How would it be fraud? Do you understand what not having copyright means?

Not having copyright would not mean the ability to lie about the authorship of public domain content without repercussions.

No one said anything about changing authorship; the poster farther up the thread could certainly make money selling those books up on Amazon with the original author's name intact.

Regardless, though, what repercussions are you referring to? There are no legal repercussions for taking public domain works and pretending you created them. Sure, there are potential social repercussions, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here.

Note what beej said, he didn't say anything about putting his own name on the books. Only that he'd sell them and pocket the money

Certainly there would be repercussions in terms of credibility, but what legal repercussions could be brought to bear? Non-copyright is public domain--it belongs to you and me to do with as we please, including putting another name on it. Try printing Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ by MacsHeadroom and no one will stop you.

(For the record, I would never sell another author's copyrighted work without permission. And I'd certainly never stick my name on something I didn't write because I value my reputation. But just because _I_ wouldn't doesn't mean people wouldn't. I'd bet plenty of money that they most certainly would.)

> Not having copyright would not mean the ability to lie about the authorship of public domain content without repercussions.

Yes it would.

Droit Moral is part of copyright.