Voting for APRIL 2018 BOTM

[Kristel]

Melissa wrote: "Kristel wrote: "Chinook wrote: "Diane wrote: "I have already read 33 of these, so I don't have much left to work with. I would love to read A Ballad for Georg Henig, especially since..."

Melissa, thanks for doing this!

[Melissa]

Dree wrote: "I thought we could vote for any on the list. Which is what I did, as stated above."

You can, sorry for any confusion. Someone else was just asking which on this month’s list were available for free in the group’s Dropbox. I was just answering their question. You can vote for any on Kristel’s List at the beginning of the discussion.

[Melissa]

Kristel wrote: "Melissa wrote: "Kristel wrote: "Chinook wrote: "Diane wrote: "I have already read 33 of these, so I don't have much left to work with. I would love to read A Ballad for Georg Henig, ..."

You’re welcome, it gave me something to do while my family is currently watching The Walking Dead marathon (again). LOL

[Dree]

Wow some of those books seem like free online versions would involve copyright violations.

[Kristel]

Dree wrote: "Wow some of those books seem like free online versions would involve copyright violations."

I think they are added in countries that maybe don’t have the same copyright protections as other countries. I really don’t know how books appear in the dropbox, don’t think I’ve ever added one myself.

[Melissa]

From the Reading1001 list most published before 1923 are already available for free in the public domain. So Austen, Hardy, Dickens, Twain, Burroughs, Verne, and many others. Usually if Amazon offers a kindle version of a classic for free or it’s available on Serial Reader, that’s because it’s copyright has expired. Amazon also likes to make them into collections, bundles, with working Tables etc and then charge $1.99 or so for that work.




Another free ebook resource http://www.gutenberg.org/

Project Gutenberg specializes in older works where the copyright has expired.

This is from their website if it helps:
“The Public Domain will grow again in 2019
In the US, annual copyright term expiry is set to begin again in 2019, after a 20-year hiatus due to the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. On January 1, 2019, items published in 1923 will enter the public domain in the US. In the early days of Project Gutenberg, growth of the public domain on January 1 was an annual event. See Duke Law's "Public Domain Day"for a listing of many items that were scheduled to enter the public domain, but have yet to do so because of the 1998 extension. Some notable items scheduled to enter the public domain in 2019 include Felix Salten's "Bambi" and Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet."

This is also the same group of books https://librivox.org that I mentioned earlier deals with to make audiobooks with volunteers reading and recording them.

[Melissa]

Other than that, I don’t know. I just made a list of what was in there. And I don’t know how copyrights work outside of the US or for that matter how books from other countries in translation copyrights work, but I would assume it depends on the copyright laws in the country of publication.🤷‍♀️

[Dree]

180 or so countries abide by the Berne Convention, which sets a minimum of life of the author plus 50 years. By that measure Peake’s works come out of copyright Dec 31 of this year in countries that have it gone to life of the author plus 70 years (the US and others). Michael Ondaatje is still living—The English Patient is in copyright in those 180 or so countries.

Where you download from is more important than the upload. If someone is uploading in a country with no copyright law anything be legally downloaded there. If it’s being downloaded in a country (which is actually nearly all countries) where the copyright is still valid, it is an illegal download.

This puts the owner of the Dropbox in a potentially precarious position.

[Jen]

Dree wrote: "180 or so countries abide by the Berne Convention, which sets a minimum of life of the author plus 50 years. By that measure Peake’s works come out of copyright Dec 31 of this year in countries tha..."

I think it’s worth looking through. I have not added any copies to the dropbox that violate copyright. Nor have I downloaded any. If it’s in the dropbox and not a free source book, I won’t use it. I will always buy it. However, I believe that some of the books in there were probably uploaded by some of our international members. Kristel, we should probably look through it. I’m not sure who technically created it but Dree is probably right that we should be cautious especially as we start giving everyone access to it.

[Dree]

I’m not trying to be a B****. But really, the owner/creator of the box, as well as downloaders, could get in trouble. Public group, open Dropbox, Goodreads, Amazon, etc. though a cease and desist would probably be first. (My local garden got one because they did free movie nights with “crowds” of about 30—movies are slightly different, but it’s all copyright. They had to stop.)

But really, no one wants a cease and desist letter. It’s stressful.

[Jen]

Dree wrote: "I’m not trying to be a B****. But really, the owner/creator of the box, as well as downloaders, could get in trouble. Public group, open Dropbox, Goodreads, Amazon, etc. though a cease and desist w..."

No, it’s been something I have been worried about as I’ve seen people add tons more books. Maybe we just provide links to the free sourced/public free books. I have a feeling that I may be the owner of the dropbox. Originally it was just a few of us who had access but now there are a lot of us

[Kristel]

I don't remember who the originator of the dropbox was, not me as I would not know how to even get it off the ground. I think most stuff that I've used have been past copyright.

I thought Peake's family continued the copyright on his material.

I agree, if something is copyrighted, we probably should get rid of it from the dropbox.

Does dropbox record who downloaded, who uploaded files?

[Kristel]

Is Becket and Bellow's stuff still copyrighted? There are some of those. How about Coetzee. I think there is some of his works. I know The Art Of Fielding is not past copyright and that is there.

[Jen]

I’m going to go through and remove all the books still under copyright. Sorry folks. I think I’m the owner/creator and i do not want to support illegal sharing of books. Please do not upload books that violate copyright law.

[Kristel]

Jen wrote: "I’m going to go through and remove all the books still under copyright. Sorry folks. I think I’m the owner/creator and i do not want to support illegal sharing of books. Please do not upload books ..."

Cathedral is in there and I know that one is a free download on-line. It was put their by a church organization so that can stay.

[Jen]

All the recent ones were added by our international members. They are all problematic. I have to see which ones are public domain and remove those that are not. I used technically those files were “owned” by different t people but anyone who downloads them and gets caught downloading them
Could be liable.

[Kristel]

Jen wrote: "All the recent ones were added by our international members. They are all problematic. I have to see which ones are public domain and remove those that are not. I used technically those files were ..."

I think I used the Becket file for How it Is back when, now I wonder if that is still copyrighted.

[Kristel]

And The Ballad of George Henig, Is that going to disappear. I am fearful that many have voted for this one, including me. I do not own it.

Will people still be willing to read it if it takes purchasing it?

[Jen]

Beckett is not public domain

[Tracy]

Jen- I added Georg Heinig, and I scanned my own copy. I don’t know if that counts.

[Pip]

Such a shame because Georg Henig is not available from Amazon, Kindle or Audible!

[Jen]

I would suggest that individual members can offer to share among themselves if they so wish. It’s more and issue of a group sanctioned shared box with illegal copies

[Leni]

Pip wrote: "Such a shame because Georg Henig is not available from Amazon, Kindle or Audible!"

It's available on UK Amazon. At £11.99 it's a little bit steep for an almost 30 year old paperback (1990 edition) but I guess that's what happens when books go out of print.

[Dree]

I read Georg Henig, I got it from my library. Los Angeles Public Library has one circulating copy, pub 1988. So maybe it's a good ILL book? (I read it for a country challenge in another group.)

[Kristel]

There are a couple copies available at Abe Books (used book sellers). Website is found at bottom of Amazon’s page. I think Amazon has used copy too.

[Tracy]

I lent my copy out a few years ago, and haven't seen it since, unfortunately.
But I did get check it out originally from the University of Iowa library. They seem to have everything...

[Tatjana]

I found this list of 1001 (and other great) books in public domain (in Australia, signatory of all Copyright Conventions, including Bern, WTO agreements and WIPO). It has direct link to Project Gutenberg download (if there is a copy in PG). It's very handy and it might be useful in future for you guys.
http://gutenberg.net.au/greatest-book...

[Hilde]

I don't think any of the only two I have on my shelf (The Year of the Hare and Snow) have any chance, but I voted for the first one as I saw someone else comment on it.

[Jen]

Voting is closed. I will post the results later today most likely in the afternoon

[Kristel]

Sale of lottery tickets is closed. Winner will be announced when Jen reports the winner of popular vote.

[Anita]

Kristel wrote: "Sale of lottery tickets is closed. Winner will be announced when Jen reports the winner of popular vote."

And the lesson here is I am not lucky when it comes to games of chance . . . ;).

[Kristel]

Anita wrote: "Kristel wrote: "Sale of lottery tickets is closed. Winner will be announced when Jen reports the winner of popular vote."

And the lesson here is I am not lucky when it comes to games of chance . ...."
You were doing really well when you were the only one who bought lottery tickets. It was 100% chance you would win. I was rooting for you, too.

[Anita]

Ha ha that was my thinking, but even 33% was good odds. Alas . . .

[George P.]

Leni wrote: "Pip wrote: "Such a shame because Georg Henig is not available from Amazon, Kindle or Audible!"

It's available on UK Amazon. At £11.99 it's a little bit steep for an almost 30 year old paperback (1..."

12 pounds, equal to 17 US dollars, is steep for such a slim book too, my university library copy is only 120 pages. It was printed somewhere in Britain, published by "Peter Owen" of London.