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Originally Posted by AlexBell
But almost all original ebooks I've prepared for the MobileRead library have typos, and I correct them. I also change spelling from time to time (ankle instead of ancle for example) and make hyphen usage etc conform to modern usage. Does that not count?
I have seen an edition of one of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's stories which has been edited - I don't remember the details - and the editor clearly claims copyright on her version. Perhaps I should make it more clear that I have made some changes to the text.
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The work cannot be copyrighted just because of small changes. When I file a book for copyright, it may not be the final version (there may be typos corrected). But the instructions are fairly clear in that I am copyrighting the work--not exact words here and there. When/if a judge has to determine if someone "stole" a book, just changing character names (for example) does not protect the thief. So in your case, just fixing a few items does not mean it is now a copyrightable work.
A thief can even change entire scenes or delete some, but if the judge determines the book is "largely" the original with derivative characters/settings, the thief will have a hard time proving he/she didn't lift the work, try to disguise it and then try to sell it.
Now, again, that said, licensing a book is different than copyright. So if you put a creative commons license wording in there, you are largely setting up to tell the readers what you did and what you intend its use to be. The protection it affords you isn't so much legal, it's more like a watermark--so that if you wish to contact a retailer and ask them to "desist" in sales of the copy, you have some manner of showing you are the original "re-creator" of the item.
Every retailer I have contacted for something similar has taken the items down. Amazon has a policy in place that specifically mentions they do not want public domain works. B&N and Amazon BOTH have check boxes for "Is this public domain?" Because if you check yes, you have to state why it is a saleable copy (as in, I added actual material to enhance the original--something that is copyrightable as original work). I can't recall if Kobo has that, but I think they do. I can check if anyone cares.