Does anybody know the law regarding selling custom and modified books?

>No, it is not legal, nor is it to sell editions of classics that are published by people other than yourself because those editions themselves are in copyright.

I thought with classics, they entered public domain after x amount of years, just like music enters public domain. I thought the only issue would be a modern translation and things like forewords and notes from other authors, but just the body of work itself, say Macbeth, is in the public domain and not owned by any specific publishers, which is why penguin and Random House and all the other publishers have copies; and anybody is free to do with it as they wish.

The top row here are the Barnes and Noble leather bound collection. They picked a whole range of books that were published before 19xx, whenever the current copyright year is, or however many years after the death of the author.

The second row are cloth bound books from Juniper publishers. Again, they only picked old works that I didn't think would be covered by copyright.

The third row are just some clay covers.

Obviously, the biggest cash cow would be a spectacular cover; clay, leather, cloth or print, for 50 Shades, Harry Potter, ASoIaF, Twilight, various others. Neither Barnes and Noble, Juniper, or the many other houses doing fancy designs wont touch anything contemporary and only covered old classic, and I thought that was a copyright Issue.

>Do you think that would be profitable in OP's case? I don't think that the licence for Harry Potter is cheap...
With something like Harry Potter, I thought I would be okay keeping the original text how it is and just recovering the book. I'm never going to get permission or a licence from Bloomsbury Publishing. But I can't see how I would be infinging copyright by legally buying a copy, "drawing on the cover", then selling it as a second hand book on my own site, Abebooks, ebay, Etsy or wherever.

the only way that you could create a completely copyright-free book is if you used the text from a work in the public domain, printed and bound it yourself, and then designed the covers. if a publisher prints a work in the public domain, there is an issue of copyright because they printed that edition.

i can't comment on anything else, though

Speaking of custom covers, I really love this copy of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. It has a match for the 1, and a coarse spine to strike it against.

My guess: if it stays a a small scale business making hand-made covers and sell one or two a week, nobody will give a shit.

If it gets really popular and set up a factory in China mass producing them and they sell a lot, the publisher's legal team will find a way to sue or shut down the company regardless of whether it's technically legal or not because they don't want competition.

Damn, I really want that book.

please stop being so needlessly verbose
we all know what copyright is, you don't have to provide an example illustrating your paranoia everytime.

the other problem with your shit personality is your inherent self-centered perspective, be it narcissm or some messiah complex or whatever.
Rebind some fucking books and put them up on etsy. If you see other people do it, it's probably fine for you to do it. Worst case scenario, you get your item delisted and then receive a cease and desist.
Trust me, the rest of the world isn't aware of and doesn't care about your meaningless existence and isn't watching your every move. You'll have to become much more successful in life before anything you do gets you real life altering repercussions.

I feel for you. Really. You may be a stranger venting online, but it feels like you're in a dark place.

If you're usually this tetchy, try playing with your diet and get some regular exercise. Seriously, perhaps switch to ketones, or a high-fat-low-carb, and most importantly, exercise. The endorphins, dopamine, serotonin; they'll have you feeling a lot better. Perhaps a hobby in your spare time too, like one of mine. In my free time, I design and build motorbikes, guitars, and recently, covers for books I like.

If you're just having a bad day, or you've had some bad news or luck, just try to relax a bit. No matter how bad things may seem now, things often get better with time if you have the right focus, outlook and mentality. Honestly, I hope there are people around you who love you and I hope you find a smile soon.

2 bad the book sucks ass

There's zero issue if it's done as selling a service of customizing rather than resale of actual physical product. The tradeoff is that its logistics are comparatively a giant hassle (sending/receiving the book in both directions, payment/refunds, etc.)

I want some like this. I'll pay for it. I want a 3D:
-Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Thompson
-The Name of The Rose, Eco
-Ask The Dust, Fante
-The Magus, Fowles
-And Godel Escher, Bach,because you can probably do sth really cool with that

Maybe a Lord of The Rings trilogy and a 1984 too

It's legal.

Let's take KatsuKity as an example. Videogames, but if Nintendo is known for anything it's their predatory legal team, so there's that.

So, KatsuKity, a company in Japan, sells modded 3DS and Vitas, or you can give them your own 3DS/Vita and they'll mod it for $200. The mod is a port that allows you to output video to a computer, and the software can record gameplay and output video to HDMI so you can play your handheld games on a TV. And after years in the market, they haven't had any legal issues I know of.

You would be offering a similar service. The two facets of your business would be either as a reseller (if you buy the books you'll modify yourself) or a customizer (if your customers send you their own books for you to hardcover). Reselling isn't illegal. Reproducing is, but you wouldn't be reproducing anything. You'd be modifying and reselling, or customizing. So you shouldn't have any issues.

As you can see from this thread, it could actually be somewhat popular too. Say, you could put up a website for people to get in touch with you and, if they agree with your terms, they could send you their own editions for you to modify. I can't see any legal issues with that.

nice work, bro
but honestly, it is ugly as fuck

looks more like a b-movie prop than the kind of book I would use to decorate my shelf.

Not OP, but I really like the Idea.

I think these two are beautiful. I don't like any of these at all That stitched b-movie face could be World War Z or sth. But I dunno, I just like the idea of a really fancy book cover design. I feel like a leather and metal steampunk vibe could work. It all depends on the materials. If I ordered one, I'd want an orange penguin classics style with only the white part in the middle as some funky ass design, and the top and bottom orange parts as embossed leather.

Polymer Clay. Like plasticine that you bake dry. Do you think customers will even want the text? It's too impractical to read and it's just an aesthetic piece to sit on the bookshelf. Just like a poster of your favourite book cover... If a customer wants a copy of the Stranger by Camus, will they really care if the text is there or just want that aesthetic looking cover?

Just make covers and sell them seperatly.

How do you even store it or read it without rubbing that shit color all over you or breaking shit off? It's pure kitsch for people who just want to show off their books instead of actually reading them.

On a second tought, they are HP books, so I'm not surprised.

>keyhole is closed by wood
>key attached to the book
>key chain to short to reach it
>key can't be used as a bookmark without leaving marks on the pages
>the spine is softcover and, ook will just break in two due to the weight difference
>crown and flowers will break of by the first try to read it

Just by a snow globe and be done with it you pseud.

.I think these are intended to be ornamental. I have a Kindle so have no need for any of my physical books, but I'd probably buy one as a bookend. The leather Harry Potter ones in the OP are disgusting, but if I found a copy of one of my favorite novels made like some of the porcelain ones ITT, I'd buy one.

I'd much rather have a simple and elegant leatherbound book than anything like this desu

They look like trash. The usual etsy seller which things his shitty art skills will earn him a living, buyed by people which think anime fan art in small canvas squares are a nice bedroom decoration.

good god this is gay

>good god this is gay
>naked female gently sticking her ass in the air

I've never heard of Etsy before reading this thread. Just had a look and it's fucking flooded with ridiculous "polymer clay Journals" for twenty to fifty dollars, made by delusional art students and bored housewives. I can't find one novel either. A couple of books look almost passable but most of them are equivalent to a 3yo with a crayon trying to paint the Mona Lisa.

What I meant was... sometimes less means more, the work is not bad, it is actually very cool, but it goes too much.

hnnnnnnng

I wanna fuck the fairy!

The Real answer is it doesn't matter. Even if it was 100% legal, if the company decides to sue you'd never be able to afford to defend yourself in court, so you just have to give in to their demand.