Public Domain Material on the Web

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Wisconsin

I want to put public domain books on a website and charge people to access those works. I will use original illustrations where possible, possible create illustrations where needed. I will also modify font and other ascetic aspects of the works to fit my needs. Can I charge people access (either by subscription or by access to a single work) without any issues?

Thanks...
Jeff...

Not meaning to rain on your parade, but why should I pay you to access material that I can read for free on Project Gutenberg?

Great question and I appreciate the fast response. However, without an NDA, lets just say that there will be value add that you can't get on Gutenberg that an individual would be willing to pay a fee to access...in the proprietary manner in which we will present the work. We'll also be doing copyrighted works, but that's a well-known process. We just want to confirm the PD side of the equation.

Thanks!
Jeff...

You can do what you want with public domain (and you'd best make sure you are in the public domain). Of course, what you also can't do is keep people from copying your copies of public domain works and doing what they want. Your mild treatments may not be enough to make your derivative works protectable (and the underlying work isn't going to suddenly become copyright by incorporation).

You also need to make sure you're not violating trademarks on certain of the works. There's also some assertions on characters developed in series that part of the works were PD and some are copyright. However, this generally has been resolved in the favor of not extending copyright protection for those introduced in PD works. You can google the litigation on the Sherlock Holmes characters if you want some insight on that.