Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

I just found a pretty good book written in 1930 by a guy named Olaf Stapledon called Last and First Men. The full PDF is available here. It's interesting because it tells a story of 18 versions of humans as evolution and genetic engineering proceed over many millions of years. A lot of it is inaccurate, such as man migrating to Venus and Neptune, but given when it was written, I suspended my disbelief. The author even said exactly what I thought (having read the synopsis before even reading any of the book) in the preface, saying

Olaf Stapledon wrote:If ever this book should happen to be discovered by some future individual, for
instance by a member of the next generation sorting out the rubbish of his
predecessors, it will certainly raise a smile; for very much is bound to happen of
which no hint is yet discoverable. And indeed even in our generation circumstances
may well change so unexpectedly and so radically that this book may very soon look
ridiculous. But no matter. We of today must conceive our relation to the rest of the
universe as best we can; and even if our images must seem fantastic to future men,
they may none the less serve their purpose today.

The very last paragraph of the story spoken by one of the last of the Last Men as life in our solar system is fading out is a great quote (at least I think).

But one thing is certain. Man himself, at the very least, is music, a brave theme that
makes music also of its vast accompaniment, its matrix of storms and stars. Man
himself in his degree is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of things. It is very good
to have been man. And so we may go forward together with laughter in our hearts,
and peace, thankful for the past, and for our own courage. For we shall make after all
a fair conclusion to this brief music that is man.

Anyone else know some books they like that are freely available to read online?

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is Common Sense.

If you're looking for a fun, light read, PG Wodehouse is pretty funny. I don't know if all of his works are in the public domain, but I've been listening to "A Damsel in Distress" on archive.org and loving it.

I've seen Jeeves and Wooster on TV and thought it was very funny

Rifka wrote:If you're looking for a fun, light read, PG Wodehouse is pretty funny. I don't know if all of his works are in the public domain, but I've been listening to "A Damsel in Distress" on archive.org and loving it.

Because of US copyright law, only works that are published before 1923 are guaranteed to be in the public domain. After 1923, it gets . . . complicated. Anyway, here are P.G. Wodehouse's books that are on Project Gutenberg (and I'd recommend Project Gutenberg as a good source for online books):

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search. ... &query=783

I think I read H. P. Lovecraft online. That's some good stuff.

Katya wrote:

Rifka wrote:If you're looking for a fun, light read, PG Wodehouse is pretty funny. I don't know if all of his works are in the public domain, but I've been listening to "A Damsel in Distress" on archive.org and loving it.

Because of US copyright law, only works that are published before 1923 are guaranteed to be in the public domain. After 1923, it gets . . . complicated. Anyway, here are P.G. Wodehouse's books that are on Project Gutenberg (and I'd recommend Project Gutenberg as a good source for online books):

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search. ... &query=783

Tell me about it! My whole job right now involves working with books, a major part of which is finding out the copyright status of each. Talk about HEADACHES! (That's why I was too lazy to look up which PG Wodehouse books are in the public domain-- I do too much of that at work each day.)

Rifka - I'm really curious. What is the process you use to determine whether a book is in the public domain? Hope this question doesn't cause you more headaches.

No problem W&S,

First off, if it's before 1923, it's in the public domain. You probably already knew that.

After 1923, I use the following charts to determine if the copyright expired, needed to be renewed, or is still in effect:
http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm
http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm

I like both of those websites because the first one is more in-depth and specific, if I need it, but the second one is easier to look at and quickly determine how long the copyright protection extends/extended.

Basically, most books between 1923 and 1977 had to have 1)correct copyright notice (which I take to mean it had to have the little (c) symbol in the copyright statment), and/or 2)had their copyright renewed, or they fall into public domain. (There are more specific details to time periods and when things became public-- you can read about them on the above two sites if you're interested.)

In order to determine if a book's copyright was renewed, there are a couple of places to check:

http://www.incopyright.org/?r=%22A+Bran ... ly+Tree%22 (lists copyright renewals from 1923-1963)
http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebre ... PAGE=First (lists all books published or renewed from 1978-present)

So, if I find the copyright in one of those two, I either know it's copyrighted or know what to do with it.
If the required renewal date for the copyright falls between 1963 and 1978 that's a problem, because those dates aren't available to be searched online. They can only be searched at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. in person. (LAME!!!!) So, my company has a contact in Washington D.C. who is willing to search copyright status for us on books that are copyrighted between those years, for a much cheaper fee than the LOC would charge to search them. So, as I check, I compile a list of books that we are interested in, but whose copyright status falls between those years and is unclear. When the list gets long enough, we'll send it off to our contact to get the books checked.

There's also the whole headache of copyrights on international books, but it's pretty rare for us to be using those. For the few I've come across, the best basic resource I've found is this website:
http://www.copyright-watch.org/home

I think that covers everything. Hopefully that answers your question, W&S. It's an annoyingly complicated process, so I have a whole spreadsheet set up to help me keep track of original copyright dates, required renewal dates, current copyright status, etc. It's actually kind of fun to figure out the whole tricky business, but it's stressful, too because I don't want to accidentally mark something as good and have someone sue the company because I misread a copyright rule or miscalculated the public domain date. Thankfully that hasn't happened yet (crossing my fingers)!

That was really informative - thanks!

No problem, krebscout! I'm a librarian and researcher at heart, so I can't seem to write a non-opinion response without putting in lots of sources and links all over the place. Hopefully that all saves someone else grief in figuring out if something is in the public domain or not.

Rifka wrote:

Katya wrote:

Rifka wrote:If you're looking for a fun, light read, PG Wodehouse is pretty funny. I don't know if all of his works are in the public domain, but I've been listening to "A Damsel in Distress" on archive.org and loving it.

Because of US copyright law, only works that are published before 1923 are guaranteed to be in the public domain. After 1923, it gets . . . complicated. Anyway, here are P.G. Wodehouse's books that are on Project Gutenberg (and I'd recommend Project Gutenberg as a good source for online books):

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search. ... &query=783

Tell me about it! My whole job right now involves working with books, a major part of which is finding out the copyright status of each. Talk about HEADACHES! (That's why I was too lazy to look up which PG Wodehouse books are in the public domain-- I do too much of that at work each day.)

Where do you work / what kind of work do you do?

Rifka wrote:No problem, krebscout! I'm a librarian and researcher at heart, so I can't seem to write a non-opinion response without putting in lots of sources and links all over the place. Hopefully that all saves someone else grief in figuring out if something is in the public domain or not.

I didn't actually write that - Sauron did. But I, too, found it informative.

Katya wrote:Where do you work / what kind of work do you do?

I work for a start-up genealogy company in Provo. My job is mainly file management-- auditing and editing files. So, I can work from my laptop from anywhere as long as I get my hours in. It's nice that it's flexible and that it's on the computer, so I can listen to audio books while I work.

Rifka wrote:

Katya wrote:Where do you work / what kind of work do you do?

I work for a start-up genealogy company in Provo. My job is mainly file management-- auditing and editing files. So, I can work from my laptop from anywhere as long as I get my hours in. It's nice that it's flexible and that it's on the computer, so I can listen to audio books while I work.

Huh. So how does the copyright issue figure into that work?

Katya wrote:

Rifka wrote:

Katya wrote:Where do you work / what kind of work do you do?

I work for a start-up genealogy company in Provo. My job is mainly file management-- auditing and editing files. So, I can work from my laptop from anywhere as long as I get my hours in. It's nice that it's flexible and that it's on the computer, so I can listen to audio books while I work.

Huh. So how does the copyright issue figure into that work?

Because my job is to go through and fine books in the public domain that fit the criteria we're looking for. Then, I prepare the digital files for processing and they get sent to a company in China to pull out the info we're interested in. When they send the info back, I check to make sure they pulled out what we wanted and mark them ready to go on the website.

I used to just be over the front end of the process, so I spent a lot more time with the finding and preparing half of the job. Recently, though, the other girl who worked with me on the project left and I got stuck with the whole project by myself. So, I'm now spending a lot more time on the other girl's half of the process that involves all the sending, receiving and auditing files. Its been an interesting transition.

Sorry I can't be much more specific than that. The website hasn't gone live yet and so when I was hired I had to sign all sorts of confidentiality agreements that I wouldn't tell people what exactly I do or even tell them the name of the company (I worked there for 6 months before my husband even found out who I was working for-- and he only found out because I had to list the company name when we filed our taxes.) Hopefully the website will be up soon and then I can tell more specifics about what I do.

Rifka wrote:Sorry I can't be much more specific than that. The website hasn't gone live yet and so when I was hired I had to sign all sorts of confidentiality agreements that I wouldn't tell people what exactly I do or even tell them the name of the company (I worked there for 6 months before my husband even found out who I was working for-- and he only found out because I had to list the company name when we filed our taxes.) Hopefully the website will be up soon and then I can tell more specifics about what I do.

No worries. If and when you can talk more about it, I'd love to hear about the kinds of books you look for and where you find them.

Sure thing, Katya. I'll make a mental note to tell you more once I'm allowed to. In the meantime, hopefully we haven't pulled people too far off the main topic of this thread. In light of that, I'll say that there are many "classics" (such a subjective term!) available online in e-book and/or audio versions. I'd highly recommend Les Miserables (probably my favorite book of all time) and the Count of Monte Cristo (currently listening to it on www.archive.org). Yay for good public domain books!