Distribute Public Domain Material Hosted on a Website
<p>There is a website that hosts text for a book I am interested in which is in the public domain. The website has a standard copyright icon on the bottom with the text &quot;All Rights Reserved&quot;. Can I copy the text for the book and distribute it for commercial purposes?</p>
<p>From looking at similar questions, my guess is that the website can not lay copyright claim to the original work, of course, but I can't really tell if they have made any sort of original contribution to what they are hosting which could lead to copyright infringement if I did copy it.</p>

<h2>You can use the <em>text</em></h2>
<p>The text is public domain, but the particular composition (font, layout, colour, columnation etc.) are literary and artistic choices of the web page owner and they own the copyright in those.</p>
<p>For example, the text of David Coperfield is in the public domain, but an eBook, pdf, or printed copy of David Coperfield has elements that are not. Similarly, if someone decided that they didn't like chapter 3 and rewrote it, then that would not be public domain either.</p>

copyright public-domain