@Satsuma i’m kind of not joking lmao
Apple TV+ did a reboot of Ghostwriter which from what i saw was mostly bad, but one good thing it did have was it used entirely public domain works and the kids in the show just went to the books store and downloaded it for free and basically were like “hey, kids, watching this, yes you, did you know you could get this book for free, it’s public domain”
i’m certain kids are finding project gutenberg books still and they all carry the disclaimer in the front but it’s a VERY different vibe compared to back in the day
@Satsuma definitely and i’m not sure public domain in general is that much more obtuse now than it used to be; it might even be less considering the discoverability of like, searching for a book for your high school lit class and seeing a free copy in the books store
but it’s more faceless; the specifics of project gutenberg with their specific catalogue is a lot easier to miss out on when you’re just downloading from the app store
it’s easier not to get that this is a volunteer project that has been running for decades, not to understand the mission and principles of it, etc
and just say “oh hey someone put it up here for free”