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Project Gutenberg is the brainchild of Michael Hart, who in 1971 decided that it would be a really good idea if lots of famous and important texts were freely available to everyone in the world. Since then, he has been joined by hundreds of volunteers who share his vision.
In essence books which have no copyright are available for download as text files. This includes old works (I get my Wodehouse, Jerome K Jerome here), technical works which never had copyright on them etc. These are all perfectly legal and can be downloaded directly from the websites.
http://promo.net/pg/
This is only one of many servers throughout the world. Just do a Google search and you will find many more. Anyone interested in e-books should have a look. You may even wish to join in and help the project.
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i just heard about this on the screensavers and have been meaning to check it out thanks for reminding me
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jeez, they have a ton of great books on here. And it's nice to know what your downloading is free and legal for once.
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Heh, I remember reading about this once from a 'Dilbert' book long ago.
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Those of you who like and/or appreciate the Project Gutenberg website, you might be interested in this Internet Archive page. It's a virtual labyrinth of information from a wide range of sources...from film to audio recordings to other web pages. It's much more extensive than Project Gutenberg, and in all actuality, Gutenberg is just one of many assessible databases. For those interested only in texts, they offer links to Open Source Books, Million Book Project (which actually surpases PG in the number of available works), International Children's Digital Library, just to name a few. Even better yet...they have archives containing texts submitted by other users. It's really amazing, and just hella neat. :D
Internet Archive
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Sometimes I wonder when an illegal texts distribution site will pop up (or if it already exists). I am tired of the "70 years after death" rule.
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Unfortunately because of people trying to squeeze4 every dime out of things that have become poart of the cultural landscape, very little material has entered the public domain. Which sucks, because the public domain was a good idea that's getting pissed on by companies like Disney
