Unglue.it Strives to Expand Free Ebooks
An organization called Unglue.it is working hard to make free books more easily available. This is a noble and worthwhile mission, up to a certain point. I find myself disagreeing with their assertion that some books must be free to continue providing value.
In one example they use, Ruth Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa, they state that for the book to "...continue to stimulate original research and new insights…" it must be free. That's an odd perspective, especially for a book that was published in 1970 and one they acknowledge is a classic in its field. Their implication seems to be that because the book is currently out-of-print, taking the effort to turn it into an ebook must by extension make it free forever.
This seems remarkably...
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