Public Domain question on works in Britannica Great Books

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ldavidh
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Joined: April 20th, 2017, 12:12 am

Post by ldavidh »

The Ency.Britannica series of Great Books contain works that are pre-1923, yet the series contains copywrite notices. The same goes for the Library of America series. Are the texts in these books really in copywrite or is this a more complicated issue than seems on the surface?
:hmm: Larry H
annise
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Post by annise »

If the texts were exactly the same as the pre 1923 texts they would be PD but if they have been edited in any way they can attract a new copyright. And editors are very likely to "improve" the text in various ways.
So no you can't read from the series but you can read any of the books in it if you use a 1922 or earlier scan or it's on Gutenberg and they say it is PD.

Anne
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