!@!Re: [Upd-discuss] "want war and peace online? How about 20 pages at a time?" NYT article

[Michael Hart]

On Fri, 4 Nov 2005, Stark wrote:

> The New York Times has an article with the headine "Want 'War and Peace' 
> Online? How About 20 Pages at a Time?" (see 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/04/technology/04publish.html?th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1131095102-Fex9S4zd0AcbIAwriC2GeQ)
>
>
> The article is of about the same quality as the headline, and makes no 
> refernence The Gutenberg Project or the public domain.

This is par for the course for the NYTimes.

They have interviewed me 5 times, but never published a single word I said,
or even mentioned Project Gutenberg.  The last time they called for such an
interview, I said I would only do so if they would tell me why interviews I
had done in the past had never been published.

The answer was that Project Gutenberg gets too much credit already.

Interesting, since none of the articles about the recent efforts started by
Google's and Yahoo's various confederations even mentioned that eBooks were
part of the Internet decades before these efforts began.  The media is more
interested in making their readers think eBooks were just now invented, the
product of cartels of half a dozen multibillion dollar instituations each.

If we had collected 1 cent for each of the trillion eBooks we ever gave away,
we would have anough pennies to buy out Donald Trump, and then they would be
beating down our doors to give us publicity.

The First Rule Of Reporting:

"Follow The Money!!!"

Since we don't deal with billions of dollars, but rather with giving away
over a trillion eBooks already, this is of no interest under that rule.


> Nearly every paragraph has something that makes me grind my teeth.

The media has their own agenda. . .something VERY hard to find acceptable


> The only paragraph that makes a passing mention of the fact that copyrights 
> expire is

[The media isn't going to talk objectively about copyright. . .since they have
a VERY biased interest in keeping their product copyrighted.  It's obvious.]


> "Currently, the Google Print program provides free online access to the full 
> content of books no longer under copyright, but only limited viewing of parts 
> of books that are still protected. Under the plans being developed by Google, 
> publishers say, those older, copyrighted books could be bought in whole or in 
> part."

Actually, it's not "those older, copyrighted books" it's the *newer* books
that are copyrighted. . . .

Makes you wonder just how much the reporter understands copyright.

Don't worry, Project Gutenberg will go down in the history books
as the first mass producer/mass distributor of eBooks, but those
history books will probably not be written until after political
changes bring us back from the concept of permanent copyright as
it was originally proposed back in 1557, and again today.

I will be making some pretty amazing and astounding predictions,
and very shortly, about when there will be a million downloadable
eBooks free of charge on the Internet, and some comments on how
close we already are.

I will be predicting something on the order that by the time the
Google and Yahoo projects have created 1/4 million each, that at
the same time you will be able to download 1/4 million eBooks at
the various Project Gutenberg sites, free of charge, and also an
additional 1/4 million eBooks from general eBook sites worldwide
. . .for a total of 1 million eBooks. . .and it won't take years
and years to accomplish.  I will also be predicting that even in,
the situations such as Google's, Univ. of Virginia, Oxford, etc.,
who take particular pains to keep you from downloading eBooks in
the public domain, that these eBooks will find the light of day,
and that you will be able to legally download them against wills
of these multibillion dollar institutions.


Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg