Editing Baen Free Library (section)

{{Short description|Digital library}}
The '''Baen Free Library''' is a [[digital library]] of the [[science fiction]] and [[fantasy]] [[publishing house]] [[Baen 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, without [[copy protection]].<ref>[http://www.baen.com/catalog/category/view/s/free-library/id/2012/?limit=36&p=2 Free Library - Categories] ''Baen Books Science Fiction and Fantasy'' Retrieved June 8, 2016.</ref> It was founded in late 1999 by science fiction writer [[Eric Flint]] and [[publisher]] [[Jim Baen]] to determine whether the availability of books free of charge on the [[Internet]] encourages or discourages the sale of their paper books.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.allensmith.net/SciFi/Baen/Free.htm |title=Annotated Baen Free eBook Listing|author=Allen Smith|year=2009|access-date=2015-06-13}}</ref>

The Baen Free Library represents an experiment in the field of [[intellectual property]] and [[copyright]]. 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm |title=Prime Palaver #6 |publisher=Baen.com |date=2002-04-15 |access-date=2010-01-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100102041103/http://baen.com/library/palaver6.htm |archive-date=2010-01-02 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[Baen Ebooks]] also sells individual [[e-book]]s and a subscription-based [[e-book]] program. The books in the Free Library are available via the website for [[Baen Ebooks]] in various formats including [[HTML]], [[Rich Text Format]], and [[EPUB]] as well as unencrypted <kbd>[[Mobipocket|.mobi]]</kbd> for [[Amazon Kindle|Kindle]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.baenebooks.com/c-1-free-library.aspx|title=Baen Free Library|author=Eric Flint|author-link=Eric Flint|year=2002|publisher=[[Baen Books|Baen Publishing]]|access-date=2015-06-13}}</ref>