Doing more with copyright

Until very recently, copyright was very black and white. Your book was your intellectual property. As a writer publishing independently, you always own the copyright. The copyright law says that its your property and no-one can use it in any way.

However, there are many cases where there is a great deal of benefit to be had from sharing the content you create. For instance, a business writer may like others to quote from their work as a means of establishing their credentials as an expert. Previously, you would probably have had to hire lawyers to sort out how this type of sharing could happen.

Now, a non-profit organisation, Creative Commons, have introduced new copyright licenses that allow you to set the level of sharing of your content you will allow. Spire Publishing supports four Creative Commons licences:

CC Attribution license

Others can copy, distribute and make derivative works as long as they properly attribute the original author. Under this license, others can use your content for commercial purposes.

CC Attribution NoDerivs license

Others can copy and distribute your work but cannot alter it in any way or make derivatives from it. The author must be properly attributed. Under this license, others can use your content for commercial purposes.

CC Attribution Non-commercial license

Exactly the same as the Attribution licenses, only those using your content can’t do it for commercial purposes.

CC Attribution Non-commercial NoDerivs license

Exactly the same as the Attribution NoDerivs licenses, only those using your content can’t do it for commercial purposes.

If you wish to use a Creative Commons license, simply select the one you want when you submit your manuscript.

This is how the license will look like:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.