Locations on the Internet with a lot of CC0 Books?

calibrejunkie · 07-08-2022, 06:36 PM

Hello,

Does anyone know of any websites with lots of CC0 books available? I've managed to track down a handful, but was hoping to locate a sizable number of them with a wide variety of subjects.

Thanks for your time!

ZodWallop · 07-09-2022, 04:03 AM

CC0 books?

salty-horse · 07-09-2022, 04:43 AM

"CC0" is a Creative Commons synonym for Public Domain.

The main source is Project Gutenberg.

There are several projects that turn these into nicer ebooks:
Standard Ebooks makes handcrafted books, and they also fix typos and such.
And there's also Feedbooks.

JSWolf · 07-09-2022, 06:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by salty-horse

"CC0" is a Creative Commons synonym for Public Domain.

The main source is Project Gutenberg.

There are several projects that turn these into nicer ebooks:
Standard Ebooks makes handcrafted books, and they also fix typos and such.
And there's also Feedbooks.

Creative Commons is CC. CCO is Catholic Christian Outreach.

svenlind · 07-09-2022, 06:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by calibrejunkie

Hello,

Does anyone know of any websites with lots of CC0 books available? I've managed to track down a handful, but was hoping to locate a sizable number of them with a wide variety of subjects.

Thanks for your time!

Just to be sure that you haven't missed it.

Here at MR there is very large collection of public domain books you may start here. Those I have looked at are very nicely formatted.

JSWolf · 07-09-2022, 06:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by svenlind

Just to be sure that you haven't missed it.

Here at MR there is very large collection of public domain books you may start here. Those I have looked at are very nicely formatted.

There are not many Catholic Christian Outreach books in the MR library. There may be a few such as some version of the Bible.

salty-horse · 07-09-2022, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Creative Commons is CC. CCO is Catholic Christian Outreach.

The questioner used CC0 with a zero, not CCO with an O.

DiapDealer · 07-09-2022, 10:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by salty-horse

The questioner used CC0 with a zero, not CCO with an O.

Quite correct. And if Jon is not familiar with "No Rights Reserved" (CC0), then perhaps he should read up on it, instead of choosing to post ignorant "corrections".

https://creativecommons.org/share-yo...ic-domain/cc0/

A typical CC license is about choosing a range of permissions while retaining copyright. CC0 is about opting out of all of the exclusive rights automatically granted to creators.

Quoth · 07-09-2022, 12:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Quite correct. And if Jon is not familiar with "No Rights Reserved" (CC0), then perhaps he should read up on it, instead of choosing to post ignorant "corrections".

https://creativecommons.org/share-yo...ic-domain/cc0/

A typical CC license is about choosing a range of permissions while retaining copyright. CC0 is about opting out of all of the exclusive rights automatically granted to creators.

Might as well release it as Public Domain if you give up all rights.

Also even CC is simply a variation of Copyright as a template for the hard of thinking and often isn't what people think. The rights holder has always been able to set any legal conditions and give up any rights.

Disagree with the US Corporate driven extension of rights? Just put in copyright "This work enters the Public Domain <NN> years after the author's death", or "This work enters the Public Domain in 20<nn>"
As long as it's less or equal to current term it's perfectly legal.

DNSB · 07-09-2022, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Creative Commons is CC. CCO is Catholic Christian Outreach.

And CC0 (C-C-zero) is a Creative Commons license that waives all rights. Similar in many ways to copyleft.

DiapDealer · 07-09-2022, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quoth

Might as well release it as Public Domain if you give up all rights.

That is what those who specify CC0 have essentially done. I'm unaware of any legal mechanisms where an author can choose to release something as "Public Domain". That's why CC0 exists.

salty-horse · 07-10-2022, 03:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That is what those who specify CC0 have essentially done. I'm unaware of any legal mechanisms where an author can choose to release something as "Public Domain". That's why CC0 exists

Which also makes the original question confusing.

Are they asking for works that are specifically licensed under CC0 (I don't know of any), or any public domain works?

re "legal mechanism" - is there such a thing? I assume that unless a claim is repeatedly defended in court, you can't really be sure if it works.
I assume it's more robust than simple amateur statements along the lines of "I hereby waive all rights", but maybe these are fine too.

Quoth · 07-10-2022, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That is what those who specify CC0 have essentially done. I'm unaware of any legal mechanisms where an author can choose to release something as "Public Domain". That's why CC0 exists.

The creator / publisher simply states that they waive all copyright and the work is in the Public domain. Otherwise by default ALL work is copyright. Note in MOST countries there is no need to "register" a work, that only applies to Trademarks, patents, registered designs (Design patents in USA) etc. The USA unilaterally decided that new works have to be "registered" to have full copyright protection.

Copyright rules and laws are covered historically by International treaties and conventions and also local laws. In some countries violation is a criminal issue (may have maximum tariffs or be damages based) and in other countries it's a Civil law issue which means the Rights Holder (not the Criminal Justice system) has to sue someone and prove damages (usually without limit). So in countries where copyright is civil law the rights holder will only sue those reselling, sharing or uploading, not an individual downloading or buying a physical item in the shop or market as the damages would be only the profit on the one off sale.

So any published work should have a copyright notice or else people could claim they thought it was Public Domain. There can instead be a disclaimer that the work is released to the Public Domain. One can upload a brand new ebook you wrote to Gutenberg or the library here by asserting you relinquish all copyright and place it in the Public Domain.

Any copyright ebooks offered free can't be legally uploaded or shared. People absolutely need to download their own copy while it's free. Free doesn't mean Public Domain.

Also Public Domain content can legitimately be sold. Of course publishers of paper content (or ebooks) might reformat it, or edit, or add illustrations, in which the edition has copyright but the original text is still public domain.

So CC0 is an affectation. It's no more official than Public Domain and CC itself has no independent basis most places (all places?) simply relying on copyright law. By default "All rights are reserved", but the ©2020 An Smith etc notice should say so. Any relaxed rights should be stated in the copyright notice and that's all BSD Free, GPL, GPL2, Apache, CC etc are, just predefined copyright relaxations that someone thought up that entirely relies on copyright law.
You can't impose conditions not part of copyright law, though a sale can involve a contract which has conditions. Any such contract conditions can't abrogate people's local rights (such as EU Sale of Goods Act or Distance Selling, also almost every EU ordinance has to be enabled as national law by a nation's parliament, the EU is not a Federation like USA or a Confederation).

DiapDealer · 07-10-2022, 08:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Which also makes the original question confusing.

Are they asking for works that are specifically licensed under CC0 (I don't know of any), or any public domain works?

re "legal mechanism" - is there such a thing? I assume that unless a claim is repeatedly defended in court, you can't really be sure if it works.
I assume it's more robust than simple amateur statements along the lines "I hereby waive all rights", but maybe these are fine too.

I agree that "CC0" should probably not be used interchangeably with "Public Domain" (which is what I assume the OP did).

I'm not aware of any court-tested legal mechanisms for waiving rights, either. While I'm certainly not a lawyer, I suspect that proof that a work was "formally" released under a CC0 license might go a long way toward protecting someone who used said work after someone attempted to regain the rights that were originally waived.

You may still be able to legally unring that particular bell, but I suspect it might remain difficult to defend your rights against those who took your "waiving of any and all rights" at face value.

Quoth · 07-10-2022, 08:17 AM

Also Creative Commons is a sort of philosophical Organisation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creati..._public_domain

Some aspects are bogus or may not be legally enforceable, or require a copyright owner to sue to prove, such as "derivative works". The definition of derivative work varies by medium and country. Reviews, satire etc rights vary by country.

Creative Commons, Free Software Foundation etc are politically motivated and not always sensible or caring of rights holders.

07-08-2022, 06:36 PM	#1
calibrejunkie Page Junkie Dev Posts: 37 Karma: 6280 Join Date: Jul 2018 Location: Earth Device: Android Phone, Kindle, Surface Pro 3	Locations on the Internet with a lot of CC0 Books? Hello, Does anyone know of any websites with lots of CC0 books available? I've managed to track down a handful, but was hoping to locate a sizable number of them with a wide variety of subjects. Thanks for your time!

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
That's a lot of books!	wodin	Lounge	0	03-29-2017 08:19 PM
Met releases 375,000 images under CC0 license	doubleshuffle	News	2	02-23-2017 06:10 PM
Google aims to sync reading and listening locations between e-books and audiobooks	Alexander Turcic	News	3	09-05-2013 12:05 PM
Ereader That Handles a Lot of Books	Bittybye	Which one should I buy?	12	07-02-2013 11:18 AM
Make books appear in multiple locations instead of creating hybrid folders	Feather_Qwill	Library Management	7	06-02-2013 05:45 AM

07-09-2022, 04:03 AM	#2
ZodWallop Gentleman and scholar Posts: 11,360 Karma: 110455811 Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: Space City, Texas Device: Clara BW; Nook ST w/Glowlight, Paperwhite 3	CC0 books?

07-09-2022, 04:43 AM	#3
salty-horse Wizard Posts: 1,731 Karma: 17486146 Join Date: Sep 2008 Device: Kobo Clara 2E	"CC0" is a Creative Commons synonym for Public Domain. The main source is Project Gutenberg. There are several projects that turn these into nicer ebooks: Standard Ebooks makes handcrafted books, and they also fix typos and such. And there's also Feedbooks.

07-10-2022, 08:17 AM	#15
Quoth the rook, bossing Never. Posts: 12,378 Karma: 92073397 Join Date: Jun 2017 Location: Ireland Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper11	Also Creative Commons is a sort of philosophical Organisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creati..._public_domain Some aspects are bogus or may not be legally enforceable, or require a copyright owner to sue to prove, such as "derivative works". The definition of derivative work varies by medium and country. Reviews, satire etc rights vary by country. Creative Commons, Free Software Foundation etc are politically motivated and not always sensible or caring of rights holders.

Advert

Advert