Kindle and Public Domain

Hi,
I've searched quite a bunch and a few places and can't find a clear answer to this.

Public Domain works (NOT PLR) are allowed to be republished as long as they have some type of 'differiented' content included? Or can they be published verbatim (and i would think then that the "only" negative is that there are 'already' other versions of whatever public domain book that is republished.

The reason I ask, is that I've seen things on public domain republished under different cover titles (but same material and same author, usually deceased).

Is this right?

Seems like copyright risk to me, including not being all appealing to a consumer. Can anyone shed some light?

thanks
nt1

Since you mentioned copyright uses after somebody is dead... After about 70-120 calendar years of a copyright holder persons death there is a leniency on the patent rights which leads to it being able to be used as public domain.. (Hence expiry.)

If you take a look at any search engine and type public domain movies, you'll see some from pre 1920ish hosted and monetized by advertisements. Although schools and viewers still watch them, since the patents' compete clause wore off adverts can be used as well as hosted alongside the content.

Ah.
Thank you for that. That's exactly the grey area i was looking at. The person(s) in most cases were dead. And so, I saw books being reprinted, or the contents inside the books, comprised and put under a different name, and I couldn't understand how this was allowed.

There's no copyright risk if the content is TRULY public domain

PD is exempt from copyright... that's why it's public domain

With that said, the key sticking point here is the fact that Amazon requires some point of differentiation. Maybe put a nice cover or include an original preface or intro. In other words, DO SOMETHING to add distinction (ie., set your PD republished work) apart.