My favorite book is a little known one called “Black Holes and Timewarps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy” and I reference it so much that I would really like a copy that’s fully mine and searchable, but I also care about the author receiving compensation for the purchase. Where do you get your PDF copies from?
a) Anywhere you buy that book from that isn’t using DRM, isn’t paying the author.
b) If they’re using DRM you’ll have to use some sort of proprietary software to use the book (i.e. not a straight PDF you can open with any PDF reader)
c) Owning the physical copy doesn’t give you any more right to scan the book than it does downloading it DRM-free or bypassing DRM. Depends on the country, but making your own copy is a grey area. (so if you’re going to scan it or crack it, just download it from the internet archive or something - otherwise you’re just wasting time, money, and resources and contributing unnecessarily to the heat death of the planet/universe.)
VitalSource provides lifetime digital licenses but requires their proprietary software (Bookshelf) which is available on a lot of different devices. They work with publishers to pay royalties which should go to authors. I think they have a return policy if you try it out and it isn’t working for you. (I’ve never used it myself)
It’s also on Kindle 🤮 and Kobo and a bunch of other places. The publisher probably provides links to sites where you can get it.
You can also check your library for a digital copy and take it out whenever you want to search it, I suppose.
That’s not always true—many authors request that their publishers sell their ebooks without DRM.
That’s why I said “that book”, not “any book”.