Dw i wedi bod yn meddwl am llyfrau rhydd ac am ddim.
Hanner cofnod.
Mae gwahaniaeth rhwng y dau wrth gwrs. Mae’n haws yn Gymraeg. (Yn Saesneg mae ‘free culture’ a ‘free software’ bach yn anodd i esbonio. Ond mae pobol yn deall ‘free speech’…)
Nawr eleni mae The Great Gatsby gan F Scott Fitzgerald newydd cyrraedd yn y parth cyhoeddus. Diwylliant rhydd. Croeso i ti creu rhaglen teledu, ffilm, cyfieithiad heb ofyn. Does neb yn berchen arno fe. A mae pawb yn berchen arno fe. Felly fydd pobol dal eisiau ei brynu ar papur? (Bydd.)
And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees–just as things grow in fast movies–I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
There was so much to read for one thing and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college–one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the “Yale News”–and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the “well-rounded man.”…
Mae’r awdur Ned Thomas newydd rhyddhau un o’i llyfrau fel fersiwn digidol dan Creative Commons. Ti’n gallu ei chopïo ac addasu heb ofyn am resymau anfasnachol.
Ond fydd pobol dal eisiau ei brynu ar papur neu, hyd yn oed, ar Kindle ac ati? (Bydd.)
Oes unrhyw llyfrau Cymraeg dan Creative Commons? Dylai rhywun trio, fel arbrawf. Efallai awdur neu cwmni. Fydd y wybren yn cwympo? (Na fydd.) Fydd pobol dal eisiau prynu rhywbeth sydd ar gael am ddim? (Mae’n dibynnu ar yr ansawdd!) Ond mae pobol yn prynu lot o bethau am resymau tu fas o bris – anrhegion, casglu, cyfleustra. Cofia The Great Gatsby.
Unwaith neu dwywaith y flywddyn dw i’n deall yr erthygl yma gan Tim O’Reilly: “Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.”