Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion
As to selling PD works he has proofed and corrected, anyone has the legal right to do that: however as that could be considered implicitly claiming his work as one's own, the argument can be made that it's unethical.
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I'm not sure why you would think that. Selling a PD work is no more claiming that you're the editor as it is claiming you're the author.
If we're saying that a company selling such a PD work is being unethical because they're implicitly claiming Harry's work, couldn't you also say that Harry is being unethical in implicitly claiming the author's work was his. IMO, both arguments are silly. Harry didn't write the book, but he's using the author's hard work as a basis for making his own improvements. Someone selling that work is doing the same thing. They're just using Harry's work as a basis for improving their business. Neither the author nor Harry has anything to complain about. That's the nature of PD material. The whole point of it is that anybody can do with it what they please.
If Harry doesn't like the possibility that someone can use his work for something he doesn't like, then he can choose not to release his changes to the public. Once he does release it though (and we're tall thankful that he does), complaining about how people use that material is a little absurd.