Bought a book that is in the public domain ... but the T&amp;A of company says I can&#39;t redistribute it
<p>I purchased an ebook that I'm 100% sure is in the public domain (published in 70's, no copyright notice or copyright reg with us office).</p>

<p>However, the company I bought the ebook from has this in their terms and agreements that I had to agree to before checking out:</p>

<p>"all content included on this site, such as ... digital downloads ... is the property of [company]". </p>

<p>To clarify the website that I purchased the book from is the same company that originally published/ wrote the book.</p>

<p>So, my question: While this document is in the public domain, can I legally redistribute it, or due to the terms and agreements can I not?</p>

<h2>The text <em>may</em> be public domain in the <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap3.html" rel="noreferrer">United States</a></h2>

<p>It depends on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Duration_of_copyright" rel="noreferrer">when</a> it was created/published.</p>

<h2>The eBook is subject to its own copyright</h2>

<p>The eBook itself is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work" rel="noreferrer">derivative work</a> and subject to its own copyright protection. The translation of an ink and paper book into an eBook contains enough artistic choice to trigger copyright protection.</p>

<p>If the original is really public domain, you can copy the text but not the eBook.</p>

<p>Part of something being in the Public Domain is that anyone can take that work, make a minor change, and copyright the result for themselves. Not the original of course, but their custom version. Public Domain status isn't "infectious" to derived works like the GPL (copyleft) is. This is how the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_novels#Copyright_issues" rel="noreferrer">mashup genre</a> of fiction regularly operates.</p>

<p>In this case, most likely the publisher is asserting copyright to their digital conversion of the PD source material. I have also heard of tweaks being something as simple as adding pictures to the text.</p>

<p>Legally you can probably get around the issue by copying only the unmodified portions of the text, but its possible they stuck some land-mines in there (eg: modernized spellings here or there), specifically to catch people doing that. Safer just to find yourself a true PD copy (like on Project Gutenberg) and work from that.</p>

<p>I do not think you should be 100% sure it is in the public domain. As of sometime in 1978 copyrightable material is automaticity copyright as of is original fixation - no copyright notice required. </p>

<p>The work is not protected by copyright, however, you agreed not to copy or distribute the copy you obtained from this service. That is enforceable, see ProcCD v. Zeidenberg.</p>

<p>Note that only you are bound by the terms because only you agreed to them. Were someone who hadn't agreed to the terms somehow get access to your copy and make and distributed copies of it, they would not be violating any law or agreement (at least, not that I can think of).</p>

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