I guess I don't understand the nature of this "complaint."

I think it is quite clear that books that are "out of copyright" are "fair game" for all people to use -- including in ways that we volunteers at PG would rather they do not do. Even if someone -- "us" or "them" -- has done some "massaging" of that book -- it is still "out of copyright."

For me personally, I find it troublesome that Amazon takes books that are "out of copyright" and republishes them under their encryption technology, meaning -- perhaps -- I am not a lawyer -- that it is now illegal under USA law for someone to take that "free" book and decrypt it to regain totally "free" access.

I guess I am also troubled that Amazon is making it harder and harder to get unencrypted mobi or epub works onto their devices "on the same basis" as e-books we buy from Amazon.

But mere "typesetting" whether it is formatting the book "nicely" for paperback printing, or for display on an e-book device, has never been subject to copyright or any other protection.

What PG has always said is: "OK, if you do any of these things then please take our name back off of the copy of this work which you are massaging and selling in your own manner."

But otherwise, what are you complaining about? What Amazon is doing is "fair game" -- and you should expect no better! In turn many publishers complain that PG and PG volunteers are using "their" books -- once those books are out of copyright. But, once a book is out of copyright it is not "their" book either -- rather it is "ours" -- the entirety of human society -- in turn for having respected and paid-for access to that copyright book over the entirely of its currently insanely long "in-copyright" period!

James Adcock

I'm sorry to hear about this, James. It's unfair that Amazon allows themselves to do something that you cannot do. It's even worse when they are essentially stealing your work, by not paying royalties.

We have had poor outcomes from our efforts at getting Amazon to stop stealing Project Gutenberg and condoning those who do.
~ Greg Newby

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 07:12:20PM -0500, James Simmons wrote:
> If you've looked at Kindle books on Amazon you've no doubt seen PG titles
> that some reprobate has repackaged and is selling as ebooks. It seems that
> Amazon is doing that itself now.
>
> See this page where titles I donated are being sold by Amazon.com Services
> LLC
> <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FLessons-Wireless-Telegraphy-Alfred-Powell-ebook%2Fdp%2FB09N3PTNHQ%2Fref%3Dsr_1_1%3Fqid%3D1690328702%26refinements%3Dp_27%253AAlfred%2BPowell%2BMorgan%26s%3Ddigital-text%26sr%3D1-1%26text%3DAlfred%2BPowell%2BMorgan&data=05%7C01%7C%7Cef2d5d60e52c4357a05908db8e1988dd%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638260012546075575%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=okxWIfzgUBVJe4qTi%2B5pS6ocw8dY4iCymIHws4eqUjU%3D&reserved=0>.
> Not given away with the images missing like they used to do, but sold.
>
> https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fs%3Fi%3Ddigital-text%26rh%3Dp_27%253AAlfred%2BPowell%2BMorgan%26s%3Drelevancerank%26text%3DAlfred%2BPowell%2BMorgan%26ref%3Ddp_byline_sr_ebooks_1&data=05%7C01%7C%7Cef2d5d60e52c4357a05908db8e1988dd%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638260012546075575%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=4v45KeuOvzSzaeVRlR2WFZcTzhVu55kEzBjJFzK2U6s%3D&reserved=0
>
> I tried to leave comments explaining the situation to prospective customers
> and those comments never showed up.
>
> I found out about this because I have taken many of my PG donations and
> created KDP printed books from them using LaTeX for typesetting and GIMP
> for preparing cover images. These printed books ended up looking quite nice
> and I don't think anyone who bought one ever complained about it. I told
> them in the description what it was and even included the URL of the PG
> title and explained that they could download the ebook version for free.
>
> About a month ago Amazon told me that printing costs for print on demand
> books were going up and I needed to re-price my books to get any royalty
> for them at all. I spent several hours doing just that, and when I was
> finished Amazon blocked two of my titles from being sold because Amazon
> does not allow you to use KDP to publish titles that can be downloaded for
> free.
>
> These two titles were part of a twelve volume set of The Mahabharata, so
> not selling these two and leaving the rest of my public domain print on
> demand titles alone was not a good option. I complained. For my trouble I
> got my whole account locked and had to promise to remove all my public
> domain titles from sale to get it back. I have books I wrote myself on KDP
> so I needed that account. I followed their rules and unpublished a lot of
> books that had taken me MANY hours to prepare.
>
> This was never anything other than a hobby that in a good year brought in
> less than 200 dollars. Having said that, these were nice looking books and
> I was proud to have them in people's homes. I published Hindu scriptures
> and epics, pioneering aviation books, and radio and electronic books by
> Alfred Powell Morgan, an author who loomed large in my childhood.
> Apparently in other people's childhoods too, because they sold better than
> any of the others.
>
> I know Amazon is not doing anything illegal, but I needed to vent about
> this.
>
> Thank you for your time.
>
> James Simmons

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