Hello, everyone.
Yesterday, someone from CreateSpace's content validation request team
emailed me to ask for validation that we (I) own the copyright to the
Ubuntu manuals I've been publishing through CreateSpace.
I assured her that we did own the copyright and, further, that the
books were CC-licensed and could be copied and printed by anyone.
This evening, she wrote back the following:
"We’ve reviewed the information you provided and have decided to block
this title from being sold through CreateSpace. The title closely
matches content that is freely available on the web and we are not
confident that you hold exclusive publishing rights. For example,
content from Wikipedia, creative commons content and content with
private label rights are not allowed since it disappoints our
customers to pay for content that can be found online for free. As a
result, we have suppressed this title and removed it from your sales
channels.
"Please be advised that you must hold exclusive publishing rights for
titles that closely match content that is freely available on the web.
If your catalog continues to contain titles that fail to comply with
these conditions or do not meet our Content Guidelines, your account
may be terminated.
"To learn more, please see our content guidelines at
https://www.createspace.com/Help/Rights/ContentGuidelines.jsp";
CreateSpace has now suppressed the French and Spanish manuals and so
they may be unavailable for purchasing.
I wrote back to the CreateSpace representative, asserting that we hold
the copyright to the manuals and pointed out that their guidelines
(linked above) do not exclude Creative Commons materials from being
published through their site. I've included my full response to the
representative below.
I will keep everyone posted on this issue as I learn more. I just
wanted to give everyone a heads-up in case they were wondering why
they couldn't purchase one of the manuals.
If you have any questions, please let me know. Thanks!
Here's the email I sent to the CreateSpace representative (Zarla):
Hello, Zarla.
On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 7:38 PM, CreateSpace Validation Request
<validation-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We’ve reviewed the information you provided and have decided to block this title from being sold through CreateSpace. The title closely matches content that is freely available on the web and we are not confident that you hold exclusive publishing rights. For example, content from Wikipedia, creative commons content and content with private label rights are not allowed since it disappoints our customers to pay for content that can be found online for free. As a result, we have suppressed this title and removed it from your sales channels.
Your response seems to be contrary to the guidelines you cite. The
guidelines state in part: "We will not accept content that is freely
available on the web *unless you are the copyright owner of that
content.*" (Emphasis mine.) My team is the copyright owner of the
content. We publish PDFs of the content on our website and also use
your service to provided printed and bound versions of the work for
those who do not wish to print the PDFs on their home printers.
Your argument that you don't publish content that is otherwise freely
available on the web is undermined by the fact that your guidelines
acknowledge that you do publish public domain content: "We do accept
public domain content..."
In conclusion, I contest your removal of our content and request that
it be made available again.
Thank you.
—Kevin Godby, The Ubuntu Manual Project
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