copyright
Taking pictures of book
<p>In my textbooks there is computer code. I want to take pictures of the pages where the code is contained and and convert those images to text in order to run the code. Is it legal to run the code in this way and can I store the code in a computer ?</p>

<p>Copyright law holds that you may not copy the works of a person without the permission of the author. Taking a photograph of a work, even a text work, is making a copy. The foundation of your plan is therefore illegal, but still you might get away with it. In some jurisdictions such as the US there are concepts like &quot;fair use&quot;, or related concepts (<em>not</em> in US law) allowing copying for educational or personal purposes.</p>
<p>There is also a concept of <a href="https://www.authorsalliance.org/2020/05/27/implied-licenses-in-copyright-law/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">implied license</a>, where a person acts in such a way that a person reasonably infers that they have permission for certain purposes (which underlies the legality of general web page access). It may be reasonable to infer that the author intended that the reader actually do what the text instructs them to do (&quot;try it yourself&quot; is endemic in HTML instructional webpages, for example). However, inferring permission when there is none is risky. A lack of explicit statement about copying could either be because the author failed to permit copying, or because he failed to expressly prohibit it or password-protect it. The law requires you to have permission and is not framed in terms of &quot;not having been prohibited&quot; – when it comes to copyright. Reliance on an implied license argument is therefore very risky.</p>
