How to charge for free things

I've got an upbeat post after the last few downers - Amazon has found a way to charge for free content in a manner I find acceptable.

Shocking!

As detailed here, Amazon is offering classic texts (IE texts that can be legally downloaded for free) with built in commentary and analysis. Personally, I hate built in commentary and analysis, but I also have a memory that lets me make associations from books years after I read them (It's not as cool as it sounds, you end up making strange references at parties and looking awkward.)

Now, MacBeth is free, it belongs to all of us now, but $2.39 for MacBeth and Commentary seems like a decent deal.

Certainly a better deal than this version for $0.99 - you ran the text through an auto-formatter, for that you think you deserve a dollar?

Or this version where for $1.75 you can get less than the entire play, which is free.

It seems that Amazon's Kindle store is still a goldrush for people who want to get paid for stealing from the public domain. At least Shmoop is giving you something in return.

For profiting by stealing from the public domain - kindle fail!