The inherent problem is that crowd-funding systems (and I should disclose that I've supported...oh dear, over two hundred projects...wow, but my point is that, as a consumer, I love the service) is that it only covers the money end, and a lot of project require a lot of know-how. Jim rightly points out that you need to know where to get certain things printed, for example. Also keep in mind that Kickstarter is a "curated collection" in many ways: They don't police the projects once they're funded, but a non-specific goal or something they think has no chance of getting funding (since it wastes their resources) won't get onto the site.
To answer Jim's question and give a basic rundown, each project has a funding goal. If they can raise pledges for that much money, they get it (minus processing fees), and if they can't, none of the donors are charged. The better projects use gifts/incentives to raise the pledges in the PBS vein (i.e., pledge more than X and you'll get a branded unique-but-cheap thing) if there's not a product in the conventional sense (say, starting a community garden) or basically use the system to take pre-orders when there is.
(Of course, while it thankfully hasn't happened to me, yet, there are projects that take the money and then...nothing happens. They can't secure IP rights or prices have skyrocketed or there's a family crisis and they never deliver. There's no recourse, since the gift/reward system means that you're not actually entering into a contract for goods delivered, so buyer beware. I've had great experiences, which is why I've donated to an absurd number of projects, whereas others are understandably angry.)
In any case, the bottom line is that anybody is allowed to publish public domain content however they like, but not everybody's cut out to make a business out of it. We're all allowed to produce concrete houses, too, since Edison's patents expired about eighty years ago, but the logistics and economic realities keep us from giving it a shot.
