Books, Free and Unfree
The Stanford Renewal Database has done what the U.S. Copyright Office could somehow not do: it has produced a database of copyright renewals so that people can know what is available to post and what is not available. I'm going through older books and habitually creating two stacks. For those not renewed, free for the world, to be become part of the global family of open knowledge via Mises.org. For those renewed, unfree, locked in a cage, imprisoned to exist only in physical form, kept out of the global knowledge database. Often those people who renewed these books meant well, surely; and those who returned runaway slaves were also under the impression that they were doing the right thing.
Comments (9)
Creped Choosader
With this database it should now be a fairly easy job for mises.org and its readers and unaffiliated supporters to re-publish worthy materials.
Non-copyrighted - mises.org
Copyrighted - torrent
And so on.
Published: July 9, 2009 2:32 PM
Russ
What is the status of Helmut Schoeck's "Envy"? That would be a nice one to add to my ebook collection.
Published: July 9, 2009 3:29 PM
Scott Grizzard
Great! I am glad to see Mises.org putting more and more of these resources on-line!
Just out of curiosity, what would it take to acquire all of those wonderful books that Routledge has censored through price? Holcombe's book is wonderful, but it carries a $150+ price tag.
Published: July 9, 2009 3:45 PM
Silas Barta
I'm going to do the same for bank account numbers.
Published: July 9, 2009 4:20 PM
x. trapnel
Not only torrents -- check out gigapedia for a *very* nice collection of unlicensed ebooks, with tons of academic texts. They have over 350k now, I believe - comparable to the Kindle catalog. Arr!
Published: July 9, 2009 4:33 PM
Rafael Hotz
Disrespect this copyright stuff... I've been scanning books in the last year and posting on my blog, and most of them are not availible at mises.org...
Once the material goes on the web there's no coming back, there's nothing to be afraid of... If Jeffrey Tucker can get in trouble with the pigs for doing it and publishing here at LVMI.org, you won't be disturbed by doing it at your home and uploading at some free server...
Scan and upload books now! Promote sound economics and libertarianism... And them share it with us!
Published: July 9, 2009 4:39 PM
hz
hmmm... so WAW's _Contours of American History_ and _Tragedy of American Diplomacy_ weren't renewed (not in database)?
interesting.
Published: July 9, 2009 4:45 PM
Philip
Jeffrey Tucker,
Have you ever looked into the status of Elie Halévy's "The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism"? It's about the history of utilitarianism rather than economics per se, but it seems well within the range of what the Mises Institute covers, and it's all but unobtainable now. (Incidentally, Rothbard cited it in his History of Economic Thought.)
I'm not sure, but it looks like the first English edition may have appeared in 1928.
Published: July 9, 2009 6:07 PM
Michael Calderon
Jeffrey, there is also a good deal of information (downloadable) in this site:
http://www.archive.org/index.php
Although you probably already know that!
For instance, I found there Hayek's Counterrevolution of Science.
Best
Published: July 10, 2009 9:31 AM