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//// Why is it called
"Gutenberg?"
Project Gutenberg
Specialists in the Art of Giving Away Free Books
For actual site,
link to
also see other sites in the spirit of Project Gutenberg
This is a remarkable example of extreme generosity. The good people at Project Gutenberg have seen fit to set up a site where books are given away free-of-charge to anyone who would like them. So, if you would like a copy of Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island, Dracula, The 39 Steps, or any of a huge range of books on the list, you can go onto www.gutenberg.net and help yourself! Such spectacular attractions as The Complete Works of Shakespeare are there for the asking, and Free! You just go there, select the books of your choice, and in a trice they appear as zipped-up e-texts on your computer. There is no catch, no cunning marketing ploy, and no attempt to sell you something expensive. Those good folk at Gutenberg are entirely public-spirited and are doing this out of the goodness of their own hearts. It appears the idea is that owning books, whether it be in the physical form made from trees or in the digital E-text form of Plain Text (.txt) file on a computer, is just simply Good, and that therefore the idea of spreading knowledge and inspiration by giving away books like that is good for humanity.
"Well how can they do it? What about Copyright?". Not a problem, because not all books are copyright. If an author decides to give away the rights to their book and make it Public Domain, it becomes available for free distribution. Also, there is a curious rule that if an author died more than fifty years ago then their published works are now copyright-free. Shakespeare, for example, can be guessed to be now out of copyright. From that it only takes someone to take the trouble to convert the original works into a non-copyright computer text version (usually by scanning it and then proofreading it), and soon a huge range of free books are available.
You can see the fun of it. Try it for yourself. Collect some Free Books, and then give away copies yourself! People who have never heard of this before are often gratified out of all proportion when handed a disc with a copy of a book on it. Plus, the free books available by free download from Gutenberg will work on an Amazon Kindle
For actual site, link to www.gutenberg.org
and also see other sites like Gutenberg