Forty-Five Years of Digitizing Ebooks: Project Gutenberg's PracticesNewby, Gregory B.
History
Forty-Five Years of Digitizing Ebooks: Project Gutenberg's Practices
Newby, Gregory B.
Project Gutenberg
COPYRIGHT CLEARANCE OR PERMISSION
From approximately 1994-2004, procedures for digitization became
more clearly articulated. This included the notion that a copyright
“clearance” was the necessary first step for starting any new eBook
for contribution to Project Gutenberg. The “copyright how-to” mentioned
above was developed and refined, with guidance from a number of lawyers
with expertise in US copyright law.
Project Gutenberg has always operated within the copyright laws of the
US, and includes text in each eBook, and online at www.gutenberg.org,
making it clear that readers in other countries must follow the
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completely independently, exist to emphasize the literary works and
languages of different countries, and they follow the copyright laws of
the country or region in which they operate.
Generally, copyright clearance is simple. Items published prior to 1923,
anywhere in the world, are in the public domain in the US. Prior to
1993, all copyright clearance actions required mailing a photocopy of
the title page and verso (obverse) page of a candidate book to Michael
Hart or Greg Newby, but then an online system was developed that
accepted scans of those pages. A database maintains records of cleared
items, and who submitted them. A few other copyright rules are sometimes
applied, for items published after 1923.
Sometimes, copyrighted items are submitted by authors. For many years,
Project Gutenberg was one of few online repositories of user-contributed
literary works, and therefore accepted items from contemporary authors.
The two requirements for such content were:
1. A perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, irrevocable license be granted
to Project Gutenberg, for unlimited redistribution of the item; and
2. The item must be made available as plain text, (valid) HTML, or both.
However, user-contributed content is generally no longer accepted for
the main collection at www.gutenberg.org. Instead, a new self-publishing
portal, operated by an affiliate, The World EBook Library, is available
at self.gutenberg.org.
With the self-publishing portal, authors may use any license they wish
(such as a Creative Commons license), and can provide items in PDF or
other formats. This simplifies the process for the authors, and
removes the need for Project Gutenberg’s volunteers to be involved
with author-contributed content.
MULTIPLE SOURCES
Project Gutenberg encourages the use of multiple printed sources to
create an eBook. For many historical works, including the US
Declaration of Independence (the first Project Gutenberg eBook), there
are variations among the printed sources. Another early example is the
works of William Shakespeare. Project Gutenberg has several different
versions of Shakespeare, including one based on the first edition
folios. It has been typical, throughout the modern history of
publishing, for different versions of a book to have variations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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