Quote:
Originally Posted by grimo1re
My husband's written a novel that he wants to put out there in the public domain.
|
Worth noting: "available for free to anyone in the public" is not the same as "in the public domain."
He can release it with a
Creative Commons license, to allow anyone to copy it for free, but he retains his copyright ownership--so someone else can't turn around and sell the movie rights, for example. There are other options--he can just give away free copies and retain full copyright control; if he does that, people aren't allowed to give those copies to other people without his consent.
But "public domain" is a specific legal term in regards to creative works; it means *nobody* owns the rights to that work, and *anyone* is allowed to use it, for any purpose.
He can release his work into the public domain--but he certainly doesn't have to, in order to give away free copies or even allow people to make derivative works from them. It's important to be aware of the difference, because once a work is in the public domain, it can't be reclaimed by the author later.
(P.S. I'm glad he's getting help with the formatting; we love it when authors want to make their books available as well-formatted ebooks!)