General Book Uploads Posting Guidelines

[waller4343]

I'm a newbie to ebooks, I'm not familiar with the posting system in your forum, my search skills are obviously nil since I can't find the answer that I'm sure is here someplace and I'm lost. I have tried to upload my book twice and I guessed wrong both times. I sure would appreciate a hint of where to start. Well, maybe more than a hint. I know to use mangage uploads, I just can't find the right manage uploads.

Thanks in advance.

[HarryT]

Go to the appropriate forum (the forum itself, not a thread with it) - eg the "ePub Books" forum if you want to upload an ePub book - and click the "New Thread" button at the top left. Write your message describing the book (use the correct thread naming convention, please!), then click the "Manage Attachments" button below the post editor to add the book.

[waller4343]

Thanks Harry. I knew it would be simple and easy.

[amoroso]

Originally Posted by HarryT

5. Please respect copyrights, and don't post (or request) anything that's not in the public domain in at least one of the major public domain book collections - eg "Project Gutenberg" (PG) or "Project Gutenberg Australia" - without the clear advance permission of the copyright holder.

Is it possible to post books licensed under Creative Commons?

[Jellby]

Yes, as long as the Creative Commons license allows you to post it, and MR to host it.

[carlb]

I'd like to upload an entire 2008 schools encyclopaedia (15 ePub volumes with an average of 365 articles and 50 megabytes in each volume, for a total of 5500 "chapters") but this site limits each uploaded file to twenty megabytes.

Am I best to post them elsewhere and just link to them from here? I've just dumped the whole mess on http://epub.wikipedia.cx for the time being, but would have liked to post them here directly were it not for the size limitations; the set is sized for a compact disc in its previous form, so even at 5500 articles these are hefty volumes by Kobo standards.

[Psymon]

Um, I'm a bit confused. I've been reading through this thread, as well as various other related threads elsewhere here in the forums, and if I upload an ebook for others to download, am I effectively relinquishing my rights (copyright) to it?

To explain a bit further... I've been working for the whole summer on a Shakespeare anthology (a selection of some of his plays and poems), a digital transcription of the First Folio edition (and other first editions), along with a couple of rarely-ever-published works by other authors.

I realize that Shakespeare is public domain, however, much of those digital transcriptions -- and all of the formatting, etc. -- are my own efforts, and hence copyrightable by me (just in the same way that any major print publisher could come out with a "new" book of public domain Shakespeare plays, but their efforts in the "new" format, etc. are their copyright).

I'm a bit confused here as to whether Mobileread itself considers anything I upload here automatically in the public domain, simply because I'm willing to share it here???

PLUS, I also saw a mention here in another thread (somewhere) that there's people and/or companies out there "stealing" books from here, and then putting them up in other places (like online stores), possibly even ripping off other peoples' efforts and passing them off as their own.

I would LOVE to share my book here, if only to share it especially with all those gurus who have been of so much help to me in the creation of it (and other, previous books I've done over the years), but these above concerns really, well, concern me.

[HarryT]

I'm afraid that the amount of effort you've put into something has no impact on its copyright status. If a work is in the public domain, it's in the public domain, and putting in a lot of work making it look nice won't change that. If you've added something original to your Shakespeare volume, such as an introduction, or footnotes, then those elements and those alone will be protected by copyright, but the actual text of the poems or plays will not be. So, if you want to prevent someone from copying your entire book, write a short introduction for it. That way nobody will (legally) be able to resell the book without your permission, although there'll be nothing to stop them from editing the book, removing the introduction, and then reselling it, of course.

You can upload a book to MR on whatever terms you wish, although if you claim copyright where no valid copyright exists (formatting isn't protected by copyright!), you'll have no valid claim against anyone who uses your book in a manner that displeases you.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm afraid that the amount of effort you've put into something has no impact on its copyright status. If a work is in the public domain, it's in the public domain, and putting in a lot of work making it look nice won't change that. If you've added something original to your Shakespeare volume, such as an introduction, or footnotes, then those elements and those alone will be protected by copyright, but the actual text of the poems or plays will not be.

Well, I understand that reasoning, but how is it that print book publishers do claim copyright on books of Shakespeare plays (or whatever else in the public domain), and claiming it on the "entire" book, not just the cover or intro or anything else that is new/original?

Plus, in my cases, the sources of my book are in the public domain, but I've made texual emendations throughout the work -- correcting spelling errors that were made in those early 16th/17th century editions, etc.

And the same goes for the graphics I've used for illustrations. In the same sense, I've used public domain woodcuts, but each have been modified (size, shape, cropping, colour, adding shadow, etc.) and surely those would similarly now have my own copyright -- indeed, hypothetically, I could paint a moustache on the Mona Lisa and claim it to be a "new" piece of art, of my own copyright (think of Andy Warhol's soup cans, too, or whatever else).

And if graphic design is copyrightable, why not typographic design, i.e. just the overall coding and layout for my book, regardless of whether or not I'd made any changes to the actual text at all?

I'm assuming you're not a lawyer (although perhaps you are, I don't know!) but I guess these are the things I wonder about.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Well, I understand that reasoning, but how is it that print book publishers do claim copyright on books of Shakespeare plays (or whatever else in the public domain), and claiming it on the "entire" book, not just the cover or intro or anything else that is new/original?

They can claim whatever they want, and I guess they do by default and to scare people. Whether that claim would hold in court, that's a different matter.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by Jellby

They can claim whatever they want, and I guess they do by default and to scare people. Whether that claim would hold in court, that's a different matter.

I think you're wrong -- and, indeed, I think I'm right.

See this...

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Psymon

I think you're wrong -- and, indeed, I think I'm right.

(after writing this I noticed it may look argumentative or confrontational, but that wasn't my intent: take it with interspersed smileys and as a tongue-in-cheek comment)

First, copyright laws may change from country to country. Second, I didn't say the copyright notice is right or wrong, I just said that the law is probably independent of what the copyright notice says. Third, according to that document, you can only copyright your "selection" of plays and poems (if there is any creativity involved, not if they are just all his late works, or something like that), but I would say your changes don't qualify as derivative works, because the apparently don't "add new original copyrightable authorship to that work". Note that even if the selection is copyrighted, "the copyright in a compilation of data extends only to the selection, coordination or arrangement of the materials or data, but not to the data itself".

[HarryT]

At the end of the day, as Jellby says, you can make whatever copyright claims you want, but it boils down to a judge's decision should you decide to sue someone for copyright infringement. Copyright protection requires creativity; "mechanical" processes such as correcting spelling mistakes are not copyrightable. You could argue that your selection of material is a creative process; a judge may or may not agree with you.

My honest advice would be that if the thought of someone redistributing your book worries you, don't upload it (and I say that as someone who's created hundreds of ebooks and seen them copied and resold by unscrupulous people out to make a fast buck). Once you upload it to any public site like MR, it's no longer in your control.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by Jellby

(after writing this I noticed it may look argumentative or confrontational, but that wasn't my intent: take it with interspersed smileys and as a tongue-in-cheek comment)

Ditto on my reply, too, actually! I was thinking afterwards that perhaps I might have come across as "confrontational" as well -- ha ha.

I would say your changes don't qualify as derivative works, because the apparently don't "add new original copyrightable authorship to that work". Note that even if the selection is copyrighted, "the copyright in a compilation of data extends only to the selection, coordination or arrangement of the materials or data, but not to the data itself".

You bring up a good quote from that article, but note the sentence that comes right after that one:

"In the case of a collective work containing 'preexisting works' — works that were previously published, previously registered, or in the public domain — the registration will only extend to the selection, coordination or arrangement of those works, not to the preexisting works themselves."

Unless I'm reading that wrong, then I would think that "selection, coordination or arrangement of those works" would indeed mean not only which plays and poems of Shakespeare's (in this particular case) that I choose to use in my book, but "coordination and arrangement" would also mean the coding of it, the typography and layout of it, etc., too. So that would be copyrightable (although, as you say, laws vary from country to country).

Also, there are various other books ("e" and otherwise) and also websites out there that have copied the First Folio texts verbatim -- including all the really rather obvious spelling errors that aren't just variations in spelling, but simply booboos of the typesetters in those olde-time binderies -- and it's these latter (among other things) that I endeavoured to fix up. I should think that that would be worthy of merit enough to be copyrightable.

(To use another example, a previous collection of ebooks that I did was of Henry David Thoreau's writings. While I used public domain versions of those, over the last few decades Princeton University has been working on THE most "authoritative" versions of his works, poring over his texts and fixing up any errors and omissions, etc. -- much, much more work than I've put into this book of mine, of course, but nobody would say that they don't deserve credit and copyright for their efforts simply because the original texts are all in the public domain.)

With all that said, to Harry's reply now...

Originally Posted by HarryT

My honest advice would be that if the thought of someone redistributing your book worries you, don't upload it (and I say that as someone who's created hundreds of ebooks and seen them copied and resold by unscrupulous people out to make a fast buck). Once you upload it to any public site like MR, it's no longer in your control.

That's really very, very disheartening, actually. I've put in so much time and effort into this Shakespeare book, and I'm really very happy with how it's turned out (I think I'm pretty much done now, anyway) and the forums -- and people -- here have been of so much invaluable help to me. I would love to just simply share what I did... but there are certain aspects of my book that are fairly "new" and not easily available elsewhere. For example, I created a brand-new digital version of Robert Chester's Love's Martyr book in its entirety, which has only very rarely ever been printed anywhere, and I was only able to find a single other ebook version of on amazon -- and I wouldn't be surprised if that one looks like crap. I created mine from scratch, poring over every single line, every word, every letter, and taking the rather wacky formatting of the original and transforming it into one that works for ebooks. I would really, really hate for someone else to just come along, steal my code, and then start selling it elsewhere.

And so it's really too bad, that this is the case here. I was going to put it up on the iTunes Store and give it away for free there, but at least there they add the (admittedly-nominal) protection of DRM. It's a shame we're not "allowed" to share links to our books from other places (iTunes, amazon, off a personal website or whatever the case might be), if that's the only place for people to get them -- indeed, I've probably broken the rules already here by even mentioning that I'm "going to" make my book available on iTunes for free, without even giving a link.

Oh well.

[HarryT]

It doesn't matter where you upload it: here, Smashwords, iTunes, Amazon, wherever. I'm afraid there'll always be people who'll take advantage of you. I'm certainly not saying that MR is any worse in that regard than anywhere else. For me the pleasure is in sharing my creations and I don't let the scumbags spoil that. I enjoy creating ebooks, and the pleasure I get from seeing other people appreciate them far outweighs the minor irritation of seeing the nasty people exploit them. That's why I created and why I run MR's ebook library.