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Question: Can I publicly share these 'Public Domain' books from Lulu?

In order to tackle the potential x and y problem I want to also share why I want to do this. I am working with a kind of theology club and we would like to read and debate many works like The Problem of Pain and Mere Christianity among many other works.

I plan to purchase these books through Lulu as they are DRM free and Virus Free.
However, can I still share these with the rest of club or add a download link on the website?

Lulu does appear to list their Copyright as Public Domain.
However, does purchasing them from Lulu affect that in any way?

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I would recommend writing the author and requesting permission. There's likely not much anyone would do if you refused, but you could certainly lose access to the site, and it sounds like the site is helpful for you.

From their TOU:

Restrictions on Use of Content

If you purchase Content from the Site (including receipt of free Content), you agree to the following restrictions with respect to such acquired Content and the information contained therein:

  • You can resell physical copies of Content (e.g., printed books) you have purchased;
  • You may not resell any other Content or otherwise profit from its use or display;
  • Sharing, copying, adapting, redistributing, reconfiguring, modifying or creating derivative works from the Content is permissible only if expressly permitted by the author of the Content and only to the extent so permitted. You agree to abide by any restrictions included with the Content;
  • The Content owners who sell Content through Lulu retain ownership of the copyrights or other licenses in the Content. You agree not to allow any other party to: resell, redistribute, sublicense, assign, delegate, or otherwise transfer the Content, any part thereof, or any related rights or obligations hereunder, to any third party except as may be expressly allowed in the terms under which the Content is provided to you; and
  • You will not remove or obscure any proprietary rights notices contained in or on the Content.

http://www.lulu.com/about/legal#restrictions

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    Sadly, I do not have enough points to just put this in a comment, but C.S. Lewis is dead. Maybe this adds complexity to your answer. wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis#Illness_and_death
    – Joe
    Commented Nov 27, 2019 at 23:14
  • Ask Lulu who has to approve it in this case. It's their terms, so they are the ones who decide whether you can use that version or not. There are also many other places to get copies of those books.
    – Lisa
    Commented Nov 28, 2019 at 4:43

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