Wait, wait, wait! They're giving away free ebooks that you can access for free anywhere and they're restricting what I can do with the free ebooks?

SIGN ME UP!

Dear lord, didn't Disney do enough damage to public domain?

Depending on the exact text, it might not be public domain. Most versions of those books include a forward or notes that are not in public domain, allowing the publisher to maintain a copyright on the work as a whole (the out of copyright text PLUS the stuff added on.)

I would imagine they DRM everything by policy and when asked about DRM, they throw in that last line about protecting copyright, entirely copy and pasted. I doubt the B&N person responding even knows what public domain means or cares if they do know. It's about company policy. All ebooks must have DRM. We must protect copyright, even if the work is not under copyright! We don't have to make sense, just dollars!

Barnes and Noble is overpriced on everything and their shipping is outrageous plus they charge sales tax! If I go to Amazon the prices are lower, shipping is free (for me) and NO sales tax (here in GA).

I'll stick with regular books. No DRM problems there.

@catskyfire: That's fine, but it doesn't change the fact that you can get the book (minus the forward) for free elsewhere. No one's saying the DRM is illegal -- I can wrap a public domain book in DRM and sell it to you without a problem. It's just immoral.

If anyone is interested,
For each breath of air anyone buys from me for 9.99, I'll instantly ship 6 breaths free.
These all will be wrapped in shipping air, transported directly to you for free.
But you can't exhale, burp or fart out any of said air, because someone else may then inhale it. We've got to protect the copyright!

I agree with Ferris. They probably threw in boiler plate. Someone call the EFF! [www.eff.org]

Or suggest to folks we know that Project Gutenberg [www.gutenberg.org] is a superior resource for PD material - and no ridiculous DRM on these classic works.

@Coop:
And no queefing either, ladies!

@verdantpine: Add www.bibilomania.com and www.literature.org as resources for public domain material.

@savdavid: An internet retailer must charge your state's sales tax if they're located in your state. Since B&N is a B&M retailer, I bet they have a store in Georgia. Thus they are located in your state and must charge you Georgia sales tax.

Amazon, as far as I know, doesn't have physical stores, So long as their HQ is not in your state, they needn't charge you your state's sales tax.

Retailers don't decide whether to charge tax or not, government does.

@Coop: Ok, back to Fleshbot with you.

@I Love New Jersey: Same here. And they won't be purchased from B&N either, so there.

@catskyfire: US Copyright does not "reprotect" works. The notes/forward/extras are copyrighted, but the original work would not have enough new, creative, work to warrant protection. You could cut out the new pages and photocopy the rest and be free and clear of any violation ( formatting doesn't count ).

Feedbooks.com offers public domain works and gives great instructions on downloading to a wide variety of devices.

Hmm, I'm going to get all the public domain books I can. I will try mostly for mysteries and cut put the last chapter or two. I'll sell the books for $1 without DRM but sell the endings for $14.99.

I'll make MILLIONS!!!!

B&N's FAQ is a real work of art, too. You have to give them a credit card to download books they admit are public domain.

Instead, I got Stanza for my iPhone and have been downloading public domain materials like crazy for free. I'm currently reading Ivanhoe, which is a swashbuckling romance with blushing maidens, manly Saxons, and villainous Normans, and it didn't cost a penny. Far better than the disappointing Charles Stross sci-fi novel I paid for last week.

There is nothing wrong with a publisher charging for a copy of a public domain work. Public domain asserts that no author has a valid copyright claim any longer, NOT that a publisher does not have a right to collect money for their format and edition of said work. Go into Barnes & Noble and ask for a printed copy of Alice in Wonderand. I can guarantee that this book will not be free.

In this case, the DRM is at least as important to keep a competitor from scooping up these public domain works and reselling them as is. The competitor is free to go out and scan the original work and create his own eBooks which he can distribute but this requires more work than simply using B&N's. DRM is NOT always about limiting the end user.

@aaron8301: just a slight correction - it isn't limited to physical stores. if the company has a distribution center or in some cases even just has any employees in that state they have to charge sales tax. NY has even gone so far as to declare having affiliates who live in the state as "doing business", requiring sale tax be charges (google "ny amazon tax").

The problem, and this certainly applies to Amazon's Kindle, is that the web is full of pirate sites that have virtually every popular book in pdf or similar format that can be easily converted and loaded into a reader. Even Harry Potter books that aren't legally available in ebook format can be found on these sites.

For anybody with a minimum of internet knowledge and perhaps a subscription to rapidshare, this whole DRM discussion is irrevelant.

@Ferris152: I dunno, it sounds like they are asserting copyright on something they do not own.

And once again, it's the little people, the ones that play by the rules and pay the fees that are getting fucked over. Not Amazon and not B&N can see that a few genuine public domain freebies are a marketing tool for these overpriced gadgets, so they make it even more difficult to use the service.

So totally sick of the nonsense

@bobert: I use Stanza myself. Reading the Public Domain eBook "Around the World in 80 Days".

And if I really wanted a non-Public Domain book, I can buy it and read it right in Stanza.

@bobert: Woops. Double comment (my bad!).

I mentioned this in the email I wrote to B&N, not understanding why the B&N eReader was incompatible with any other eReader based on the eReader eBook format. All of them, from what I understand, lock the books to be unlocked with a credit card. So why couldn't I use the B&N eBook in Stanza, or my eReader.com books in the B&N eReader.

"Why do people still shop at _B&N_?"
"OP should have shopped at competitor _the library__"
"_DRM_ is/are destroying America!"

oh, sorry, got caught up in the moment.

the worst part is that there's not really anyone out there to protect the free usage of public domain works actively... there's no profit in it

It looks like each ebook seller wants to lock us into their own system. That blows! For now, mobipocket is the way to go if you have a blackberry!

DOWn, baby, DOWn!

@fantomesq: "DRM is NOT always about limiting the end user."

Yes they are! The end-user can't convert the file, can't copy it, probably can't even back it up on another device in case they lose it. Copyright give the right to make a copy for personal use, and DRMs frequently infringe that right.

Or maybe you're just trolling.

@catastrophegirl - sometimes makes typos and doesn't care: "the worst part is that there's not really anyone out there to protect the free usage of public domain works actively... there's no profit in it"

Actually, libraries certainly do this, since their priority isn't profit. And Google does this (putting these books on the internet), knowing that a more useful and open internet is more profitable for them in the long run.

Not just that, but B&N states in the email that these books are public domain...

There could have been a good argument for this... DRM would make sense on out of copyright works to help cover the cost of digitizing them. If you don't create an incentive for orphan works to get digitized less popular works might never get scanned... oh wait, Google has taken open itself to digitize everything it can. Still, you can argue that putting together a digital edition does have some cost. Digital rights companies tend to shoot themselves in the foot with public relations blunders. Are they within their rights to DRM public domain works? Sure. You can always get it from another source.

@nacoran:

Have you ever looked at Project Gutenberg? I wouldn't characterize a lot of that as "popular."

Also, how does DRM cover costs for anything?

From personal experience as an ex-B&N customer, their customer service sucks raw eggs and consists of monkeys with typewriters pasting in canned replies to ANY QUESTION they get, even questions saying their previous answer was nonsensical. You'd have more fun banging your head against a brick wall than using B&N customer service. They are clueless. To get a support escalated to a human being who can do anything might be impossible because all anyone will do is give you canned answers.

@fantomesq:

DRM is NOT always about limiting the end user.

You've got it wrong. The circumstances of DRM vary but the means to achieve that goal is always by limiting what the end user can do. Because if the end user's actions are not limited in some fashion, then there is no "management" of the "digital rights."

@zegota: And stupid - don't forget stupid.

Who cares? The books are in the public domain - if you want to print them, just get them from Project Gutenberg.

@savdavid: You're legally required to pay that state sales tax whether the e-tailer charges it to you or not. They call it "use tax" and there's a place for it on the form when you fill out your state taxes.

It's probably easier to shop somewhere that DOES collect the tax for you than to risk paying all of the back taxes and fines/fees if you ever get audited.

@fantomesq: Except there's no way DRM would prevent a competitor from "scooping up these public domain works and reselling them as is" because DRM is easy to bypass by anybody putting forth even minimal effort. The only people DRM inconveinences are legitimate consumers. Pirates, copyright infringers, and resellers have NEVER been stopped by DRM.

@Crabby Cakes:

At least Barnes & Noble and Amazon are making it easy for me to completely ignore the whole ebook industry. I'll check them out again in a couple of years to see if they've regained their senses.

@Crabby Cakes: How fabulous! Sorry Project Guttenberg & manybooks.net, only the Barnes & Noble eBook store brings Kafka- & Gogol-like experiences into real life and I'm going to have to go with them.

@MonkeyMonk:

I agree. I have no desire to buy some electronic gadget to read books on. I also don't need to have the media I paid for controlled by someone else. I'll just keep reading old fashioned printed books for now.

I threw together a decent article on the issue of whether it's a violation of the DMCA to circumvent DRM on public domain ebooks. The general answer is no, but there are foreseeable cases when it can be a violation.

And yes, I am an IP lawyer.

Because if people accept DRM for the free stuff, they'll be used to it and buy things with DRM.

@maxx22: Who pays for RapidShare? Paying to pirate kind of kills any moral or ethical arguments one might have; it's more of a fully-extended middle finger to content creators.