No Cost, or Freedom? | Project Gutenberg

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class="searchInput" title="Quick search" tabindex="20" size="20" maxlength="80" placeholder=" Quick search" /> <input type="submit" name="submit_search" value="Go!" style="vertical-align:middle;" /> </form> </div> <form class="donatelink" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="new"> <p><a href="/donate/">Ways to donate</a></p> <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_s-xclick" /> <input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="XKAL6BZL3YPSN" /> <input class="donbtn" type="image" src="/pics/en_US.gif" name="submit" alt="Donate via PayPal" /> </form> </div> </nav> <div class="page_content"> <h1 id="no-cost-or-freedom">No Cost, or Freedom?</h1> <p>The word free in the English language does not distinguish between free of charge and freedom.</p> <p>Free of charge means that you don鈥檛 have to pay for the book you received.</p> <p>Freedom denotes that you may do as you like with the book you received.</p> <p>This distinction is immaterial if you just want to read a book privately, but it becomes of utmost importance if you want to work with the book:</p> <ul> <li>you are a teacher and want to use the book in class,</li> <li>you wrote a thesis about the book and want to distribute the book along with your thesis,</li> <li>you have a literary web site and want to distribute the book to your audience,</li> <li>or you are a writer and want to adapt the book for the stage.</li> </ul> <p>If the book you got is just free of charge but protected under U.S. copyright law, you may do none of the above things. You may not even make a copy of the book and give it to your best friend. But if the book you got is free as in freedom you may do anything you like with that book. Clearly free as in freedom beats free of charge.</p> <p>Fortunately almost all Project Gutenberg eBooks are free of charge and free as in freedom for readers within the United States (if you are not in the United States, you will need to determine what copyright law protects where you are located).</p> <p>Here are some real world examples of what people did with Project Gutenberg eBooks.</p> <p>A few Project Gutenberg eBooks are protected by U.S. copyright law. You can tell by reading the license inside the book. You may download our copyrighted books and give copies away, but might be limited in commercial uses and derivative works.</p> <h2 id="why-are-these-books-free">Why are these books free?</h2> <p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright">Copyright</a> For the most part, copyright protection under U.S. law on the materials distributed by Project Gutenberg has expired. (They may still be copyrighted in other countries). So anybody located in the United States may make verbatim or non-verbatim copies of those works.</p> <h2 id="read-more-about-copyrights">Read More About Copyrights</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright">Wikipedia: Copyright</a></li> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Domain">Wikipedia: Public Domain</a></li> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_copyright_law">Wikipedia: United States Copyright Law</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> <div class="footer"> <ul> <li> <a href="/policy/privacy_policy.html" title="Privacy Policy">Privacy policy</a> </li> <li> <a href="/about/" title="About Project Gutenberg">About Project Gutenberg</a> </li> <li> <a href="/policy/terms_of_use.html" title="Terms of Use">Terms of Use</a> </li> <li> <a href="/about/contact_information.html" title="Contact Information">Contact Information</a> </li> <li><a href="/help/" title="Get Help">Get Help</a></li> </ul> <a href="https://www.ibiblio.org/" title="Project Gutenberg is hosted by ibiblio"> <img src="/gutenberg/ibiblio-logo.png" alt="iBiblio"> </a> </div> </body> </html>

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No Cost, or Freedom? | Project Gutenberg