Amazon already has a fairly extensive database. Although it's far easier to describe than implement: they could add a few data fields to each book to indicate whether the book is in public domain, which publisher has the right to add an e-book version for that specific title, etc. Someone adds a book, the self-publishing system runs a query, and voila, book is either approved or disapproved, or perhaps flagged for a human to review.
That said, as long as Amazon pulls books and can revoke payments to the infringers, I doubt there are any serious lawsuits on the horizon.
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