Univ of Adelaide ebook repository

Ricky D'Angelo · 07-18-2019, 12:30 PM

The University of Adelaide has a large collection of public domain books available in kindle/epub versions. This site has the books professionally formatted by Steve Thomas.

To browse the ebook collection see link below.
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/meta/collections

lumpynose · 07-18-2019, 05:10 PM

Thanks. I should go through mine and replace the ones I already have from elsewhere (e.g., project gutenberg) with UofA's versions since he does a proper job with the formatting.

tubemonkey · 07-18-2019, 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ricky D'Angelo

The University of Adelaide has a large collection of public domain books available in kindle/epub versions. This site has the books professionally formatted by Steve Thomas.

To browse the ebook collection see link below.
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/meta/collections

Note: members should be aware that what's in the public domain in one country is not necessarily so in another country. The responsibility is upon each individual to determine whether or not they can legally download these books.

tm

GtrsRGr8 · 07-20-2019, 12:19 AM

It would be nice if someone would create a software program, which would make it possible for anyone, anywhere in the world to get the copyright status in that person's country.

Unless something like that comes along, it seems almost impossible for someone to confidently use a work published in another country. Who knows, among the gazillions of countries on the earth there may be one which grants copyrights forever. Or for hundreds of years.

I "bet" that, in the United States, there's a lot of violating of copyrights of works created in other countries going on, because it is just too onerous to find out if the books are still in copyright.

I suppose that free, "open access" works or works that have "creative commons" licenses in other countries are that way in the U.S., so they're always "safe." But I'm not sure of that.

Of course, if a person has just one book that hshe wants to access, I suppose that hshe could look up copyright laws for that country, and figure it out with some work and time (like a foreigner would have to do, with the copyright laws in the U.S., having our laws in hher possession). But what if a person's native language is English, for example, and the laws are written in the language of another country, whose language is not English? It would probably crash Google's servers even to attempt to translate the laws into English!

I've accumulated lists of free books located of in English-speaking countries, including the collection of Adelaide's but I don't know what to do with them. I don't think that I've downloaded even one of the books to my hard drive, but I don't remember.

I suppose that someone's always allowed to read books online (i.e., without downloading them) regardless of their copyright status. So, it looks like a researcher who reads a document online, and references the document, is safe. But, again, who knows?

I know that I'm perilously close to getting off topic, so that is all that I will say, unless it is at a suitable place on the Site. But maybe if we restrict discussion of how this applies to the collection to Adelaide . . . . ?

Sarmat89 · 07-20-2019, 01:22 AM

Why bother? There are much better books still under the copyright, and even if the library digitalized them for preservation with a limited access it would be thousand times better for the mankind.

lumpynose · 07-20-2019, 02:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I suppose that someone's always allowed to read books online (i.e., without downloading them) regardless of their copyright status. So, it looks like a researcher who reads a document online, and references the document, is safe. But, again, who knows?

I was wondering about this as well. I agree that reading them online is most likely allowed.

In a similar vein, suppose you're from a life+70 country and go to Canada with a laptop. In Canada it's life+50. If you download some books from Faded Page that aren't yet public domain in your country, that would be legal, but what should you do when you get back to your home country? I think something like this happened with a woman from Finland who while in London bought or downloaded a kindle book from Amazon that wasn't available in Finland and Amazon deleted it from her kindle later on. There was a big brouhaha over it and they later restored it.

The internet and digitizing is making copyrights a muddled mess.

ekbell · 07-20-2019, 11:23 AM

My opinion is that I need to know what copyright is in my country and then look up the author to check if their work is out of copyright before downloading something. (So no downloading Wodehouse's early works on Gutenburg.org :-( )

Of course with life+70 countries I just need to check when I'm not certain about the website. This then leads to the question of downloading a book that I know is out of copyright in my country but may not be out of copyright in the hosting country.

07-18-2019, 12:30 PM	#1
Ricky D'Angelo Fanatic Posts: 537 Karma: 2495066 Join Date: Feb 2013 Location: Latin America Device: Sony PRS-T1, PRS-T-2, PRS 350, PRS 950; Kobo Mini; Kindle PW3, Fire 10	Univ of Adelaide ebook repository The University of Adelaide has a large collection of public domain books available in kindle/epub versions. This site has the books professionally formatted by Steve Thomas. To browse the ebook collection see link below. https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/meta/collections Last edited by Ricky D'Angelo; 07-18-2019 at 12:33 PM.

07-20-2019, 12:19 AM	#4
GtrsRGr8 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,334 Karma: 27815322 Join Date: Aug 2012 Location: Southeastern U.S., ya'll Device: Kindle; Kindle (10.1.1) for PC; Kindle Cloud Reader	It would be nice if someone would create a software program, which would make it possible for anyone, anywhere in the world to get the copyright status in that person's country. Unless something like that comes along, it seems almost impossible for someone to confidently use a work published in another country. Who knows, among the gazillions of countries on the earth there may be one which grants copyrights forever. Or for hundreds of years. I "bet" that, in the United States, there's a lot of violating of copyrights of works created in other countries going on, because it is just too onerous to find out if the books are still in copyright. I suppose that free, "open access" works or works that have "creative commons" licenses in other countries are that way in the U.S., so they're always "safe." But I'm not sure of that. Of course, if a person has just one book that hshe wants to access, I suppose that hshe could look up copyright laws for that country, and figure it out with some work and time (like a foreigner would have to do, with the copyright laws in the U.S., having our laws in hher possession). But what if a person's native language is English, for example, and the laws are written in the language of another country, whose language is not English? It would probably crash Google's servers even to attempt to translate the laws into English! I've accumulated lists of free books located of in English-speaking countries, including the collection of Adelaide's but I don't know what to do with them. I don't think that I've downloaded even one of the books to my hard drive, but I don't remember. I suppose that someone's always allowed to read books online (i.e., without downloading them) regardless of their copyright status. So, it looks like a researcher who reads a document online, and references the document, is safe. But, again, who knows? I know that I'm perilously close to getting off topic, so that is all that I will say, unless it is at a suitable place on the Site. But maybe if we restrict discussion of how this applies to the collection to Adelaide . . . . ? Last edited by GtrsRGr8; 07-20-2019 at 01:18 AM.

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07-18-2019, 05:10 PM	#2
lumpynose Wizard Posts: 1,086 Karma: 6719822 Join Date: Jul 2012 Device: Palm Pilot M105	Thanks. I should go through mine and replace the ones I already have from elsewhere (e.g., project gutenberg) with UofA's versions since he does a proper job with the formatting.

07-20-2019, 01:22 AM	#5
Sarmat89 Evangelist Posts: 482 Karma: 2267928 Join Date: Nov 2015 Device: none	Why bother? There are much better books still under the copyright, and even if the library digitalized them for preservation with a limited access it would be thousand times better for the mankind.

07-20-2019, 11:23 AM	#7
ekbell Guru Posts: 604 Karma: 12345678 Join Date: Jan 2015 Location: Canada Device: none	My opinion is that I need to know what copyright is in my country and then look up the author to check if their work is out of copyright before downloading something. (So no downloading Wodehouse's early works on Gutenburg.org :-( ) Of course with life+70 countries I just need to check when I'm not certain about the website. This then leads to the question of downloading a book that I know is out of copyright in my country but may not be out of copyright in the hosting country.