Is it legal to resell free content in USA ?

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by H-P

Don't you think that this situation may be could "BREAK.. OTHER EXISTING LAWS IN THE PROCESS" of publishing industry ?

Not in the UK or the US, no. I think you suggested earlier that it would break other laws in France, but I don't know of any law in the UK or US that it would violate.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by H-P

Hi all,

Elfwreck, Why i buy paper book and why i redo all the job even the text is online.

Because as a small company, that illegal to sell free work done by volunteers. With the violation of work law,... By this way, a publisher can't be in competiton with this kind of resellers ( full texts of one author for 1 or 2 $), that definitly an unfair competion.

Your country's laws about whether it's legal to sell the work of volunteers have nothing to do with copyright law, and whether public domain works can be resold.

If, in your country, it's illegal to make a profit from volunteer labor, it's true you will have trouble competing with businesses in countries that don't have that law. However, in the US and most of Europe, it's not illegal to use the results of volunteer labor and sell them at a profit. It may be illegal to *contract* volunteers to do work for free, and then sell that work, but that's not the same as using the results of labor that they give freely to anyone who wants it.

Certainly, we have no laws saying "no store can allow its customers to pick up wrappers on the floor; they must hire janitors to do that." If a shelf falls over in a supermarket, and the customer start picking up the stock, that's allowed--even though the supermarket saves money by not having its own staff do the work.

If someone has OCR'd and proofread a public-domain book and put the results online, anyone in the US, and anyone in Europe (AFAIK) in the places where that text is in the public domain, can use that text for any purpose they want.

In some case,... but in this case, on the famous ebooks platforms.... there are too much people which do business with this human works done by volunteers in direct competition. That huge.

It's legal in most countries. Maybe all countries; you may need to re-check your local laws about this. You should be able to use public domain texts regardless of who did the work of converting them.

So that not a DP problem. When you do a business, you have to respect the law(s). That why i tall you DP is not the God law. You want to be a publisher based on non copyright textes, do your own work..... and call me back, if you sitll still sell the full texts of one authors after 6 months of hard work at 1 or 2 dollars.

What laws do you think are broken when someone grabs a Gutenberg text, reformats it, adds a bit of commentary and a table of contents, and sells it on Amazon? Can you name the specific laws of which country don't allow this?

Wikisouce, put a warning on the free texts: So selling text with mistakes, with missing text, (you don't know what you sell), when you cut and past, can be in certains situation a customer infraction. This kind of guy really don't care about the reader. Easy money is the only one motivation.

Many readers don't care much about quality, either. They'd rather read a 2-dollar book with several typos and line-break errors than a 5-dollar or 10-dollar book that's perfect. It's not fair to say those readers should have to pay extra for quality they don't care about.

People selling low-quality conversions should have to mention that, or at least allow the comments/replies to mention the errors in the book. But there's a real market for cheaper ebooks of all quality levels, and companies are allowed to focus on that market.

[H-P]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

It's entirely legal in EU and US to resell content from Project Gutenberg if that content is out of copyright in the place of sale.

You have asked the question. You have been answered.

If you have reason to believe that the answer you have been given is wrong, it is now up to you to present some evidence, not just ask the same question again.

Hum,

I gave a stupid example with children slaves ,and gave my view in different post like "66" if you don"t understand, please let people that know non-profit, profit companies business laws organisations give me some informations.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by H-P

Is someone here has allready recopy a full paperbook to create an ebook ?

In my case, i definitly think that is unfair competition to cut and paste content done by volunteers, and making business with this kind of work.

This is unfair, because a publisher which work in this book industry can't pay salary, tax,...to create ebooks publications and stay in competition with someone who's pay nothing by using this kind of work.

Work done for free by free volunteers has to stay outside the business market. that definitly my point of view. I also think than a lot of volunteers who's created textes this last 10 years, didn't do it for some f... lazy guys.

---> Joykin, when you work 2, 3 weeks to make serious work for one ebook. And someone come with the full gutemberg in one ebook for 1 dollar. Do you think than you can sell your ebook for one dollar = one month of work.

In that case, I think, by normal business practices in the US, the editor/publisher that pays taxes, salaries, etc. and comes up with no better than free volunteer work is a fool*. This publisher should be leveraging the free volunteer work at the very least. From the other side, the customer who will pay for a book that is freely available is also a fool**. That customer should be obtaining the free copy, which is no better than the paid one.

Now, I said "no better." If, for example, the Gutenberg (let's say) edition has no explanatory footnotes, no illustrations, no hyperlinked chapter divisions, or any of the other extras that make ebooks so much fun (as some of the ebooks posted to MobileRead are so enhanced) then this is something that a person might want to pay for as it has added value to the free version. Thus the editions being free vs. paid are not comparable.


*or at the very least, profiting from asymmetrical information

** or at the very least, suffering from asymmetrical information

[pdurrant]

Moderator Notice

The question of the legality of reselling public domain texts has been asked and answered.

Any further questions about the possible illegality of this act will need to include a link to the relevant law of the country being discussed.

This thread will be closed if these questions continue to be asked without such documentation.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Joykins

If, for example, the Gutenberg (let's say) edition has no explanatory footnotes, no illustrations, no hyperlinked chapter divisions, or any of the other extras that make ebooks so much fun (as some of the ebooks posted to MobileRead are so enhanced) then this is something that a person might want to pay for as it has added value to the free version. Thus the editions being free vs. paid are not comparable.

Exacty.

I've *knowingly* paid for a few PD compilation ebooks on amazon as well as entire PD library DVDs on ebay as I have no problem paying a buck or two for a book that "merely" cleans up and compiles PD texts into a single volume of an author's works or $8-10 for a pair of DVDs of formatted ebooks converted to modern ebook formats and organized by categories.

But then, I've done both things for my own use so I know what it takes to get the job done right. It is far from trivial.

Not all such vendors are quick-buck artists--some are providing a vauable service and I fully understandd that what I am paying is for the *service*, not the text itself.

Each person has their own idea of the value of commercial digital content but a bit of common sense goes a long ways when dealing with PD and Commons-type problems. Without it, it can be hard to identify just what it is you are paying for.

[Joykins]

What really really irks me are bad/incomplete scans of Public Domain works being sold for 99 cents or some similar low price on Amazon & the like and it's impossible to tell what the edition is because the reviews all appear to be for the audiobook. I'd gladly pay more to avoid that. I had to buy some Kierkegaard twice ... again it is the incomplete/asymmetrical information problem. Also there was some issue of Wikipedia articles being compiled and sold as e-books under the subject author's name, wasn't there?

[crich70]

On some sites like Smashwords of course it's a moot question as the book has to be original work by the author not a PD book scan. Of course not all author's are equal in ability now any more than they were in the past either. I bought one (or maybe it was a free book I don't recall) where a major character's name changed between the 2nd and 3rd chapter. Of course there is no direct link to be able to contact the author on the Smashwords site so I wonder if even now she realizes she made that blooper.

[H-P]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The question of the legality of reselling public domain texts has been asked and answered.

Any further questions about the possible illegality of this act will need to include a link to the relevant law of the country being discussed.

This thread will be closed if these questions continue to be asked without such documentation.

The question wasn"t since the first post about " the legality of reselling public domain texts "

But
the legality of doing business with content done by free volunteers.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by H-P

The question wasn"t since the first post about " the legality of reselling public domain texts "

But
the legality of doing business with content done by free volunteers.

That question has also been answered. At least three times, by different people:

Originally Posted by avantman42

Not in the UK or the US, no. I think you suggested earlier that it would break other laws in France, but I don't know of any law in the UK or US that it would violate.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

If, in your country, it's illegal to make a profit from volunteer labor, it's true you will have trouble competing with businesses in countries that don't have that law. However, in the US and most of Europe, it's not illegal to use the results of volunteer labor and sell them at a profit. It may be illegal to *contract* volunteers to do work for free, and then sell that work, but that's not the same as using the results of labor that they give freely to anyone who wants it.

Originally Posted by Joykins

In that case, I think, by normal business practices in the US, the editor/publisher that pays taxes, salaries, etc. and comes up with no better than free volunteer work is a fool*. This publisher should be leveraging the free volunteer work at the very least. From the other side, the customer who will pay for a book that is freely available is also a fool**. That customer should be obtaining the free copy, which is no better than the paid one.

Now, I said "no better." If, for example, the Gutenberg (let's say) edition has no explanatory footnotes, no illustrations, no hyperlinked chapter divisions, or any of the other extras that make ebooks so much fun (as some of the ebooks posted to MobileRead are so enhanced) then this is something that a person might want to pay for as it has added value to the free version. Thus the editions being free vs. paid are not comparable.


*or at the very least, profiting from asymmetrical information

** or at the very least, suffering from asymmetrical information

[Freeshadow]

The question wasn't since the first post about " the legality of reselling public domain texts "

Not according to the thread's title.
If you don't know what question you ask - assume the answer to be "42"

As for the PD I'll try to simplify the answer: Yes. You are allowed to do everything with it that pleases you, including selling - because it's yours, me, as well as everybody and his brother can do the same because it's ours too. That's the frigging idea behind PD and that's what "public domain" means. Verbatim. Literally.

[pdurrant]

Moderator Notice

Thread Closed.