TheBaen Free Library is adigital library of thescience fiction andfantasypublishing houseBaen Books where 61 e-books as of June 2016 (112 e-books as of December 2008) can be downloaded free in a number of formats, withoutcopy protection.[1] It was founded in late 1999 by science fiction writerEric Flint andpublisherJim Baen to determine whether the availability of books free of charge on theInternet encourages or discourages the sale of their paper books.[2]
The Baen Free Library represents an experiment in the field ofintellectual property andcopyright. It appears that sales of both the e-books made available free and other books by the same author, even from a different publisher, increase when the electronic version is made available free of charge.[3]
Baen Ebooks also sells individuale-books and a subscription-basede-book program. The books in the Free Library are available via the website forBaen Ebooks in various formats includingHTML,Rich Text Format, andEPUB as well as unencrypted.mobi forKindle.[4]
In 2002, Baen also started addingCD-ROMs into some hardcovers of newest titles in successful series. They contain the complete series of novels preceding the printed book (for those books that were the latest in a series), other works by the same author, some works by other authors, and multimedia bonuses. The CD-ROMs have a prominent permissive copyright license which expressly encourages free-of-charge copying and sharing, including over the Internet.[5]
Some of these CDs also containMP3audiobook versions. As of 2015CD 24Invasion published in 2010 was the last promotionalBaen CD.[6]