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Okay, so how about this one?
(a) I discover, in my grandpa's basement, an old diary written by (let's say) my great-great grandfather, who has been long dead these last hundred years. I publish it. Copyrighted? I am guessing no.
(b) Same scenario, but great-great grandpa was famous and I want to make money. So I publish, but muck up the whole thing with my own footnotes, commentary and introduction. Is the whole thing now under copyright? Or could someone theoretically edit out all the parts I added until only the parts written by great-great grandpa was left, and put that on Google Books, worry-free?
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