Are there any sites from which you can read books online?

Question

I would like to read Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series.

Answer 1

There are some books online, but the newer books must be purchased (this is how the authors who write them can afford to write them).

Copyright law does indeed prohibit books from being distributed online without the author's written permission. However, if there's a valid academic reason (Terry Goodkind's works don't generally have much in the way of academic value, however good they are), there may be some exceptions to this.

However, groups like the MPAA and RIAA want to change copyright so that works are under the absolute control of industry, including music, movies, and books. Being that people tend to like to download these things without ever paying for them (according to an unverified claim made by both the MPAA and RIAA, but which may not be valid according to a study released in 2007), these authors tend to be very much against the unauthorized downloading of their works. However, there is data that might validate the idea that consumers who like something are more likely to tell others about it, and sales actually increase.

Therefore, it's tough to say what the best solution to this is. Currently, it's actually against the law to download these works, on the grounds that artists' studio representatives (read: rights-holding vampires) feel that it cuts them out of the loop. These laws do not take into account any data regarding the veracity or invalidity of any claim, and so it's tough to say that they're good laws. On the other hand, breaking them might make you into the next Jammie Thomas (and nobody really wants to pay $750 per page for a book, right?).

As a long-term solution, I'd recommend writing letters to your lawmakers in support of reduction of copyright, as well as finding out what the truth of the matter is. Good data is difficult to find, and so study and research might make downloading a new book possible in the future. But for now, it's simply against copyright law, so you're pretty well stuck with buying it.

Answer 2

These two sites:

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/

http://books.google.com/

(On google books you can search by title, author or subject. However, only some books are available in their entirety and these will say "Full view". Those that say "Limited preview" have a pretty large amount of the book posted, but not the whole thing. The others will say "Snippet view" or "No preview available".)

Those above are correct though. Newer books have to be purchased.

Answer 3

Ur gonna have to buy the book cuz i think its illegal to copy books and put them online hope u find the book!

Answer 4

if you just type in the books on google sometimes they have the entire book posted