Lucy Burroughs answered
It isn’t legally possible to download books for free unless their copyright has expired, or unless the author has made them available as a free eBook. However, there are still some websites that let you download books illegally, but you have to be careful with this!
What Is Copyright, And When Does It Expire?
If a book is copyrighted, it can't be given away for free. Essentially, copyright is a bit like ownership rights. When a book is in the "public domain," it's free to own for everyone.
Copyright usually expires about seventy years after the author has died, but this does vary depending on what country you live in.
Copyright doesn’t apply to all books, though – J. M. Barrie gave the rights of the play Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up to Great Ormond Street Hospital. This means that the play will never be in the public domain (or free to be owned by everyone) whilst the hospital is in existence.
What About Free eBooks?
More and more authors are choosing to release their books in eBook format, with many independent authors making their work available for free. I won’t lie – some of them are terrible – but some of them are better written than the books you’ll pay money for.
With the amount of deals available on eBooks (Amazon’s Kindle Store is great for this) there’s really no need to download books illegally. As a general rule, eBooks are a lot cheaper than even paperbacks, and most of the classics are available for free anyway.
Alternatively, you could always ask your local library – many are starting to lend eBooks the way they lend regular books. Good luck!"
What Is Copyright, And When Does It Expire?
If a book is copyrighted, it can't be given away for free. Essentially, copyright is a bit like ownership rights. When a book is in the "public domain," it's free to own for everyone.
Copyright usually expires about seventy years after the author has died, but this does vary depending on what country you live in.
Copyright doesn’t apply to all books, though – J. M. Barrie gave the rights of the play Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up to Great Ormond Street Hospital. This means that the play will never be in the public domain (or free to be owned by everyone) whilst the hospital is in existence.
What About Free eBooks?
More and more authors are choosing to release their books in eBook format, with many independent authors making their work available for free. I won’t lie – some of them are terrible – but some of them are better written than the books you’ll pay money for.
With the amount of deals available on eBooks (Amazon’s Kindle Store is great for this) there’s really no need to download books illegally. As a general rule, eBooks are a lot cheaper than even paperbacks, and most of the classics are available for free anyway.
Alternatively, you could always ask your local library – many are starting to lend eBooks the way they lend regular books. Good luck!"
