Creating a site for free books?

[Karl Marx's Camel]

I am wondering if it is possible to set up a website that has a wide list of different books which people can read. Everything from Inside the Company: CIA Diary, by Philip Agee to the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown to "In the Line of Fire" by Musharraf. Pretty much everything. Biographies, history books, science fiction, popular, known, and lesser known books. Even perhaps audio books, like spanish lessons, mandarin lessons etc.

But what does it take for launching such a website?

And will such a site be brought down by the government, if copyrighted material exist on that website?


Thanks

edit: It's late, I'm tired; I didn't really mean "audio books" in specific when I wrote that for the name of the thread. I meant "books".

[Janus]

There is Project Gutenberg.

Moved.

[Janus]

I didn't really mean "audio books" in specific when I wrote that for the name of the thread. I meant "books".
I edited it but you can edit it yourself next time.

[RevolutionaryMarxist]

marxists.org already has all the leftist literature any reasonable person could want/ever possibly look through, but for more recent or extremely ancient/non-revolutionary works I think there are several places already, just scattered and uncoordinated

[Janus]

but for more recent or extremely ancient/non-revolutionary works I think there are several places already, just scattered and uncoordinated
Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page) is pretty coordinated.

[Janus]

And will such a site be brought down by the government, if copyrighted material exist on that website?
More like someone will sue.

Project Gutenberg is pretty careful with copyright stuff though most of their codes are in accordance with US copyright laws. So as long as you don't get caught selling those e-books, everything should be all right.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

I edited it but you can edit it yourself next time.

Nope, not possible.


More like someone will sue.

Project Gutenberg is pretty careful with copyright stuff though most of their codes are in accordance with US copyright laws. So as long as you don't get caught selling those e-books, everything should be all right.

Say I live in Norway and the only copyrights I violate belong to authors/companies in the U.S., India, Russia, The United Kingdom, etc. If authors or companies from these or other foreign countries sue me, will anything happen out of it? Can they sue me if I belong to another country?




Also, doesn't Project Gutenberg mainly have ooold litterature?

[Comeback Kid]

Project Gutenburg is mainly classical litreture, but is open for additions.

[A CLOCKWORK ORANGE]

Originally posted by Comeback [email protected] 25 2006, 12:35 PM
Project Gutenburg is mainly classical litreture
Exactly what I was going to say.

Soon I'll be getting a book scanner. I have tons of leftist books: Chomsky to Che to Marx and whole lot more, bestsellers, fiction and so on. I'll definitely post some up here when I get the chance.

[which doctor]

I'm pretty sure Project Gutenberg only accepts books that have expired copyrights and are therefore in the public domain.

[Janus]

Yeah, that policy can't shift unless copyright laws loosen.

[Zero]

If you get sued because you copied and distributed leftist literature for free then it isn't a fuckin leftist author.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Publishers can, and will, sue.

[loveme4whoiam]

Indeed - just because its a leftist author you can pretty much guarantee (unless its an "underground" red publisher) that the publisher will be a greedy tight-fisted corporation who'll sue you to Hades if they even get a sniff of copyright infringement. Bastards.