Discussion:
Hello To All!
I am in Florida and I have a question about Ebooks that are in the Public Domain. I downloaded a particular Ebook and according to the Public Domain there is no copyright on it.
However, I did a search on Google and I found the same book on paperback and cd that are copyrighted. Am I still able to distribute my ebook as I see fit or is the information itself copyrighted? I hope that made sense. Thank you in advance to anyone who replies...I appreciate the help.
Chris
Answer:
I am in Florida and I have a question about Ebooks that are in the Public Domain. I downloaded a particular Ebook and according to the Public Domain there is no copyright on it. Doesn't mean anything. ALL original documents, in any form including electronic, have copyright protection.
Am I still able to distribute my ebook as I see fit or is the information itself copyrighted? No.
Yes, it is copyright protected.
Answer:
Hello To All!
I am in Florida and I have a question about Ebooks that are in the Public Domain. I downloaded a particular Ebook and according to the Public Domain there is no copyright on it.
However, I did a search on Google and I found the same book on paperback and cd that are copyrighted. Am I still able to distribute my ebook as I see fit or is the information itself copyrighted? I hope that made sense. Thank you in advance to anyone who replies...I appreciate the help.
Chris When was the book originally written?
EDIT: And by whom, i.e., was it written by the government?
Answer:
Florida
Not by government, but put together in 1888.
Answer:
Florida
Not by government, but put together in 1888. Then the words themselves are in the public domain. However, and particular title pages or other "creative" marks may be covered by a copyright, so you should try and use the words either in a completely "vanilla" fashion, or apply your own creative marks to the ebook. But the book itself is in the public domain.
Answer:
Florida
So basically I can take the public domain version and do whatever I want with it? How does this relate to the paperback book and cd i found at amazon?
Answer:
Florida
So basically I can take the public domain version and do whatever I want with it? How does this relate to the paperback book and cd i found at amazon? As I mentioned above, the book and CD on Amazon probably have cover art, or other artistic details, that the publisher DOES have a copyright on, so if you just copied the book or CD, that would be copyright infringement. But you could take the text of the work, type it out yourself or whatever, and drop the TEXT into your own format, and that would NOT be copyright infringement, because the text of the book itself is public domain. In addition, if there are any annotations or explanations or footnotes added by the publisher, those too would be covered by the copyright.
You can't re-copyright a public domain work; however, you can embed a public-domain work into a "creative" format that would be copyrightable, so you can prevent someone from making a direct copy of your public-domain work.
Penguin is a publishing house, for example, that publishes a lot of public domain works. I recently bought a copy of "Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith; this work is in the public domain. If I went down and made a photocopy of the book, that would be infringing on the copyright of the book, because there is a cover and other artwork and info added to the public domain work; however, if I decided to scan the book in, OCR it, and take just the text and put it into Word, make my own format, and then create a PDF or eBook out of that, that would NOT be copyright infringement, even though the Penguin book I originally started with does have a copyright notice associated with it.
Answer:
Florida
Wow...thank you very much!! I really appreciate the advice, that was awesome. I appreciate you taking the time to explain that to me, I honestly didnt think I would get that type of response from anyone.
Thanks again, you have been a huge help!
Chris