legal

Illegal Derivative Works

Published on August 18, 2010

This week, I received an email asking me to comment on a situation regarding textbook publishers suing individuals for publishing “answers to homework problems.” It’s briefly discussed on techdirt.com HERE. In a nutshell, some publishers of textbooks are suing authors/publishers of guides that contain answers to the questions in those textbooks, claiming they are derivative works. I have to agree. When someone else uses your original work for profit it is, well, just plain wrong, and very likely illegal.

An Author / Attorney Protects His Copyright By Harvey Randall

Published on July 29, 2009

It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon when I began scanning one of the several Internet law blogs that I read with some degree of regularity.
The post happened to be a bit longer than normal and as I scrolled down I noticed a reference to two of my books published by BookLocker in the blog’s right sidebar. Thinking that this might be a link to BookLocker’s site on which these books are listed or, perhaps, a review by a reader, I clicked on the first title, The Discipline Book.
Instead of a link to BookLocker, which publishes a number of my books, or a review, I was greeted by the book’s title page. Hmmm, I thought as I scrolled down, perhaps the blogger has posted some examples from the text. Not so, I quickly learned. Instead of seeing a review, or a link to BookLocker, or an excerpt or two from the book, I was confounded to see the entire text of the book, all 564 pages of it, posted on the site.

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