[ExI] Download 2 Million eBooks for no charge

[ben]

BillK <pharos at gmail.com> clarified:

 > >  Let me get this straight.  They are offering, for a month, free 
access to a
 > > bunch of books which are already freely available.
 > >
 > >  Have I got that wrong?
 > >

 >Sorry for the delay in replying.
 >(I was called away for an urgent meeting of the Illuminati. Things are
 >getting a bit dicey in some areas).
 >
 >As I understand it, some ebooks are normally free and some aren't.
 >Some need an annual membership fee.
 >
 >The main benefit of this free book fair seems to be a search engine
 >including all the organisations that agreed to join in. So it should
 >be easier to find a particular book. They also provide a comprehensive
 >list of ebook collections that people may wish to access (even when
 >there is a fee payable).


Ah, thanks.

That makes sense then.

It just gets my hackles up when I see someone trying to take advantage 
of other people's generosity, or trying to pull the wool over people's 
eyes (such as at a a computer fair I went to recently, where there was a 
whole table full of 'bargain' CDs of wonderful software, for only £5!!! 
-- the software was things like Open Office, The Gimp, Linux, ... I 
didn't see a single thing that wasn't available free on the web).

I thought this might be an attempt to take advantage of people who are 
ignorant of things like the Gutenberg Project.

Ben Zaiboc