x.com/deepfates/status/2061223368071032936
1 correction found
It's illegal to have PDFs of books that you own.
This is too absolute. Having a PDF of a book is not inherently illegal: public-domain books and openly licensed books can be lawfully downloaded, shared, and kept as PDFs.
Full reasoning
The statement is incorrect because it treats all PDFs of books as illegal. That is not how copyright law works.
In the U.S., the Copyright Office says that "Works in the public domain may be used freely without the permission of the former copyright owner." That means there are books whose digital copies may be lawfully possessed and shared.
There are also books that publishers/authors intentionally distribute as legal PDFs. For example, OpenStax says all of its textbooks are available as free PDF downloads, and that its textbook library is published under a Creative Commons license that allows people to share the material in any medium or format under the license terms.
So while owning a print book does not automatically make every unauthorized scan or download lawful, the categorical claim here — that it is illegal to have PDFs of books you own — is false. Some PDFs are plainly legal, including public-domain and openly licensed books.
3 sources
- Definitions (FAQ) | U.S. Copyright Office
Where is the public domain? ... Works in the public domain may be used freely without the permission of the former copyright owner.
- Citing OpenStax texts
All OpenStax textbooks are available as free PDF downloads.
- OpenStax textbook licensing and customization
The OpenStax textbook library is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) license... You are free to: Share the material in any medium or format.