Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkScribe
Umbrage eh? Ok, take some more. It's free.
You are not the norm, as if you were places like Gutenberg would be providing one hell of a lot more texts - per capita - than they do. I have been working - volunteering - with them for years and am still amazed at how little real interest there is in the huge quantity of great literature that is freely available. Many people when they first get an eReader grab a few free books, but few seem to continue to do so. If any of the "statistics" for pirating books are close to true, far more people pirate books than choose free public domain books. If they are pirating books then they are clearly readers, but as so many ignore great literature for modern - often trashy - alternatives, they are not too discerning. I doubt that the status quo would change very much if copyright was reduced.
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Quoted because it bears repeating.
I often get confused when people say they don't like "the classics". The classics are not "a genre". They are many genres. There's mystery, comedy, plays, poems, romances, sci-fi, vampires, non-fiction. There are some that I do like and some that I don't.
Prior to discovering PG and MR, and calibre, I was actually BUYing print copies of many classics. I am looking around my shelves now and see Jude the Obscure, The Brothers Karamazov, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Mrs Dalloway, Animal Farm, Anne of Green Gables, Our Mutual Friend, Jane Eyre, 3 copies of Pride and Prejudice, .... etc etc (and far more), because I wanted to catch up on all the "greats" The estimated total I have spent on those books is over 200 dollars, even with a vast majority of them being used or being discounted because they frequently go on sale when school starts.
My first Kobo came with 100 gutenberg classics pre-installed, and I was like wow. I gave my first Kobo (wifi) to my stepdaughter who felt like she had been given the world when she saw the list of free classics on there.
Now, I read quite a bit of modern literature, but very little of it, upon borrowing repeatedly from the library, has captivated me so much that I am just so sad to return it.
Hard for me to say how I feel about copyright length. If I can afford a book, I buy it, if I can't I read it at the library. Not hard for me to work out. There are many books out there that have a sticker price of 15-30 dollars that I have read. I just don't own them. I'm very grateful for libraries for allowing me the chance to experience and taste all kinds of literature.