Reading Catholic classics online

  • Thread starter Thread starter Monica4316
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Monica4316 said:
reading Catholic classics online 🙂

sorry :o
Click to expand...
I just don’t know what that means. Is “Catholic classics online” the name a website or something, or are you asking if it is ever legal to read classic works of Catholic thought (e.g., Augustine’s City of God) on the computer? If you’re asking the latter question, the general answer is that works in the public domain may be freely downloaded, and this would include most everything fit to be called a “classic.”
 
thanks for the reply… I meant just any traditional/classical Catholic work such as Imitation of Christ, True Devotion to Mary, and books by the Saints. If a website has one or more of these books online for free, my understanding is that it’s legal to read them there?
 
Monica4316 said:
thanks for the reply… I meant just any traditional/classical Catholic work such as Imitation of Christ, True Devotion to Mary, and books by the Saints. If a website has one or more of these books online for free, my understanding is that it’s legal to read them there?
Click to expand...
Yes, if they’re in the public domain. But here’s where it can get a little tricky: Some versions/translations of these writings are not in the public domain… For instance, I doubt that my copy of Augustine’s Confessions is, since it’s in contemporary English. Likewise, many specific modern versions of the Bible are not - even though the Bible itself is in the public domain. But, apart from that, there should be no problem. Look around the site for legal statements, if you’re still concerned.
 
Agree with the previous poster. If you’re unsure if a work is in the public domain, you can consider the source you’re reading from. If you’re, for example, using the full texts of Project Gutenberg, you can be quite sure that the texts are public domain, at least in the US.
 
What would be the point of putting something online if people couldn’t read it there?
 
What is the point of ripping DVDs and putting them online of nobody can watch them there? The mere point that something is accessible online doesn’t make it legal, so I think the OP has asked a valid question.
 
Another good site is Google Books.

You can find all sorts of good reading material there and everything that is “full text” there is out of copyright in the USA.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top