Any books here that aren't public domain should have explicit terms attached, usually a creative commons licence.
As far as I can see, the public domain books are freely distributable. Most you can do anything with. A few still have Project Gutenberg licences attached, and so couldn't (for example) be solf without being altered.
I think it would be very impolite to (say) download my version of Kidnaped/Catriona ("David Balfour") and put it in the Kindle store for $1 each, but I don't think it would be illegal.
Hmm.. although perhaps that's not a good example - I did add some extra links to unusual words to that one.
But for an unaltered text, with nothing except typo fixes, I don't think there's any copyright given by creating a particular ebook format, because although there is certainly work gone into the creation, there isn't much originality.
Mind you - that doesn't stop Museums & Galleries, for example, slapping a copyright notice on photographic reproductions of out-of-copyright originals, despite test case law (in the US) that says they don't have copyright in such images.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgem..._v._Corel_Corp.
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Originally Posted by tompe
That I also sometime wonder. It especially holds for most books here at MobileRead that nothing is said about the status of the book.
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