Japanese publishers act against “home cooked” digitisation

The Japanese Book Publishers Association has announced to send a formal warning against firms that specialise in digitising books for e-readers by scanning paperbacks. The Association feels that this practice could be in violation with Japan’s copyright law.

The digitisers, in a practice known as jisui, or “home cooking" (literally: cooking for oneself), create e-books a book by cutting away its bindings and scanning the pages. The result is than made available for e-readers and typically sold for 100 Yen (about 0,90 Euro).

With the launch of the iPad, demand for the jisui copies has risen steeply. The Association estimates that there are around sixty such organisations now active in Japan.

Japan’s copyright law allows home copying. But as the digitised copies made on a commercial basis rather than for domestic use, the publishers’ Association feels it is justified in sending reprimanding letters. Furthermore, the Association has requested member publishers to include a letter in their books stating that using jisui services are a likely infringement of copyright law.

Last year, Japanese publishers targeted Apple after apps were found in the iTunes Store that contained unlawful digitisations of leading Japanese novels.