No. The ideas and the knowledge in the book don't fall under copyright, the concrete expression does.

But the more interesting point is how they use the names of well-known people. They try to pass Elon Musk and Bill Gates off as affiliated with their site.

I'd say there's a pretty good argument that this is illegal and could be shut down hard.

Those well-known people are not affiliated with me. These are just book recommendations by those people. And I did put their images on purpose as it makes the site more community looking and trustworthy. Should I mention that I have no affiliation with those founders/ceos?

There's nothing wrong with using legal pictures of people. and quotes, but I would just add attribution to the source of the quotes. And statement at the bottom about the company not being affiliated or endorsed by these people.

I think it gets very close to presenting those people as the authors of summaries/book recommendations on the site.

That‘s what I thought on my first visit, anyway.

Depending how the site is further developed, especially when the summaries are available (they aren‘t, yet, are they?), this concern might disappear. Right now, I wouldn‘t be comfortable running it.

I interpreted it the same way too. It looks like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg wrote those summaries. It is blurring the lines between prototype and product.

The summaries are currently available after starting the trial. I think it needs more work to show those people didn't contribute those book summaries but rather recommended those books.

Cool. So I can take your book, summarize, sell the summary without having to get your permission first?

The same thing is true for podcasts etc then? Say, I summarize 2 hour podcast into 15 mins?

Writing down your thoughts and selling them is perfectly fine and legal in most places. Even if those are thoughts you had after reading a specific book and those thoughts are about the content of that book.

Haven't you ever heard of Cliff Notes?

Yes? Provided you're using your own words rather than making large direct excerpts.

Yes you can. Until and unless you are using your own words. Same goes for podcasts.

Until and unless one is not using the original content from the books as is, there is no copyright issue. I am though worried about using the book covers as they might be an issue. But for now as indie maker I am going with it. If I get a legal notification from someone then will remove the cover images.