Get Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass’ for free–without Microsoft’s DRM catch
Big deal. As of this writing, Microsoft is offering Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass as part of the campaign to bribe you into using a Reader program with stronger DRM. An unencumbered Leaves is free, however, at Project Gutenberg. Just click here.
You can even download Leaves in Microsoft Reader format, without payment or DRM complications, from one of Abacci eBooks‘ convenient links to the University of Virginia Electronic Text Center.
And meanwhile a few apropos lines from Leaves…
Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking,To feed the greed of the belly the brains liberally spooning,Tickets buying, taking, selling, but in to the feast never once going,Many sweating, ploughing, thrashing, and then the chaff for payment receiving,A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming.
Perhaps Bill Gates can digest the above when he’s not reading one of his several early copies of The Great Gatsby in his $50-million mansion–yes, his so-called favorite novel that he refuses to buy for the Net as part of his electronic Carnegie act.
Additional thoughts–while we’re on the subject of commercial versions of public domain classics: Commercial publishers indeed add value by including modern introductions to public domain works. But in the electronic medium the intros should be apart from the books themselves.
Idea: Why not publish the classics as free e-books and make the money from the introductions offered separately–texts that could be far more in-depth than the present intros?
That way, publishers would be offering true value and deserve every penny.
Publishers can also add value through editions that are more accurate than previous ones, in which case it would also seem fine to charge. But even then, publishers should try to decouple introductions from the public material itself–for those readers who want this, at least.
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