Digital libraries in the XXI century have become the most important sources of information in all branches of science and technology, the main direction of development of world librarianship, any information activities. The first electronic library was Project Gutenberg, founded by Michael Hart exactly 50 years ago. It became world famous only in the 90s, after the appearance of Internet and the first browsers. Hart dreamed of 10,000 digitized books, and by his admission, he achieved all the goals that he set for himself. In Russia, one of the first and most significant is Maxim Moshkov’s library (1994). This paper traces the stages of creation of these libraries and the biographies of their creators; the difficulties in their work are analyzed. Special attention is paid to the issues of copyright duration legislation.