is it news to anyone here that
some people sell p.g. e-texts?

i should hope not.

those people don't irritate me.

indeed, in the sense that they
offer customers the option of a
hard-copy printing of an e-text,
i think they're providing a service.

so in addition to recovering the costs
of printing and binding and shipping
and maintaining a business that deals
with willing buyers, i think they deserve
a little profit for providing that service...

after all, they "own" that public-domain
material just as much as you or i "own" it.

i also don't even get mad if these people
-- in protecting their business model --
restrict viewing the pages of their books
within the google book-search system...

no, i think the blame falls on _our_ shoulders,
because as the people dedicated to providing
full and free access to the public domain, we are
failing in our mission by not ensuring that google
has a no-pages-restricted entity in its book-search
for each and every public-domain book that they have.

and i firmly believe we should remedy that situation, soon...

-bowerbird