Q. What has been the personal cost? It must have been
frustrating and exhausting and elating and rewarding ... In
retrospect: are you happy with it? Would you have done it
again?
A. I can't think of anything more rewarding to do as a career
than Project Gutenberg. It is something that will reach more
people than any other project in all of history. It is as
powerful as The Bomb, but everyone can benefit from it. And it
doesn't make a decent weapon. It doesn't cost anyone anything
and it is the very first, though obviously primitive, example
of The Neo-Industrial Revolution, when everyone can have
everything - though they are sure to pass a law against it.
I said this in 1971, in the very first week of PG, that by the
end of my lifetime you would be able to carry every word in
the Library of Congress in one hand - but they will pass a law
against it. I realized they would never let us have that much
access to so much information. I never heard that they passed
the copyright extension 5 years later. It was pretty much a
secret, just as is the current one, unless the Supreme Court
strikes it down.
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