Should you pay a subscription fee to access the classics online? The World eBook Library is doing some good by promoting literature–but could it actually harm the Gutenberg cause of free public domain books?
The World eBook Fair is supposed to be celebrating the temporary relaxation of WeBL’s $8.95 subscription fee. But why should there be any fee charged at any time for online versions of Gutenberg-prepared classics, given the economies of virtual distribution? I heartily approve of WeBL mixing classics with copyrighted books, but access to classics should be separated from other books so the free model isn’t impaired. If Gutenberg volunteers are not careful, they could see the pay-to-read model prevail over the free one.
Meanwhile I continue to wonder why the World eBook Library is focused on the proprietary PDF format–which will most likely be more ephemeral over the long run than many would think. Is Adobe paying these people? Somehow it doesn’t seem right to celebrate–without reservations–a big e-library whose holdings are on the electronic equivalent of acidic paper. Gutenberg founder Michael Hart insists on public domain books being preserved in ASCII via the real Project Gutenberg, and I wouldn’t disagree. Alas, however, while XML-based formats easily allow conversion back to ASCII, that isn’t always the case with PDF. Thumbs up on the basic idea of an e-book fair. Thumbs down on the WeBF as it now exists. It would be wonderful if WeBF took care to separate the free and the paid, and also got its format act together.
The library angle: Libraries shouldn’t check out public domain classics without any copyright content included. They should give them away.
If the publisher care about typographical niceties, along with platform independence, PDF may be the only game in town, unless pure page images are enough. That hypothesis should be easy enough to test by eyeballing a document.
In such a setting, the inability to go from PDF to ASCII is not an issue: you want ASCII, you go to Gutenberg, and get the text free. If you want readability, you go PDF, and don’t mind paying a small amount for the time and effort someone has taken to do proper formatting — provided that your PDF reader has the minimum screen size required. And that such proper formatting indeed has been done.
A quick glance at a Gutenberg text from World eBook Fair (The Swiss Family Robinson, the first in their list of frequent requests) shows that no particular care has been taken with the texts: it’s nothing but a plain ‘dump text file to PDF’. This is the very worst use of PDF that I can imagine, and I feel sorry for anyone who has to buy this mess. Hopefully, the experience gained will be worth it.
And Gutenberg sponsors the things, so I suppose there is something else somewhere that makes better sense.
Many years ago, MediaOne (or perhaps they were called Udownload.com) sold access to lots of free e-texts in PDF form in the same way: texts from Gaslight, Gutenberg, etc. at a prize of $8 for 30 days access.
This kind of behaviour is one of the better reasons for not making texts entirely free.
David Rothman writes:
Adobe paying them? Well, even paranoids have enemies, as the saying goes, but wouldn’t a simpler explanation be that WeBL recognizes that PDF is the most successful ebook format in the world (for longer works), and is simply providing their users the books in a format that the users want? And, of course, the reason it’s the most successful ebook format in the world is that it’s easy to reliably print, and print on paper is still the best way to read an ebook right now, all things considered.
“But why should there be any fee charged at any time for online versions of Gutenberg-prepared classics, given the economies of virtual distribution? ”
Because bandwidth, server hardware, and electricity cost money?
Just a thought.
I buy a lot of e-books at Fictionwise.com, and I cringe anytime I see them selling public domain books for $3 or $4 or higher.
OTOH, I don’t understand how that would threaten the free model of Project Gutenberg. The text is in the public domain. Fine, Fictionwise can sell an ebook version of the first three Oz books for $5, but that doesn’t stop me from posting the same material for no charge at my website.
Why PG would possibly sponsor a site that repurposes their public domain texts in craptacular PDF dumps is a good question.
What is the link between Project Gutenberg and World E-book Library? Michael Hart’s bad judgment. WEL is run by John Guagliardo, a Hawai’i entrepreneur who wants to make money from PG. Michael Hart, who owns the PG copyright, has decided to cooperate with Mr. Guagliardo. Did money change hands? Dunno. Perhaps not; Mr. Guargliardo, judging by his website (http://www.guagliardo.cc/AboutUs.html), actively cultivates the company of the rich, powerful, or useful. Flattery works.
This has been previously discussed on Teleread (http://newteleread.com/wordpress/blog/?p=4805).
Excuse me if the links aren’t done properly — I dunno the protocol this site uses.
KAREN: Hey, I was trying to be polite in not playing up the earlier story. I figured that the subscription and PDF mentions were naughty enough. 😉 An aside: You can do a link with the regular href routine. You or anyone else should let me know if there’s a problem.
PDF FANS: HTML is much more digestible for many handhelds, which are cheaper than tablets and great for lazing out on the couch. I’m disappointed that John G. wasn’t more considerate in his choice of formats.
RICHARD: Well, Blackmask somehow managed to get along without subscriptions paying for access to public domain classics. David Moynihan used sales of DVDs, etc., to help justify the free stuff, and I don’t have a problem with that at all. We’re in Tangible Object Land.
Thanks,
David