A week or two ago we focused on the paradox that public domain books available for nothing from Project Gutenberg were being sold on Amazon (see Why Get It Free on Gutenberg when You Can Buy It on Kindle?). The issue raised by Greg Newby, director of Gutenberg, was whether it was legal and ethical for publishers to charge for books that are available free. ”Is this legal? Yes. Is it ethical? I don’t think it is,” said Newby.
That question was fresh in our minds when Oprah’s Book Club announced that a Penguin double-volume, Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, had been selected for the Club.
Amazon
Here is the $11 paper copy at Amazon: A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations: Two Novels (Oprah’s Book Club)
Here is the $7.99 Penguin Kindle edition on Amazon: A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations: Two Novels (Oprah’s Book Club)
Free Kindle versions here: A Tale of Two Cities
Great Expectations
Ethical? Not so fast
Greg Newby’s awfully fast to judge in this case. I think it’s both legal and ethical for a publisher to charge for public-domain material if they’ve added value in any manner, which would certainly include better formatting, print versions (of course), annotations, indexing… And in this case, where Penguin explicitly says you can find free versions of the books, there’s no ethical issue whatsoever.