Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy
The article doesn't mention this, so I have no idea whether or not there is any "new material" in the public domain books that they are talking about.
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Yes, there's new material. They added things like introductions, notes, chronologies, question sections in 03/04. They also indicate the original publication dates of the PD material.
The essay for
Pride and Prejudice is 70+ pages long, for example. Well, 70 pages as the B&N app paginates.
Since there is new content -- a substantial amount in some cases -- it at least makes sense to put a copyright on those sections. Whether adding DRM is stupid, well, that's a matter of opinion. And I have it on good authority that the only determining factor in one's opinion is whether or not you were born in Europe, which apparently automatically makes you a socialist.
Anyway... It appears that the initial PR flack's / official B&N response actually makes sense, since there
is new copyrighted material that the company has chosen to protect. (Of course there may well be other PD books without new content that also get slapped with DRM, so who knows what explanation they'd have for that instance.) At any rate, I feel quite comfortable saying that B&N is not in any way violating the spirit or the letter of the laws relating to usage of materials in the public domain, even by adding DRM.