We’re aware that this has been raised a number of times since our launch. Below is Chessable’s approach to the question of private courses created from hard copy books. We can’t give any legal advice on what constitutes a copyright infringement as it depends on a country-by-country basis - you’d need a lawyer for that.

Again, I stress that copyright rules vary from country to country, but in many places, owning a physical artifact (like a book or a print of an image) doesn’t bring with it the right to copy or adapt it for use on someone else’s server - even for your own individual private use. We intend the private book function to allow users to create their own books, not adapt others’ books.
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Therefore, you must not use Chessable to upload or use a private book made from a book (hard copy or otherwise) that someone else has written or published - even if it is just for use by you. To be clear, our terms of use prohibit you using Chessable to use or upload any material (including private books) which does not meet our Content Standards.

Those Content Standards include a bar on material that infringes copyright. If we become aware of any private book on Chessable that infringes someone else’s copyright, we will deactivate it. We want Chessable to be a place that respects the intellectual property of those who write and publish chess books and hope you agree that this is a sensible approach for us to take.

We won’t object to your including chess moves from a single or small number of games from another source (as long as the moves are not extracted from the source on a mass or automated basis, and you haven’t copied a selection of games curated or compiled by someone else). Your analysis and comments and any graphic depictions of the moves must be your own.
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I'd emphasize (per our terms of use) that if any publisher thinks their intellectual property is being infringed by content on Chessable, they should please get in touch with us at [email protected]