Editing Project Gutenberg (section)

==Copyright==
Project Gutenberg is careful to verify the status of its ebooks according to [[Copyright law of the United States|United States copyright law]]. Material is added to the Project Gutenberg archive only after it has received a copyright clearance, and records of these clearances are saved for future reference. Project Gutenberg does not claim new copyright on titles it publishes. Instead, it encourages their free reproduction and distribution.<ref name=USINFO/>

Most books in the Project Gutenberg collection are distributed as [[public domain]] under United States copyright law. There are also a few copyrighted texts, such as those of [[science fiction]] author [[Cory Doctorow]], that Project Gutenberg distributes with permission. These are subject to further restrictions as specified by the copyright holder, although they generally tend to be licensed under [[Creative Commons]].

"Project Gutenberg" is a [[trademark]] of the organization, and the mark cannot be used in commercial or modified redistributions of public domain texts from the project. There is no legal impediment to the reselling of works in the public domain if all references to Project Gutenberg are removed, but Gutenberg contributors have questioned the appropriateness of directly and commercially reusing content that has been formatted by volunteers. There have been instances of books being stripped of attribution to the project and sold for profit in the [[Kindle Store]] and other booksellers, one being the 1906 book ''Fox Trapping''.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/11/amazon_charges_kindle_users_fo.html|title=Amazon charges Kindle users for free Project Gutenberg e-books|last=Pegoraro|first=Rob|date=30 November 2010|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|access-date=3 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170505014858/http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/11/amazon_charges_kindle_users_fo.html|archive-date=5 May 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>

From 2018 to 2021, the Project Gutenberg website was not accessible within [[Germany]], as a result of a court order from [[S. Fischer Verlag]] regarding the works of [[Heinrich Mann]], [[Thomas Mann]] and [[Alfred Döblin]]. Although they were in the public domain in the United States, the German court (Frankfurt am Main Regional Court) recognized the infringement of copyrights still active in Germany, and asserted that the Project Gutenberg website was under German jurisdiction because it hosts content in the German language and is accessible in Germany.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://cand.pglaf.org/germany/index.html|title=Court Order to Block Access in Germany|publisher=Project Gutenberg Library Archive Foundation|access-date=4 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180304003312/https://cand.pglaf.org/germany/index.html|archive-date=4 March 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> This judgment was confirmed by the Frankfurt Court of Appeal on 30 April 2019 (11 U 27/18<ref>{{Cite web|title=OLG Frankfurt judgment of 30 April 2019|url=https://dejure.org/dienste/vernetzung/rechtsprechung?Gericht=OLG%20Frankfurt&Datum=30.04.2019&Aktenzeichen=11%20U%2027/18}}</ref>). The Frankfurt Court of Appeal has not given permission for a further appeal to the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof), however, an application for permission to appeal has been filed with the Federal Court of Justice. As of 4 October 2020 that application was still pending (Federal Court of Justice I ZR 97/19). According to Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation,<ref name="German settlement">{{cite web |title=Lawsuit is Settled |url=https://cand.pglaf.org/germany/index.html |website=Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation |access-date=6 December 2021}}</ref> "In October 2021, the parties reached a settlement agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, Project Gutenberg eBooks by the three authors will be blocked from Germany until their German copyright expires. Under the terms of the settlement, the all-Germany block is no longer in place. Other terms of the settlement are confidential."

The Project Gutenberg website has been blocked in [[Italy]] since May 2020, as part of a larger effort to block websites that publish newspapers and journals that are protected by copyright in Italy.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Caranti |first1=Niccolò |title=Project Gutenberg blocked in Italy: many doubts, few certainties |url=https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Areas/Italy/Project-Gutenberg-blocked-in-Italy-many-doubts-few-certainties |website=OBC Transeuropa |access-date=10 January 2022}}</ref>