[header] How to get digital rights to a book [title] Determine the copyright status of the book. [step] If the book is no longer subject to copyright protection, anyone can publish or distribute it without needing to get permission. [substeps] Copyright doesn't last forever. 
After the copyright expires, a book falls into the public domain and anyone can publish it. As a general rule, anything published in the united states before 1923 is in the public domain.