Are Free Textbook Downloads Legal?
For books that are currently in publication, especially yearly-updated textbooks, going with established sites that charge for textbook downloads is highly advisable unless you know for a fact that the publisher offers free downloads. You may find some sites offering free downloads, but any file sharing sites may not be legal, so make sure to choose only legitimate sites. All the sites listed here are established, legitimate businesses that are fully legal. That said, there are some subjects in which free books are readily available, and perfectly legal. Works of literature, historical documentation, and other older texts (such as classic essays, religious writings, and philosophical treatises) are much more likely to be in the public domain, which means they are no longer under copyright. To download well-established, classic books that are free, legal, and available to the public, the two best sources are: • Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org), which was the first collection of free eB
