First, the general disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer and can’t offer legal advice.
Second, if you plan on creating Public Domain products, you must have this on your bookshelf: “The Public Domain: How to Find & Use Copyright-free Writings, Music, Art & More.“
An interesting source of public domain info is the FBI’s Electronic Reading Room via the Freedom of Information Act.
There, you’ll find dozens and dozens of declassified files ranging from famous persons to espionage to unusual phenomenon in the form of conveniently packaged PDFs.
Since these reports were declassified and paid for US tax payer dollars, they are part of the public domain and you can bundle or package them as you wish and sell as your own products.
As an example, a seller on Amazon has bundled the lot of FBI files on The Beatles and turned them into a product.
Mind you, some of these PDFs are extremely hard on the eyes as well as appearing convoluted due to cross outs, fading, signatures and stamps. But they are an original source of data on many popular people and topics.
One approach is to hire a competent transcriptionist/editor to clean them up for you. If you’ve edited or bundled them in a unique way, you can claim a copyright for yourself.
Too bad the FBI reading room link doesn’t work any more. Great idea though.
Hey NJ, I like your Facebook photos. 🙂 Hope life is treating you well!
Lawrence,
One of the best blogs on the Internet.
Halbert had written that the best way to learn to write persuasively was to retype a classic ad every day. I did it for years when I was building my business, then got away from the habit only to see my productivity slide.
Deciding to restart the habit, I found your site. Thanks for your outstanding work!
Here’s a good link to the FBI reading room: http://vault.fbi.gov/reading-room-index
Thanks Alan!! I’ll be spending time @ the reading room!