Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg (often abbreviated as PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize, archive, and distribute cultural works. It is the oldest digital library, with the majority of the items it provides being full texts of public domain books.

Copyright issues

Project Gutenberg is careful about verifying the status of its ebooks according to U.S. copyright law. No material is added to the PG archive before it has received a copyright clearance, and records of these clearances are saved in case future reference is needed.

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Unlike some other digital library projects, Project Gutenberg does not claim new copyright on titles it publishes, instead encouraging anyone to freely copy and distribute them.

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The large majority of books in the PG collection are distributed as public domain under U.S. copyright law. The legalese included with each ebook puts a few restrictions on what can be done with the texts (such as distributing them in modified form, or for commercial purposes) as long as the Project Gutenberg trademark is used. If the header is stripped and the trademark not used, then the public domain texts can be reused without any restrictions.

Related Topics:
Public domain - Legalese - Trademark

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There are also a few copyrighted texts that Project Gutenberg distributes with permission. These are subject to further restrictions as specified by the copyright holder.

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In 1998 the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act had an impact on the activities of PG volunteers by extending the duration of already-existing copyright by 20 years. This has prevented Project Gutenberg from adding many titles that would otherwise have become public domain in the U.S.

Related Topics:
Copyright Term Extension Act - Copyright

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