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From Greg Newby <gbnewby@pglaf.org> Date Thu, 29 Sep 2005 22:56:17 -0700 To Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org> Subject Copyright <1923 (Re: [gutvol-d] Re: gutvol-d Digest, Vol 14, Issue 64)

Publishers don't make it easy to tell whether the item is public domain. You can go to your local bookstore and pick up many Penguin, Dover or Barnes & Noble classics that seem to be copyrighted. In that case, we might need to do a comparison. Maybe the copyright just applies to notes, an index, cover art, an introduction, or a preface? We often determine that the main text is public domain, and the added stuff is not.

And in many countries -- and I wish I could figure out the state of the US and Canadian law -- there's the edition copyright... but of course, for most works which are popular enough to have Penguin or B&N editions (not necessarily the same for Dovers and other facsimile presses) the works are usually old and popular enough to have gone through numerous, easy-to-access, pre-1923 imprints. Not only that, I frankly don't trust modern paperback editions of classics; have they repeated errors introduced in later editions? deliberate misrepresentations of the text carried out by squeamish heirs after the death of the author? bowdlerizations or nice-ification?