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iBookstore to Include 30,000 Free eBooks From Project Gutenberg?

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Following up on yesterday's report regarding $9.99 price points for most best sellers in Apple's iBookstore, App Advice now reports that it has observed a significant number of free titles from Project Gutenberg included directly in the store.

If you're not familiar with the Gutenberg Project, it's a free online digital library supported by volunteers. This library already includes over 30,000 free eBooks from the public domain; it is an amazing popular resource.

Well, when checking out Apple's iBookstore, I noticed that Apple has decided to include these directly. I obviously haven't had the chance to count them, but it appears that the entire catalog is available for free download.
Click to expand...

Apple's iBooks feature page posted earlier this month confirmed that the iPad's iBooks application will support the open ePub standard used by Project Gutenberg, so its contents' compatibility with the iPad is not unexpected. Integration of Project Gutenberg content directly into the iBookstore for free download, however, is undoubtedly welcome news for many readers.

iBooks and the iBookstore are scheduled to launch in the U.S. alongside the iPad on April 3rd.

Article Link: iBookstore to Include 30,000 Free eBooks From Project Gutenberg?
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/03/25/ibookstore-to-include-30000-free-ebooks-from-project-gutenberg/
S

sjo

macrumors 6502a
Aug 30, 2005
510
0
Even though Project Gutenberg material is free for anyone to use, the project needs funding. I hope Apple has made a donation if they are using the whole library. A couple of bucks / ipad would be fair.
 
kas23

kas23

macrumors 603
Oct 28, 2007
5,629
288
How could anyone vote negative on this? Project Gutenberg is full of excellent literature that coming generations (especially the ones who buy iPods and such) need to be exposed to. Heck, maybe Apple will make reading literature cool.

How publishers get away with selling these books for sometimes up to $10 a title is beyond me. These books do not need any marketing, edititing, and are off copyright. One should just have to pay printing costs to get these books. And as other posters have pointed out in other threads, these costs are very small $1-$2. Ebooks of this sort should be complete free.

As for the donations to PG, I believe this is going to give the project a lot more exposure and more people will donate to it.
 
W

wschutz

macrumors 6502
Jun 5, 2007
295
106
ValSalva said:
Good news. Apple is really pushing those content deals in the days before launch. It seems to be daily news.
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Including Gutenberg's books isn't any achievement... anyone can do many things with them...

I presume Apple includes these towards the big day so it can say that there are thousands of books available among those many are free...
 
F

fifthworld

macrumors 6502
Oct 22, 2008
268
5
Excellent. This is also the beginning of the end of the free ebooks repackaged in pseudo-apps that clog the App Store.
 
S

sjo

macrumors 6502a
Aug 30, 2005
510
0
kas23 said:
As for the donations to PG, I believe this is going to give the project a lot more exposure and more people will donate to it.
Click to expand...

Of course alternatively Apple could include "donate" button in the reader so that the public could donate to the project easily. Corporations only taking from the community and not giving anything back sucks. That's how one can vote this negative.
 
T

theheadguy

macrumors 65816
Apr 26, 2005
1,156
1,385
california
sjo said:
Even though Project Gutenberg material is free for anyone to use, the project needs funding. I hope Apple has made a donation if they are using the whole library. A couple of bucks / ipad would be fair.
Click to expand...
+1 ...

Essentially it's piggybacking on the work of volunteers. Glad it's happening, but a donation would be nice.
 
SPUY767

SPUY767

macrumors 68020
Jun 22, 2003
2,041
131
GA
kas23 said:
How could anyone vote negative on this? Project Gutenberg is full of excellent literature that coming generations (especially the ones who buy iPods and such) need to be exposed to. Heck, maybe Apple will make reading literature cool.

How publishers get away with selling these books for sometimes up to $10 a title is beyond me. These books do not need any marketing, edititing, and are off copyright. One should just have to pay printing costs to get these books. And as other posters have pointed out in other threads, these costs are very small $1-$2. Ebooks of this sort should be complete free.

As for the donations to PG, I believe this is going to give the project a lot more exposure and more people will donate to it.
Click to expand...

1) There are people who troll these forums and vote everything negative, unless it's bad news which they vote positive.

2) There are people who think that Apple is abusing project Gutenberg.
 
ValSalva

ValSalva

macrumors 68040
Jun 26, 2009
3,783
259
Burpelson AFB
SPUY767 said:
1) There are people who troll these forums and vote everything negative, unless it's bad news which they vote positive.

2) There are people who think that Apple is abusing project Gutenberg.
Click to expand...

I thought that voting was more about the possible accuracy or validity of a given rumor, not about the content of the rumor itself. Not that I'd ever vote negative :D
 
B

Bodhi395

macrumors 6502a
Jul 23, 2008
817
0
I think this is a great idea. I was already going to download a number of Gutenberg ebooks myself and manually sync them onto my ipad from my mac, so this just makes it that much easier to merely download them directly!
 
B

BaronStein

macrumors regular
Feb 11, 2010
135
0
NY
Well, at last this project could gain some support. I bet more volunteers will help this project regarding this movement from Apple.
 
zombitronic

zombitronic

macrumors 65816
Feb 9, 2007
1,127
39
wschutz said:
Including Gutenberg's books isn't any achievement... anyone can do many things with them...

I presume Apple includes these towards the big day so it can say that there are thousands of books available among those many are free...
Click to expand...

I think we found one negative vote. Ah, the joys of pessimism.
 
F

francisq

macrumors member
Mar 22, 2010
77
0
wschutz said:
Including Gutenberg's books isn't any achievement... anyone can do many things with them...

I presume Apple includes these towards the big day so it can say that there are thousands of books available among those many are free...
Click to expand...

anyone CAN but didn't. Apple's a doer not a talker.
 
mkrishnan

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
kas23 said:
How could anyone vote negative on this? Project Gutenberg is full of excellent literature that coming generations (especially the ones who buy iPods and such) need to be exposed to. Heck, maybe Apple will make reading literature cool.
Click to expand...

I didn't (and don't, generally) vote negative, but while I'm happy that the Gutenberg project is getting this publicity, and that these books are freely available, the quality of the texts is too low for my tastes. I've read books that are in Gutenberg on my Kindle, at least once or twice (Shirley by Charlotte Bronte, Wings of the Dove by Henry James), and I found paying for properly edited and digitally typeset commercial copies well worth it.
 
C

capacity

macrumors member
Jun 20, 2003
34
0
ValSalva said:
I thought that voting was more about the possible accuracy or validity of a given rumor, not about the content of the rumor itself. Not that I'd ever vote negative :D
Click to expand...

I've never understood the positive/negative rating system. It's too ambiguous.
 
rorschach

rorschach

macrumors 68020
Jul 27, 2003
2,272
1,856
Very good news...I was going to download a bunch of books from Gutenberg to sync to my iPad when it arrives on 4/3 but now I won't have to bother!

I just wonder how much reformatting Apple has done / has had to do. Probably not much but I'd be interested to know as I have some epub-formatted books already.
 
Small White Car

Small White Car

macrumors G4
Aug 29, 2006
10,966
1,463
Washington DC
theheadguy said:
+1 ...

Essentially it's piggybacking on the work of volunteers. Glad it's happening, but a donation would be nice.
Click to expand...

So you're telling me that the volunteers put in all that work and hope that no one reads the books they've put together?

Seems to me that they do it BECAUSE they want people to see it. And it seems to me that those volunteers would LIKE the fact that Apple is bringing more eyeballs to their efforts.

What if USA Today wrote a story about the Gutenberg project...should USA Today then need to donate money to them because it sent readers their way? Or is good publiciity...you know...a good thing?
 
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