Project Gutenberg on quest to digitize 1 billion books

[n2doc]

Johannes Gutenberg may have invented modern printing, but Michael Hart invented the e-book. At least that's what Hart's e-mail signature says.

Indeed, Hart is considered by many in technology and literary circles to be the creator of the electronic book. As founder of the Gutenberg Project, named for the 15th century printer credited with inventing movable type, Hart began transcribing and scanning books on July 4, 1971 -- "technically July 5," Hart corrected himself in an e-mail; "it was all night."

For Gutenberg the man, society has had six centuries to determine his role in publishing.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/08/project-gutenberg.html

There's the total pot of public-domain books, which Hart estimates is 25 million. If all the scanners rack up at least 10 million of those and then translate them into 100 languages, there you have a billion e-books.

[Tansy_Gold]

1. I LOVE Project Gutenberg!!!

I've downloaded a delightful library of cool stuff from them.

[Historic NY]

2. Me too especially those real old books.

[Statistical]

3. Project Gutenberg is one of those rare things that is simply done to better the common good.

If you can support project G. Donate time (as a proofer), money, or books they are missing that are in the public domain.

"Or, as Hart wrote exuberantly in his e-mail: "ONE BILLION eBOOKS!!!!!!!"
"This WILL happen," he concluded. "The question is when."

[kenny blankenship]

5. And all for naught...the Digital Brazillennium Copyright Act of 2013 will auction the rights

to all of those previously "public domain" titles off to private hands for safekeeping. The newly issued exclusive copyrights to last a brazillion years, until being re-auctioned at the end of that term.

There's nothing in the universe, tangible or intangible, that can't and won't be cornered into private hands, declared a species of private property, and then trickled down to the public again in the form of leases and rents. If it's true for water and genetic sequences, the most basic stuff of life, why shouldn't it be true for old books?

[Scurrilous]

4. K & R

:thumbsup: