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Public domain in practice: what it means for Ben-Hur and Monte Cristo

ARLing s. r. o. · 18 September 2026

Public domain is one phrase covering two different questions, and mixing them is how people get themselves into trouble. The first question is whether the work itself is still under copyright. That one has an answer you can reach with a date of death and a calendar. The second is whether the particular copy you are holding may be used, which has nothing to do with the age of the novel and everything to do with who typed it out, how, and under what terms. A transcription of an old book can carry conditions even when the book carries none. This note works both questions through for two specific titles we set for e-ink tablets, with the dates, the rule that applies in the European Union, and the licence clause that decides the second question.

Question one: is the work free

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is by Lew Wallace, who lived from 1827 to 1905, and the original English text was published by Harper and Brothers in New York in 1880. The Count of Monte Cristo is by Alexandre Dumas, who lived from 1802 to 1870, with Auguste Maquet, 1813 to 1888; the anonymous English translation was first published by Chapman and Hall in London in 1846.

In the European Union and in Slovakia, economic rights last 70 years after the author's death, and for an anonymous work 70 years from publication, under Act No. 185/2015 Coll., section 32. Dumas died in 1870, Maquet in 1888, Wallace in 1905, so every one of those terms ran out long ago. Project Gutenberg states the American position on both works in the same words: public domain in the USA.

Question two: is this copy free

This is the part that is easy to miss. The text you download is not the 1880 book. It is a transcription somebody made, and Project Gutenberg attaches terms to its own transcriptions.

Read them and they are clear enough. Under section 1.C of its licence, anyone may copy, distribute and build on a work that is unrestricted by copyright in the United States, as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Under section 1.E.8, a work that keeps those references may be sold only with a royalty of 20 percent of gross profits. In other words: strip the branding and the underlying public domain text is yours to use, or keep the branding and pay for the privilege.

What that means for a file you sell or make

We took the first route, and the consequence is visible in the files. The PDFs on sale contain no mention of Project Gutenberg at all: the edition page calls the source a public domain digital transcription, and the check that runs over the finished PDF verifies that the forbidden words are not in it.

That is not the same as hiding where the text came from. The source, with the ebook number, the address and the checksum of the downloaded file, is recorded in our own documentation, in the file manifest and in the listing itself, outside the work. The two records, ebook 2145 for Ben-Hur, released in 2000 and last updated in 2023, and ebook 1184 for The Count of Monte Cristo, released in 1998 and last updated in 2026, are both marked public domain in the USA.

What may be changed, and what we did not change

Public domain means you may change a text. It does not mean you should, and the honest thing is to say exactly what was touched. In ours the sequence of words in the PDF equals the sequence of words in the body of the source file, and that is checked twice, once at download and once in the finished PDF.

What is left out is the bookkeeping around the text: the transcription's own header and footer, the opening block with the title, author and contents list, and the lines carrying illustration file names. Line breaks are reflowed, words marked with underscores in the transcription are set in italics, and common indentation of multi-line blocks is removed. The spelling and punctuation of the transcription stay as they are, and nothing is added, cut or modernised.

The part that is easy to leave out

The same texts are offered free of charge as EPUB by Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks. If that suits your reader, take it.

What is paid for in a file like ours is the typesetting for an e-ink page, the band for notes with a pen, the page numbers and the linked contents in a PDF, and our listing says so in its own block. Also on the honest side of the ledger: neither file has been opened on a physical reMarkable, Kindle Scribe, Boox or Supernote.

Frequently asked questions

Can I sell a public domain novel myself?

The work being out of copyright is only the first question; the second is the terms on the copy you started from. Project Gutenberg's licence allows use of the underlying public domain work if all references to Project Gutenberg are removed, and otherwise asks a royalty of 20 percent of gross profits.

Why does your PDF not credit Project Gutenberg?

Because that is the condition of using the text without a royalty, and a check over the finished file verifies that the words are absent. The source is recorded in the manifest and in the listing instead, outside the work.

Is the text the original or a modern edition?

It is a transcription of a nineteenth century edition, unchanged in wording, with the spelling and punctuation of that transcription kept.

Where to look next

Both titles are set on a 157 by 210 millimetre page with a band for notes and a linked contents, at 4.90 € a title, and each listing carries a free sample of the first three chapters. If you want a puzzle rather than a novel, the ten printable puzzle books hold 100 puzzles each with their solutions at 4.90 € a book.

Sources. The facts in this note are numbered after our internal fact list and were checked on the publication date. If a source has changed since, write to support@arling.sk and we will correct this page.