And Not-So-Free Books

Robert Scott Lawrence — Tue, 11 May 2010 20:57:53 +0000

Yesterday I emoted a bit on the prospect of an all-information-all-the-time database which the public could access for free, and as exemplars of this paradigm shift away from market-driven pay-as-you-go access to information I cited Project Gutenberg and Google Books. While Project Gutenberg’s 30,000+ tomes are indeed free — really free — to anyone with access to a computer or virtually any e-reader with a USB port, my reference to Google Books was more optimistic than exemplary. While Google has already scanned and plans to offer over 12 million books to the public pursuant to the the Google Books Settlement (the revised version of which is still pending court approval based on Justice Department concerns), the reality is that these books won’t be free. You can look at 20% of any book for free (by default), but Google Books will charge you a fee to access the entire book. While digitizing all books is obviously the only way to ensure their continued availability and survival, the myriad of problems surrounding ownership rights and the ever-present-issue of “Who gets paid?” still have a few kinks to be worked out. Although they may not be insurmountable, at the moment these kinks loom Everest-like over the prospect of a happy ending. Under the current regime, that book you can check out at the library and read for free? You can’t read it online without paying a fee. For a detailed discussion of the copyright issues surrounding the Google Books Settlement, see the article by Annalee Newitz of io9.com here.

Free Books!

Robert Scott Lawrence — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:17:37 +0000

If you have ever read any space opera or even been a casual observer of sci-fi on television (e.g., Star Trek), you will be familiar with the idea that one of the advances civilization finally manages to accomplish with the advent of advanced computing capabilities is the information net, where all human knowledge and data is collected, stored, and backed up in multiple locations — so many locations, in fact, that it is almost alive in the ever-growing cloud of data that is accessible to all with a mere click of the mouse, com unit, or other fanciful device dreamed up by the minds of the legends of science fiction. Those of a certain age may recall the late, great Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series, as well as other seminal entries in the field by the other two giants of science fiction, Robert A. Heinlein (Stranger In A Strange Land) and Arthur C. Clarke (Childhood’s End), whose dreams of what the future held for humanity have in many respects come true, as space travel, personal computers, hand-held communication devices, tasers, AI, solar power, electric cars, and even energy bar have in many respects become commonplaces that we take for granted. Recently, part of the information legacy predicted by these authors and others has started to come true, as the advent of the e-reader has made it a winning proposition for books to be published electronically, so that a true e-library is possible. The current iterations are in flux, but the respective plans of Project Gutenberg and Google Books to digitize the entire catalog of all available novels, plays, stories, biographies, poems, tomes, treatises, and arcana are a huge step in the direction of allowing the public to freely access humanity’s cultural legacy.

If you’ve never taken a look at what you can read for free, check out Project Gutenberg. Over 30,000 titles are available at the click of a mouse, including works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Saki, Alexandre Dumas, Franz Kafka, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, James Joyce, and many other acclaimed writers. And soon Google will be adding 4 million more titles for your reading pleasure. Time to upgrade your RAM (so you can read faster).

Who Is Your Lawyer? » Gutenberg

And Not-So-Free Books

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