you're planning to distribute something.


[Edited at 2016-06-02 20:28 GMT]


 
Soonthon LUPKITARO(Ph.D.)
Soonthon LUPKITARO(Ph.D.)  Identity Verified
Thailand
Local time: 23:44
English to Thai
+ ...
Fair treatment Aug 27, 2016

CafeTran Training wrote:

Is it legal to have your own dictionaries scanned and OCR'd and use the resulting PDF for personal use on your own computer in your own CAT tool?


The fair treatment concepts can vary among countries. Anyhow, fair use is certified as legally correct to use when you never violate financial or non-financial benefits of the document authors.

Soonthon L.


 


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Scanning your own dictionaries for personal use: is it legal?







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