copyrighted presumably public domain books

[lumpynose]

For example,

https://bookshout.com/ebooks/lad-a-dog--3

On the other hand there is

https://www.amazon.com/Treve-Albert-...dp/B00JPIO04A/

Or

https://bookshout.com/ebooks/the-way...nd-some-others

The first book, Lad: A Dog, is available from Project Gutenberg and other public domain sites, the second book, Treve, is not. For the Treve book, if you click on the book cover, the Look Inside, there is a copyright notice. Both are from the same publisher.

Does that copyright cover the raw text? I.e., could I use the raw text, excluding images and anything he's added and use that in a collected works book that I upload here?

[BobC]

As the author died in 1942 then the authors copyright in the original work would have expired.

As I see it the only copyright that could be claimed for the ones you have found on Amazon would be in the layout and any additional illustrations, colophons, introductions etc that were not in the original work.

So if you are able to obtain the text independent of the layout etc (e.g. the Gutenberg version) then you would have a P.D. work which you could re-format and use.

Extracting the text from a Kindle version may in itself be a breach of the terms of Amazon's licence but that is not a copyright issue.

BobC

[lumpynose]

Thanks. I hadn't thought about the Amazon license part but the rest of what you say is what I was thinking as well.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by BobC

As the author died in 1942 then the authors copyright in the original work would have expired...

BobC

It's a bit trickier than than in the US. A book first copyrighted in 1924, as I believe Treve was, could still be in copyright if, and only if, the copyright holder had properly renewed the original 28 year copyright. That renewal would have had to been made during the last 12 months of the original copyright span. If renewed, the US copyright would be 95 years from publication date.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by dwig

It's a bit trickier than than in the US.

Yea, as usual it's always trickier in the US. But I'm only interested in the issues with respect to uploading it here. The mobileread server is in the EU and goes by their life+70 rule.

At this point I think my only option is to find a copy that's not sold by Amazon. I could have spent the $5 or so it costs but hadn't thought about their licensing which BobC brought up.