Public Domain $ Made And Lessons Learned

If the original text is public domain, it is not a violation of the copyright law to copy the original public domain text. The gutenberg filler is subject to copyright, and they can restrict your right to republish their portion of the work, but not copying their new original copyrighted work doesn't violate the copyright law! In fact, that is quite the opposite.

They can't restrict your right to do what you please with the original public domain text. Just like George Romero can't restrict your right to do what you may with the original unedited release prints of "Night of the Living Dead." That entered the public domain because the distributor forgot to put a copyright notice on the release prints in 1968! Talk about a costly mistake. Whether or not its translation to the "new medium" of video constitutes a copyrightable permutation of a public domain work remains a gray area in the law, but it is probably not if there isn't something transformative. That is like saying a new font used for Shakespheare would make "Romeo and Juliet" copyrightable, despite the fact that it was written BEFORE COPYRIGHT LAW EXISTED! Where it might be a gray area in terms of film is that a video might be "pan and scan" which is somewhat transformative, or it may be "letterboxed" which again, may or may not be transformative; however, the preserved aspect ratio of 1:33:1 from an old movie like Edgar G. Ulmer's "Detour" from the 1940s which I believe entered the public domain for failure to file a copyright renewal -I'm not certain of that- wouldn't appear very transformative when scanned from film onto video.

All of that is a long way of saying issues surrounding the public domain aren't cut and dry, but nobody can stop you from not copying their work! Copyright law doesn't give the copyright holder a right to preclude you from not copying their work, only a right to preclude you from copying their work, but putting a foreward onto Shakespheare's original text or new footnotes onto "The Bible's" original text doesn't create a copyright in the original text, just the new parts surrounding the old public domain part. I could buy a copy of Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" that contained the original 1937 edition that fell out of copyright for failure to renew, and even if it had a new forward and new afterword, the part sandwhiched in between, if unrevised remains entirely within the public domain. It is only the expression that is new that is not public domain.

The more important question surrounding the Kindle is: How do you get around the fact that Kindle isn't paying royalties for works that are primarily made from the public domain?

I understand you are adding royalty-free images, but is that all? It would seem to me that the primary portion would remain public domain!

Thanks Tony

Nice... I wish I could be in the USA, to get the physical books, thats where the big bucks are at.