Quote:
Originally Posted by cmbs
If a blog, which is not affiliated with a legitimate bookseller, is hosting and giving away hundreds of free ebooks they did not create (and therefore don't own a copyright to), how do you know the downloads are legal? Because they say so? Where did they get legal rights to distribute the books?
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You raise a good and legitimate point, cmbs, so I had a look at the linked sites.
Obviously it can't be an exhaustive look, as that would take quite a lot of time, but here's what seems to be the case after a few minutes with each site. Taking them in order:
- The first link appears to be nothing more than a collection of links to technical manuals and textbook type stuff hosted by the various folks who own actually them. Obviously, those various owners have every right to give them away if they so choose, and there's certainly nothing amiss with collecting the links in one place.
- The second link seems to be an author's personal blog (Lizzy Van Lysebeth, by name) where she's giving away her own books. Again, nothing questionable about that, legally, morally nor ethically. At least not that we can tell without knowing what sort of contracts she may or may not have with unnamed and possibly non-existent third parties -- questions I don't really feel I have any right to demand that she answer.
- The third link is a blog as well, and its entries appear to be write ups of (and links to) books offered elsewhere. Those elsewheres would seem upon casual examination to be legitimate, including sites such as Harlequin, Amazon and a publisher (or possibly just a retailer) called "Pyr" which I hadn't heard of. Some of them aren't free, as Junior94 noted.
- The fourth and final link seems to be yet another author (Jennifer L. Armstrong, this time) again offering her own books as free downloads. She also seems to have a nice, surprisingly large collection of links to other authors' blogs who appear to be doing the same thing. Nothing out of line there, nearly as I can tell without making it my life's pursuit.
Frankly you can ask the same "how do you know it's legal" question of any
retailer and the answer would be the same: you'll have to take a look and see -- there's not really any other way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cmbs
And do you care if the download is legal or not?
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I'd respectfully suggest that next time links like these come up, you might have a look at what's linked before asking such a question in quite so blunt a manner. Some oversensitive folks might think you meant to accuse someone of something, which doesn'tseem to be at all warranted in this case.
As a general note to everyone: if anyone should come across a link posted here on MobileRead that goes to a ... questionable site,
please use the report post function (the little
icon at the bottom left of each post) to let the Moderators know so that we can deal with it in a timely manner.
