Project Gutenberg celebrates its 50th anniversary

In 2021, a number of memorable events are celebrated: 50th anniversary of Project Gutenberg (the first digital library); 10 years since the death of its founder, Michael Hart; 55th birthday of the creator of the famous Russian digital library Maxim Moshkov. This paper is an attempt to show the significance of these events for Internet and its users. Special attention is paid to the issues of copyright duration legislation. This has become one of the main obstacles in the activities of the mentioned digital libraries.