Quote:
Originally Posted by graycyn
Just a thought, you can, legally, publish any book available from Project Gutenberg on the Internet Archive, which is also USA-based and follows USA Copyright law, just like PG does.
I am contemplating doing this next year with the 1929 illustrated version of Black Storm.
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That's a backward step as PG texts are human proofed and PG since inception in 1971, AFAIK, has never been sued. IA has opaque governance, no human proofreading, poor at taking down content that contravenes USA copyright, gets sued, makes their own rules on copyright content for their open library. They have multiple PDF scans on free download that are in copyright. They have gone way beyond being the "wayback machine" for internet content.
Also PG has multiple mirrors and instructions how to download all of it or make a mirror. PG also accepts uploads, though they have idea on formatting that make sense to them. No user decided formatting. But their content, unlike Standard ebooks, is easily reformated.
Other PD sites are Sacred Texts, Global Grey, Standard ebooks and Canadian Faded Page (which does have content that meets USA PD as well as extra content using Canadian rules which are differently complicated). There was an Australian one but was taken down when Australia signed USA Trade deal (TPP or something?).
Also of course if you want to read PD The Golem, you need to read in German. The English is too new.
UK has a perpetual Crown Copyright on some things, including the King James AV Bible, which isn't original. But Matthew Henry's Commentary has the entire AV in it and is PD.
Alice Underground/Alice in Wonderland is PD. But a particular layout will be copyright and illustrations of later editions are copyright.
If someone takes a PD text and nicely formats it and sells it as an ebook, that's copyright and can't be freely distributed unless they say so, but you can buy it, extract the text and do your own proof and formatting and give that away or resell it.
So even if author and illustrator is dead 70+ and USA, an edition of an ebook (or paper) can be copyright. You can though extract the text and illustrations and do a new edition.
It's a minefield!