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Re:In praise of public domain literature by thedailymail on Thursday December 01, 2022 @05:41PM (#33824018)
Here to echo that praise. One of my hobbies, starting many years ago, is reading about 15th to 17th century England. This used to be a bit expensive and often severely limited to secondary sources that could be had in local bookshops and libraries (which is even more limiting for me, as I live in Japan). But the Internet Archive has dramatically changed that, with thousands and thousands of scans of primary texts, from broadsides to bibles to bestiaries to ballads. I imagine anyone interested in any period or phenomenon that pre-dates the 1923 public domain hard cutoff shares that excitement.

The Internet Archive is free, but they accept donations – I would say it's one of the best ways to spend money if you're a user or fan of the preservation of historical texts and files.

Re:In praise of public domain literature by cxr on Thursday December 01, 2022 @05:54PM (#33824160)
It's been several years since the 1923 hard cutoff lapsed—in the US, at least. The current cutoff is anything before 1927. One month from today, it will be anything before 1928.