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Project Gutenberg 2 Raises Some Hackles

Posted by timothy on from the eggs-for-omelets dept.

An anonymous reader writes "LISNews.com reports on a new web venture called Project Gutenberg 2, offering access to electronic books in Adobe eBook format on a paid membership basis. Some Gutenberg volunteers are concerned about the use of the PG name in such a context. The news raises questions about PG's ongoing commitment to the ideals of free distribution and nonproprietary formats. Last year PG celebrated the release of its 10,000th title, accomplished with the help of many volunteer proofreaders, many of whom aren't happy about charging people to view these titles in Adobe eBook format."

11 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. still free by Underholdning · · Score: 5, Informative

    As far as I can tell the books are still available in HTML. It's just that if you want them in PDF, then they charge you a fee. I have no beef with that.

    --
    Underholdning.info
    1. Re:still free by femto · · Score: 5, Informative

      The HTML Writers Guild is translating Project Gutenberg texts into HTML.

    2. Re:still free by utopyr · · Score: 5, Informative

      I participated in this when it started up. It's dead in the water, becalmed, caught in the horse latitudes, so far as I can tell.

      For example, take a look at the dates attached to the marked-up texts in this list. A shame--folks were mighty excited.

      The Project Gutenberg XML mentioned earlier here was also exciting, but I've been off the mailing list a few years, and am having trouble finding its archives now. Anybody have more luck than me? As I recall, one of the unanswered threads that ran through it was what to do in the TEI headers, since TEI was an attractive choice for a mark-up vocabulary. It is not that obvious how to accommodate the Gutenberg boilerplate and metadata appropriately in the header.

  2. More info here by soramimicake · · Score: 5, Informative
    Half way down this page are more details of this case.

    Especially of interests are the following 2 points:

    - PG trademark owner and PG2 owner are supposedly friends.

    - PG2 tries to claim copyright over the files as well, even though the text themselves are supposed to be in the public domain.

  3. Project Gutenberg 2 = Michael Hart by mikeymckay · · Score: 5, Informative

    I believe Project Gutenberg 2 is being run by Michael Hart (and others), founder of the original Project Gutenberg and holder of the trademark. At least this is what I am picking up by the mass of emails flying on the gutenberg developers list. So it is affiliated, though in a messy circular sort of way.

  4. Re:TM Registration by orthogonal · · Score: 5, Informative
    This won't be any problem at all since the Project Gutenberg folks remembered to register their trademark.

    The "Project Gutenburg folks" didn't register the trademark.

    You and three mods didn't read the linked article, which is actually a blurb that quotes the real article, to wit (emphasis mine):
    "Over the weekend a Project Gutenberg volunteer list was buzzing with all kinds of questions for PG founder Michael Hart, who personally owns the Project Gutenberg trademark."


    --
    Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
  5. Re:Bah. by Nursie · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hmmmmm. Linux distros are affiliated with Linux, they make no secret of it. They usually develop products and projects that contribute back to open source, and are generally ethical and a good thing.

    These guys are using someone elses name and charging for their work.

  6. This is a fake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Look at the Adobe banner: it links to
    www.worldebooklibrary.info/Adobe
    which is a *fake* Adobe website.

    World eBook Library owns both sites.

    Plus the information given below on their ISP in Maui...

    I guess you shouldn't begin to give your money to them...

    Anyone knows how to alert Adobe's legal department? I guess it would help solve GP problem...

    1. Re:This is a fake by De+Lemming · · Score: 5, Informative

      Look at the Adobe banner: it links to http://www.worldebooklibrary.com/Adobe/ (corrected url)
      which is a *fake* Adobe website.

      World eBook Library owns both sites.

      whois:
      www.worldebooklibrary.com = [ 207.175.209.173 ]
      Organization:
      World eBook Library
      John Guagliardo
      PO Box 22687
      Honolulu HI 96823
      US
      [...]

      And their ISP: Maui Global Communications Corp., Hawaii

      Even better: the advertised eBook Reader is a discontinued Adobe product, the functionality is integrated in Adobe Reader now:
      http://www.adobe.com/products/ebookreader/main.htm l

  7. Alternatives to PDF by doktorstop · · Score: 5, Informative

    As a biased supporter of PG, I would really argue that switching to PDF goes against the whole idea of a free, easily-accessible and voluntary-based project. Doing so would cut down any possible motivation for thousands of people to contribute time and work to something that will become proprietary products sold later on to all of us.
    But that is not the point, as I am quite sure this idea will be expressed with different accents in thousands of posts. The points are: 1) yes, it is good that PG is trying to get away from pure text. That is the way to go.
    2) There already exists a mature project called FictionBook. Basically, it is a derivative of the DocBook format, XML-based, but optimized for books instead of documentation (yes, there IS a difference!) Thousands of books (unfortunately most of them in Russian) are already published and readily available on the net. The standart itself has survived so far for at least 2-3 years, so it is proven by time to work. And there are lots of tools to create, modify and archive books, and readers for almost every platform.
    So why reinvent the weel????

    --
    http://www.automatiq.se
  8. Re:Not entirely by Sandor+at+the+Zoo · · Score: 5, Informative

    The parent post is overrated, IMHO, since there's no background knowledge on the author's part.

    Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, has given full permission to these guys to use the name. Here's part of a post to the ebook-community mailing list (a yahoo group):

    PGII only charges for certain files they modified or created, and is paying PG the same royalty as we require from anyone.

    and

    Anyone who calls for such drastic action immediately just doesn't want to see how things will work, they want to force the worst assumption on us all. Project Gutenberg has always been open to experimentation. And we also have always had the fine print that has allowed for the production of "Project Gutenberg CDs" DVDs, etc., all by anyone who wanted to give it a try.

    In my humble opinion, this dilutes the Project Gutenberg name and idea, but it's Hart's to do with as he sees fit.