LinuxMall.com: The Neo-Industrial Revolution: Project Gutenberg

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“Hart started Project Gutenberg in 1971 with the idea that
the true value of computers lies in the storage and dissemination
of great written works. To that end, Project Gutenberg has been
converting Public Domain books to e-text, freely available for
public use, ever since.”

“Literary works are not the only e-text available through
Project Gutenberg. A draft of the Human Genome Project’s nucleotide
sequences was made available in October, 1999. Roget’s Thesaurus,
The Hacker’s Dictionary of Computer Jargon and other reference
materials are also available.”

“Another one of those “copyright hassles” is the loss of
approximately one million books to Public Domain to the “Sonny Bono
Copyright Term Extension Act” enacted by Congress in 1998. Project
Gutenberg can only convert to e-text those books considered part of
the Public Domain. The Copyright Act extended the length of time
for the entry of a copyrighted work into Public Domain from 28
years after initial publication to 50 years beyond the life of the
author.”

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