There is no quick answer without more details.
Is the work certainly protected by copyright? Two examples of works
that would not be protected by copyright in the US are works of the US
federal government -- even those republished by commercial publishers --
and reprints of public domain titles. Publishers sometimes put
copyright notices on these works even though they have no claim of
copyright.
In what country is the server hosting the book based? Where will you
(or the POD printer) be located when you make the copy?
If I understand correctly, this book can be freely read online. It
contains a statement that "all rights are reserved", even though this
statement is no longer required for copyright protection in nearly all
countries of the world. More importantly, it contains no license
governing use. Therefore, it is protected by copyright much like a
print copy of a work that might be in your hands.
Under US law, you are not generally allowed to copy an entire work
simply to reformat it to a new medium. If you did it temporarily for
increased usability (perhaps scanning a print work and OCRing it so that
you could search the full text), you could argue for this under Fair
Use. If you were making a print copy simply for the convenience of
reading it, you would have a harder case to make. I the book is already
available through a POD channel set up by the rightsholder, then you
almost certainly could not claim Fair Use since this would affect the
potential market for the work. That is, your copy would deprive the
rightsholder of revenue.
If the work is licensed under a Creative Commons license, you likely
*could* make a POD copy, even if the work was also being sold in print
by the rightsholder. There is some gray area regarding the
"noncommercial" CC licenses, so if that license were used, it's possible
that the POD company would be unwilling to sell you a copy, and it's
possible that if you were using the work for commercial purposes, you
would be violating the license.
I am not an attorney; this message does not constitute legal advice.
Kevin
Gavin Baker wrote:
A quick factual question: If I legally download a book (all rights
reserved, no license), do I have permission to print it? Does a copyshop
have permission to print it for me (and charge for the service)?
What if the book is under a noncommercial Creative Commons license?
A bit of background here:
http://www.gavinbaker.com/2009/12/10/oa-pod-competition/
Responses welcome by email or comments on the blog post.