Microsoft created mslit.com, I suppose, to promote the eBooks published in its proprietary .lit file format. On its “Most Popular” download list, 6 out of the 10 titles are free eBooks. To me it’s an indication that most people still expect to get things for free from the Internet (a notion that has caused tremendous anxiety for record company execs and enriched lawyers on their payroll). How can you blame them? If Net citizens of the world can read New York Times for free and download Eminem’s latest hits from Kazaa for nothing, surely they will want more. In some parts of the world, these free offerings literally mean intellectual freedom. Right this moment, quite possibly, some university English majors in Tehran, Damascus, Havana, Beijing are staring into computer screens eagerly awaiting the words of Dickens, Wells, Hardy, Austen to flow through the mighty digital river into their hard drives.

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