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One of my hobbies is looking at printed books of clearly public domain material and laughing hysterically at the copyright page claiming that no part of this book may be redistributed blah blah blah.
Be grateful that I don't have the hobby of finding the publisher of such copyright maximalist garbage and shoving said pages up their respective bottoms.
Yet.
Presumably, they're claiming copyright for the typesetting and/or editing they've done.
I know that Project Gutenberg uses pre-1923 physical books as sources or references. I assume it's for that reason.
I have a paperback somewhere of The Three Musketeers from Baen (I think) that only claims copyright for the introduction they added.
@suetanvil Right. I've also seen where they have an introduction that they've added, or their particular compilation.