Hi. I shouldn't be bothered by the below comment, but this type of comment
really upsets me. The reason why is that this shows a lack of
understanding of what the public domain is. It is called the public domain
because it belongs to the public. There is no owner. Technically,
bookshare can't "take" them as you put it because no one owns them. I'll
address your other thought below. So to conclude, there is nothing legally
or ethically wrong with bookshare, you and I, or anyone else taking the
books from PG and doing what they want with them. That's the point of
PG. They say at the top of almost every book that it is for the use of
anyone anywhere with almost no fees or restrictions. Please read a recent
PG book to see this. I understand that you are not familiar with the legal
definition of public domain, but please try to do a little checking of your
facts first. Just a quick glimpse of the PG site would clarify a lot of this.
At 10:05 PM 3/13/2005 -0600, you wrote:
Is it really acceptable for book share to take books from other sources, even if they are in the public domain? I know they can ask for them and would no doubt get them, but taking them is different.
My other thought is that most people can convert anything they download in to a format quite usable to them. The main reason for bookshare to provide books in BRF and daisy is that in order to comply with copyright law the material they provide must be in an alternative format. It isn't like HTML and text files aren't accessible and there are free braille translaters available.
