So I have a large collection of books. I also have a large collection of scans of those books I have downloaded whilst in Bangladesh and India. My question is do I have to delete this stuff to remain legal when I return to the UK to live? Or are you allowed to own copies of such material you have brought as long as they are not shared?

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

From my understanding, if you bought them from an authorized source then they remain your property no matter where you are.  I do not believe the subject of hardcopy or digital makes any difference here, legal is legal.

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I believe you are allowed to own a 'backup copy' as long as you legally own the original copy.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Is there really an issue of a Hard Drive search for every PDF you have and it's copyright?

I never thought this was an issue really.

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Frogbear is responsible for...
Previous World Eaters
Previous Emperor's Children
Previous Death Guard
Previous Imperial Fists
Previous Chaos Squats

According to the Swedish Pirate Party's newsletter last week the EU has been looking into legislation to give customs personnel the right of going through peoples' digital memories (e.g. laptops, phones and mp3-players) in an attempt to protect copyright holders' interests. It will be some time until it has been tried in court however, naturally.

From a purely ethical point of view, yours sincerely thinks that having paid for it the legal way it is yours to copy as you like if you don't share it or try to make a profit from it. I could go on quite a bit about how upset I am about "punishing" paying customers with price hikes motivated by increased pirating and the like, but I won't.

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http://diceatdawn.blogspot.se

I don't think this is settled law.

Personally, I would think that having a scan of a book is no different than having an mp3 of a cd you bought loaded onto a player, i.d. fair use.

OTOH, ripping and distributing the scan is piracy.  Getting the scan from a pirate might be defined as an act of piracy as well, even if you own the original material.

So... that's a long way of saying "I dunno."  You should probably contact an IP attorney in your jurisdiction.

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Neal

You cannot honestly believe that piracy is the sole reason or any reason for price hikes.

Way back before digital media such as this, price hikes were common and there were always complaints about the prices of games. Honestly, games really have not gone up that much in line with the value of money.

The only real profit margins I have seen effected in gaming through piracy is the 2nd hand market; why buy 1st and 2nd ed D&D when they can be downloaded?

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Frogbear is responsible for...
Previous World Eaters
Previous Emperor's Children
Previous Death Guard
Previous Imperial Fists
Previous Chaos Squats

Me looking for George Orwell to say "I told ya so".
 

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Ah, I can see how I wrote that wrong. Let me clarify what I mean. I am annoyed with companies claiming that prices are higher because of piracy. As you said, it's hardly the reason. And if it were, why punish the people who are abiding the law?

Edit: Come to think of it, what really ticks me off is selling e.g. PC-games for same price as the competition and then limiting the license to a set amount of installations. Give me one good reason why this is good marketing? Sure, I can't resell my copy so more people will theoretically buy the game but I'll never buy a game like Red Alert 3 again.

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http://diceatdawn.blogspot.se

Luckily for them though the target is younger players who won't have the same reservations. Like for instance old wargamers bitch about a 10p price hike, young gamers just pay!

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If using E-Bay use this link to support Tac Com!
'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Indeed, a pity it is. At the end of the day things cost what people are willing to pay for them and enough people as it stands in PC-gaming will pay more than me. On the other hand I bet the vast majority of them think I'm wasting my money on miniatures. Heh, makes you think.

Disclaimer: I do not promote pirating of software nor do I partake in such activities. Just to make that clear FRA. (FRA = National Defence Radio Establishment in Sweden). Then again, you probably could find that out if you've been monitoring my traffic... I'll try to shut up or stick to topic now. Sorry.

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http://diceatdawn.blogspot.se