Yup. I happened to listen to Lawrence Lessig's keynote address entitled Free Culture last night and the Gutenberg site reminded me of this excerpt:
Here's my Adobe eBook Reader, right. Some of you have seen this before, I'm sure. Here's Middle March; this is a work in the public domain. Here are the "permissions" (a lawyer had something to do with this) that you can do with this work in the public domain: You are allowed to copy ten selections into the clipboard every ten days--like, who got these numbers, I don't know--but you can print ten pages of this 4 million page book every ten days, and you are allowed to feel free to use the read-aloud button to listen to this book, right?
Now, Aristotle's Politics, another book in the public domain [that was] never really protected by copyright, but with this book, you can't copy any text into the selection, you can't print any pages, but feel free to listen to this book aloud. And to my great embarrassment, here's my latest book, right? No copying, no printing, and don't you dare use the technology to read my book aloud.
Similarly the Gutenberg site warns:
Further reproduction of any of the Gutenberg Bible images without the written consent of the Ransom Center is prohibited.
Isn't this contrary to the whole premise of the project? Paradoxical, even? Do you want to allow the world "virtual access" to this text or not?
Slashdot Mirror
from the less-obvious-duplicates-dept.
"Cognitive Machines Help Decision-Making"
Does this count? The original story, if not the linked article, is the same. Do I get a prize?
Similarly the Gutenberg site warns:
Isn't this contrary to the whole premise of the project? Paradoxical, even? Do you want to allow the world "virtual access" to this text or not?