Thread: Is it legal to resell free content in USA ?
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Old 03-11-2013, 03:51 AM   #85
avantman42
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Quote:
Originally Posted by H-P View Post
The question wasn"t since the first post about " the legality of reselling public domain texts "

But
the legality of doing business with content done by free volunteers.
That question has also been answered. At least three times, by different people:

Quote:
Originally Posted by avantman42 View Post
Not in the UK or the US, no. I think you suggested earlier that it would break other laws in France, but I don't know of any law in the UK or US that it would violate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck View Post
If, in your country, it's illegal to make a profit from volunteer labor, it's true you will have trouble competing with businesses in countries that don't have that law. However, in the US and most of Europe, it's not illegal to use the results of volunteer labor and sell them at a profit. It may be illegal to *contract* volunteers to do work for free, and then sell that work, but that's not the same as using the results of labor that they give freely to anyone who wants it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joykins View Post
In that case, I think, by normal business practices in the US, the editor/publisher that pays taxes, salaries, etc. and comes up with no better than free volunteer work is a fool*. This publisher should be leveraging the free volunteer work at the very least. From the other side, the customer who will pay for a book that is freely available is also a fool**. That customer should be obtaining the free copy, which is no better than the paid one.

Now, I said "no better." If, for example, the Gutenberg (let's say) edition has no explanatory footnotes, no illustrations, no hyperlinked chapter divisions, or any of the other extras that make ebooks so much fun (as some of the ebooks posted to MobileRead are so enhanced) then this is something that a person might want to pay for as it has added value to the free version. Thus the editions being free vs. paid are not comparable.


*or at the very least, profiting from asymmetrical information

** or at the very least, suffering from asymmetrical information
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