reselling a copyright free item from America

[janet81]

I am interested in buying some written material which is copyright free in America. I would then like to resell this written material over the internet, but I'm not sure how to check if I would be infringing copyright law outwith America.

[CopyrightAid]

Hi

It depends what you mean by 'copyright free'- your description does not provide much information.

Presumably there must either be a copyright owner or someone who was the copyright owner (i.e. the author) who has now relinquished his claim - But the fact that you say you are buying the work implies that this is not 'free'.

I would suggest that you contact the seller and ask exactly what the situation is.

[janet81]

Hi! I actually set down the question wrongly and I appologise for that.
I was thinking about downloading copyright free material from the Project Gutenberg website, with the view to possibly printing the material in UK and selling it over the internet. I also considered selling an unprinted version in the form of an ebook. According to the website, all copyright free material is more than 70 years old and therefore is now in the American public domain, however, the site does mention that if a person is downloading the material in a country outwith America, then they should check the copyright for the material in their own country. This is what I don't know how to do.
Regards

[CopyrightAid]

Ahah!

Under UK law copyright duration it is the life of the author plus 70 years. To make life easier, I suggest the following page which is a simple to understand flowchart for exactly this situation. http://www.museumscopyright.org.uk/private.pdf