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Complicated licensing and usage instructions

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yoelepst

Junior Member
I have written a book, and I want to include a rather complicated copyright and licensing agreement in it. I wonder if this is legally possible or enforceable. Here is the agreement that I want:

1. The text of the book is copyrighted, with all rights reserved, to me.
2. The illustrations are licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 license (commercial use permitted, attribution required. The attribution must include both the name of the book and the author, and the name of the illustrator.
3. The author allows readers to reproduce and distribute individual pages of the book for their own use or for the use of their students. Reproduction of the book in its entirety is strictly forbidden.

Is this possible? Thanks for any help you can give.

Regards,

yoelepst
 


FlyingRon

Senior Member
Certainly. By default, copyrighted material can't be copied at all (except under limited fair use). If you want to allow exceptions to that you can.
There's no requirement to mark anything you create as copyrighted (anymore), but almost everybody does to put people on notice.
If you have included someone else's CC work (without separate permission), your license with them almost certainly requires you to identify their work and add the CC licensing information.
You can certainly put in your copying conditions on your original material. You can't obviously make any rules that are more or less that what the illustrator specifies for his work via the CC license.
 

quincy

Senior Member
I have written a book, and I want to include a rather complicated copyright and licensing agreement in it. I wonder if this is legally possible or enforceable. Here is the agreement that I want:

1. The text of the book is copyrighted, with all rights reserved, to me.
2. The illustrations are licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 license (commercial use permitted, attribution required. The attribution must include both the name of the book and the author, and the name of the illustrator.
3. The author allows readers to reproduce and distribute individual pages of the book for their own use or for the use of their students. Reproduction of the book in its entirety is strictly forbidden.

Is this possible? Thanks for any help you can give.

Regards,

yoelepst
What is the name of your state or, if not in the US, what is the name of your country?

In the US, the "fair use doctrine" allows for the limited use of copyrighted material for certain purposes with or without a formal agreement between copyright holder and user. Fair use will often allow for limited use and copying for educational purposes. Copying for some personal uses can also fall under fair use. The unauthorized use of another's copyrighted material for commercial purposes is rarely a fair use.

When using works belonging to others, to best ensure your use doesn't infringe on the copyright holder 's rights, you should acquire permission to use the material and you must be careful not to exceed the permission granted you by the holder of the rights.

Whenever you are drafting an agreement that you want to be legally binding on all parties, it is smart to have the agreement personally reviewed by a legal professional. We cannot do personal reviews of contracts/agreements on this forum. For this, you should seek out legal assistance in whateve area of the world you happen to reside.

The laws on copyrights vary in significant ways from country to country so it is important to look to the laws of your country. These are the laws under which you will be sued should someone take exception to the contents of your book and your use of the copyrighted works of others.

Good luck.
 

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