The important part of the text you quoted (which I'm in complete agreement with, BTW) is this:
Quote:
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Copyright in later versions or adaptations, relates to the fresh layer of creative material added by the second author.
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(Emphasis mine)
Copyright requires a creative element. "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" is a copyrighted work because the second author has added creative content to the public domain original. The New Folger edition of "Hamlet" is a copyrighted work because the editor has added essays, footnotes, an introduction, a history of the performance of the play, etc. However, what is not a creative process is a mechanical act such as correcting spelling mistakes, regularising punctuation, and so on. That is what I am disagreeing with you about. I cannot claim any copyright in the meticulously proofed and corrected versions of Dickens that I've uploaded to the MR library merely because I've spent hundreds of hours correcting the literally thousands of errors in the PG versions that were my starting point. My work involved no creativity.
It would be perfectly legal for me to take my bought ebook edition of the Oxford Shakespeare, copy the text (and only the text) of "Hamlet" from it, and use that text in any way I wish. What I couldn't do would be to re-use any of the creative material that Oxford University Press has added to the public domain material.
Unfortunately for you, US copyright law goes not recognise the concept of typographical copyright (i.e. a copyright in the creative layout of the work), although EU copyright law does.