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In the United States, everything published before 1930 is in the public domain. That date moves forward one year every 1 January. As of 2026 the line sits at 1930, so a book published in 1929 is free and one published in 1930 is not yet.

Works from 1930 to 1963 are a separate case: they entered the public domain unless their copyright was actively renewed, and most were not renewed. This is why a few 20th-century titles appear in this library that look like they should still be in copyright. Project Gutenberg does that clearance work before posting a file, which is the practical reason to prefer their editions.

Age applies to the edition you are holding, not the work. The Bhagavad Gita is ancient; a translation published in 2019 is fully copyrighted. Every translation in this library is an old one, and that is the constraint that shapes the whole religious texts shelf — you get Rodwell's 1861 Qur'an rather than a modern scholarly translation, because Rodwell is free and the modern one is not.

• Download, keep, and copy the files.
• Convert between formats and strip or add DRM-free metadata.
• Put them on any number of devices, and give copies to anyone.
• Read them aloud, record them, perform them, quote them at any length.
• Edit, abridge, translate, annotate, or build something new on top.
• Print and sell them. This is the part most people do not realise is allowed. Public-domain reprints are a real business, and the whole Dover Publications catalogue was built on it.

• Somebody else's new work on an old text. A modern introduction, a fresh translation, restored artwork, or a scholarly apparatus can carry its own copyright even when the underlying text is free. Take the old text; leave the new wrapper.
• Trademarks. Copyright expiry does not release a trademark. You can print and sell Peter Pan; you cannot use a studio's logo or character design on the cover.
• The Project Gutenberg name. The texts are free, but the trademark is not. Strip the Project Gutenberg header and licence and you may do anything with the text; leave it in and you accept their licence terms. Their own licence says exactly this.
• Other countries. These are US rules. Most of these books are also free in the EU, UK, Canada and Australia — those use "life of the author plus 70 years", or plus 50 in some places — but the arithmetic is different and occasionally gives a different answer. A US-cleared book is not automatically clear everywhere.
• Scans are not always neutral. Some archives assert rights over their own scans of a public-domain book. US courts have generally held that a faithful reproduction of a flat work gets no new copyright, but the claim still gets made. Prefer a text edition over a scan when you plan to republish.

If the aim is to print and sell these, a few things follow from the above:

• Start from a text edition, not a page scan, so nobody has a scan-rights argument and the typesetting is yours.
• Project Gutenberg's plain text files are the cleanest starting point. Remove their header and footer first.
• The value you add is the edition: typesetting, cover, introduction, notes, selection, binding. That work is yours and is copyrightable.
• Religious texts specifically are steady sellers and are almost all public domain, which is why the same handful of titles is reprinted by dozens of publishers.

• The Reading Room — the library itself.
• Book Archives — where the files come from.
• E-readers and Kindle — getting a file onto a device.