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Books for reading

The world of books is similar to that of films: when looking at the numbers, there are a large number of books available under free licences. The best known supply is offered by Project Gutenberg, which digitises a variety of works after their copyrights have expired and then offers proof-read versions for download on the internet. Gutenberg offers titles in German, English, French, Chinese and many other languages. Another comprehensive collection of books is available through Pennsylvania University. Its collection contains about 25,000 English language titles which have become public domain.

The main problem with these titles is this: if you're not interested in literature from the 19th century or older and don't feel too inclined to read the original versions of Madame Bovary or novels by Charles Dickens, you might have trouble finding an interesting read. Some contemporary authors and well-known internet citizens like Cory Doctorov, who runs the boingboing blog, have published their works under CC licences on the internet. That in itself, however, doesn't automatically give you a great read either.

Outside of the literary spheres it is especially Lawrence Lessing, the initiator of the Creative Commons licence, who has made an effort and published his (political/legal) books on the internet. Bruce Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown can also be obtained legally on the internet.

Open, but not free

Although many text collections on the internet - for example the Internet Public Library or the Etext collection at Virginia University - are freely accessible, they are subject to the usual copyrights and quoting regulations for scientific texts. Since incorporating scientific content without naming its source counts as plagiarism, authors' names or the origin of scientific texts can't simply be swept under the carpet.

Despite their availability on the net, many texts differ from CC licensed texts primarily because they cannot be freely shared and copied - but they are publicly available for personal and scientific use. Another difference appears around what's called derived work, for example when creating an audio book. When in doubt, always ask. Many projects and institutions simply don't state any terms of use. On many websites, "free" simply means that users may access and use the content free of charge and without having to sign up. This doesn't automatically imply, however, that the work may also be shared or altered at will.

Despite all these problems, browsing meta sites like Common Content or archive.org is always worthwhile when you're looking for something to read.

Readers

Many books like those of Charles Dickens have become public domain. There are eager readers who pick up public domain and Creative Commons books and turn them into audio books. Ever since podcasts have become popular, the number of recorded texts has increased dramatically as many individuals all over the place record readings of their favourite texts.

Volunteers can access a few centres for audio books - especially for English, German and French readers. The most important web site is Libri Vox, a large collection of excerpts and some complete titles. The French language Incipit Blog is a good source for French audio books. Its German equivalent is at the Vorleser Amateure (Reading Amateurs), who also publish under free licence.

However, the same restrictions apply to audio books: just because a text is marked "free" to listen to doesn't automatically mean it is subject to a free licence. German Hörbuch-Verlag's Vorleser.net, for example, offers many audio books for download. However, these are only intended for private use and not for sharing or even remixing. A group of dedicated individual human beings publishes podcasts containing read novels and texts - sometimes serialised - under CC licence on Podiobooks.com. A smaller and more specialised supply can be found in the link list of Libri Vox.

Is that all?

Having trawled all these text and film archives and collections at length, one thing has become very clear: freely licensed entertainment and education is hard to find. This is not because there isn't anything on offer, but because the interesting projects are usually small, individual and difficult to spot, while the large archives usually identically mirror each others contents.

Of course, production hurdles play a major role. The currently very best sources are widely scattered across the blogs. Blogs are also the best indicators of how popular free licences have already become. An unrecognised poet here, an ambitious amateur video there - this is today's free media landscape. At present it's the small, lovingly made pet projects which appear most frequently under a free licence - for example a reader who records a German version of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" in 24 instalments at Christmas time, or a physicist who has spent years writing a Free Physics Textbook for the curious.

That's not enough? Far from it, it's more like an excellent beginning. In its early years, Linux wasn't even network-compatible let alone equipped with a GUI; nowadays, the free Unix variant has set out to compete with the well-established desktop operating systems. When we account for the fact that a readable novel can take a few years to write, or that organising and producing a feature film is quite an involved task, all it will take is a little more time. (odi)

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