At the Bookstore

Recently, while wandering in and among the aisles of the last remaining big box bookstore, I happened across a section of “classics,” branded as such and published, looks like in-house, by the store’s parent.

The layout of the books, trade paperback, suggested that the actual content, the text of the textbook, was material drawn from the public domain. Legal enough, basically, anything over a 100 years old is usable.

In part, some of the original source for my own text, Pink Cake – the quote collection – is drawn from that same public domain. Other material, if there’s even a chance of a copyright question? The quote was either cut or, all of the source material is properly cited.

Ever date a Virgo? It will do that to you.

What piqued my interest was the copyright images and explanations. At the Bookstore? Interesting to see that the parent company had, indeed, taken the public domain material and used it.

I’m not above this action, myself. I scraped a clearly labeled public domain copy of both Marcus Aurelius Meditations and Tao Te Ching and offer them up – for free.

While I’m no lawyer, I could, if I so desired, legally charge for my copies, but as a matter of (personal) ethics, it would bother me. The only work I did was formating the extant data. More an exercise for me, and, I do like having that material close at hand, anytime I need a reference from the old books.

At the Bookstore

I was curious to see that the public domian books still sell. Often refered to as “classic,” by virtue of time, more than anything else, would be my guess, that, and? Part of the public domain, because, after all, still, years later?

“Content is king,” as I’ve been assured, over and over.

#Books