Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
It's not a pirate site, but it is a site that contains a huge number of pirated books, due to their policy of permitted unregulated uploads. I'd strongly suggest checking the legality of material found there before downloading. It's an extremely valuable resource: always my "go to" site to locate scanned copies of out of copyright books.
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Here in the US, the google case basically said that it's legal to scan in the books, but not legal to make those books available in whole, you can make small portions available.
One of the catch phrases for the internet is "making all knowledge available at your fingertip". The technology exists to make that happen, but the legal framework still doesn't exist. I would argue that there would be a lot of public good to have a site where one can download any book. The mechanism for paying the copyright holder would have to be worked out, but there are already similar mechanisms in the US for commercial use of music. Heck, one can even have a clause allowing people to opt out (but opting out would greatly reduce the length of the copyright). Won't happen, of course, but it would be a tremendous public good.