iBookstore to Include 30,000 Free eBooks From Project Gutenberg?
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.
iBooks and the iBookstore are scheduled to launch in the U.S. alongside the iPad on April 3rd.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)
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.
Good news. Apple is really pushing those content deals in the days before launch. It seems to be daily news.
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...
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.
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.
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.
+1 ...Essentially it's piggybacking on the work of volunteers. Glad it's happening, but a donation would be nice.
[ Read All Comments ]
Analytics firm Chitika today released a report showing that by its metrics iOS has now surpassed OS X in overall web traffic share in the United States. Chitika's methodology involves an analysis...
One of the most frequent reasons for an iPhone to go on a trip to the Apple Store's Genius Bar is because of water damage. Typically, a water damaged iPhone can be replaced for a flat $199...
TheVerge's Joshua Topolsky summarizes the iPad 3 casing findings reported earlier today, but also adds his own sources regarding some details of the iPad 3.
Image from RepairLabs
As...
Last July, Apple discontinued the white MacBook from its consumer lineup, pushing consumers toward the company's popular MacBook Air line or the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The company didn't kill...
Popular iPhone Twitter client Tweetbot has finally arrived on the iPad, with a user interface instantly familiar to any current Tweetbot user. Designed for the Twitter power-user, Tweetbot packs a...
