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Knowing some classic literature works being free... what would be typical sites to find and download those? (By "classic" I mean those older works that are now regarded to be “copyright-free”.)

I know iTunes, GooglePlay and the rest offer some free literature works via apps, but I am looking for more "open" resources like free online libraries, archives, etc. Does anything alike exist? Is there a directory or something where (copyright-) free books are listed for reference purposes?

The reason why I am asking is that I would hate having to waste time scanning my hardcopies just to read them on my ebook reader, when such books are freely available in ebook-compatible format somewhere...

Note: I'm talking about freely available literature, and not stolen (non-free) works offered by illegal download sites, and certainly not things like useless "get rich quick" PDF guides. I did my homework and (ab)used some search engines, but in contrast to my usual experiences, search engines didn't really help as most of what they suggest turned out to be sites offering illegal downloads.

The only usable example I found and which had an acceptable quality was Archive.org's texts. In fact, it is a pretty good example of what I'm looking/asking for. There must be more, alike resources out there…

Also note the discussion on Meta related to this question — “Should we make the free books question a community wiki?”
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e-sushi
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    This question appears to be off-topic because it is a shopping question. – fuxia Dec 20 '13 at 11:22
  • @toscho Not really, as it is about the availability of free classic literature. The question is not asking where to buy what... also, things like The Gutenberg Project greatly differ from "ye average online shoppe". – e-sushi Dec 20 '13 at 11:25
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    Shopping question means: Recommend me a list of things or resources, one complete answer is impossible, and I don’t care about the inevitable link rot. It is not about the money, but the quality of the question. These kind of questions tend to attract spammers, the links will probably not work or lead to malware sites over time. – fuxia Dec 20 '13 at 11:30
  • @toscho You mean like the list of reccomendations that's being asked for at http://ebooks.stackexchange.com/questions/9/clean-up-converted-ebook/20#20 and alike? ;) Besides, the spam and malware argumentation is a weak one... spam can and will be flagged (I do it daily at other SE sites). But I see your general point. Say,are there any mods around here already so I could request deletion? Since there's a reply, I can't kill the question myself anymore... anyway, flagged it for mod attention with deletion request. – e-sushi Dec 20 '13 at 11:37
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    I have proposed making this a community wiki question http://meta.ebooks.stackexchange.com/questions/44/should-we-make-the-free-books-question-a-community-wiki – James Jenkins Dec 20 '13 at 11:42
  • @JamesJenkins Nice idea... may the mods and the community decide what to do with it. ;) – e-sushi Dec 20 '13 at 11:44
  • @e-sushi My question was about some very specific points, a how to question, not a where to go. :) For a very similar discussion see this topic on WordPress Development. – fuxia Dec 20 '13 at 11:44
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    @e-sushi, you are the community go make your views known on the meta question. – James Jenkins Dec 20 '13 at 11:45
  • @JamesJenkins Community wikis are not for broad questions. – fuxia Dec 20 '13 at 11:46
  • @toscho Don't get me wrong, but I think it would be cool if you could post your point of view as a reply to the related meta question too. That way, people checking the meta question would be able the quickly grasp what it's all about. #JustThinkingOutLoud – e-sushi Dec 20 '13 at 12:05
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    Even more problematic is asking these easy / survey / subjective sort of questions during the beta period is strongly discouraged. http://ebooks.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic – bmike Dec 20 '13 at 17:53
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    Zombie mode for copyrights is time-limited, so all books written by authors dead long enough are by definition copyright-free. The problem is, not all of them are digitalized yet. –  Dec 20 '13 at 22:35
  • In any case, questions should not be solvable in seconds with a Google search. – Ian Dec 21 '13 at 21:50

4 Answers4

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The best-known resource is Project Gutenberg, which exists for precisely this purpose.

Standback
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The web site Mobile Read maintains a library of public domain eBook files in various formats.

Donald.McLean
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All the work on Wikisource is free (CC or PD) by US law. It can be downloaded as EPUB with download help available

James Jenkins
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Yale University's Avalon Project has a great collection of free materials in the law, history, and diplomacy realm.

Also, Amazon has lots of free Kindle versions of various works that are no longer under copyright protection. For example, you can find free Shakespeare materials here.

elixenide
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