[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by SigilBear

I downloaded the torrent version but haven't figured out how to open it yet, so I don't know if it's an actual epub or not.

While you can download it via torrent, you can easily just click on the PDF button to download the scan. Typically it is best to just download the books in their original PDF forms:



The books are typically just uploaded as scans, and then converted to the other formats automatically by Archive.org (even converted to be read in their Online Reader).

Here is an example of a book with multiple other download formats:



Because those other formats are all automatically generated and not handcrafted, the quality will not be so great (their "EPUB" would be full of OCR errors, have atrocious formatting, won't have proper chapters built in, no proper footnotes, sentences/paragraphs will be broken up, complex tables/layouts would be botched, etc. etc.).

Originally Posted by SigilBear

It's interesting that that Indian website released the book I'm working on in PDF form just a couple weeks ago.

I suspect you never ran across the Internet Archive (Archive.org) yet? It is a non-profit based in San Francisco that is most famous for scraping/archiving "The Internet". For example, here is their archive of CNN.com's website from 2000-now:

https://web.archive.org/web/*/cnn.com

Over the years, they have expanded into archiving more and more media (books, music, movies, even video games). They do a massive amount of scans themselves, but many other institutions (universities, libraries, [...]) digitize their material and store it on Archive.org's servers for anyone to access freely.

Archive.org is absolutely one of the greatest websites on the internet.

There is also this fantastic place called Wikipedia ... and since you seem to be such a State Flag guru, I would highly recommend you enhanced some of those flag articles with your in-depth knowledge.

Originally Posted by SigilBear

In the meantime, I just thought of another potential problem. If I produce an ebook that's essentially an exact reproduction of the original, with the following exceptions:

[...]

Will I be able to call it a "derivative" and slap a copyright on it?

No, that is not how it works. The original text would be in the Public Domain. ONLY THE SPECIFIC ADDITIONS could be copyrighted.

Let us take what typically happens... a publisher reprints a book and slaps on a new Cover + Preface + Foreword. There can be a new copyright on those three, but the original text itself is still Public Domain.

So in the case of your list, you could specify a copyright on: Case 2 (YOUR added Footnotes) + Case 5 (Appendix) + Case 7 (New Cover).

Case 3 (Added Pictures) is based on THOSE individual images' copyrights (which is a whole other can of worms, and you can see how things get hairy real fast). Personally, I would use the originals or grab images from Wikimedia... to my knowledge, these State Flags should be completely in the Public Domain.

Originally Posted by SigilBear

1. The footnotes are reorganized as end notes at the end of each chapter
[...]
4. The book is more nicely styled
[...]
6. The table of contents and index are heavily modified

These are just format shifts, not copyrightable at all. Things like minor edits or typo corrections are not copyrightable either.

Side Note: Although in some countries (not in the US though), you may potentially copyright Case 4 (a specific book design)... which is absolutely absurd [personal opinion].

Originally Posted by SigilBear

Either way, I'm going to include a notice that my book is based on a book that's in the public domain, but that all material added by me is copyrighted.

You don't have to specify exactly what you changed, but you could just say something along the lines of "Appendix was added and some images were enhanced since in this edition" or you could mark footnotes you added in some way ("—Editor" appended to the end, numbering your new footnotes to "##a", etc. etc.).

Personally, I would just release all your changes under an open license... for example, Creative Commons is one of the most popular ones:

https://creativecommons.org/choose/

I have converted/digitized hundreds of older books for a few smaller publishers (specializing mostly in Economics/History books), and everything just gets rereleased under a CC4.0 as close to the Public Domain as possible. It just saves everyone in the future headaches, and allows the book to reach the widest possible audiences.

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Oh one other thing on selling books, more people trust the As (Apple and Amazon) much more than a person's website.

[...] More customers, less headaches including the ubiquitous "I can't get your book to download"

I agree. Especially with such a niche book such as this, you would want the largest customer base as possible... and the Customer Support angle can't be understated... you wouldn't imagine how some people even function:

How do I download your book?
What giant green button that says Download?
How do I read this EPUB on my Kindle?
How do I turn a page?