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I wrote a 50 page manual that I plan to release for free. I do not mind if the book is copied, translated, printed, shared, ... I just want two things:

  1. I am the only person who can sell a copy of this manual on Amazon (and others).
  2. If anybody uses the material from the book that the original author (me) is mentioned somewhere.

Under which license should I publish the book?

1
  • I can't give a direct answer to the question, but I'll toss in this: Do NOT use the words "public domain" anywhere in describing it. Once you declare something written to be public domain, you no longer have any legal right to restrict how or where it is used. I've come across cases where people donated something they wrote to public domain and then were mad that others were now distributing it without giving them credit or charging for copies of it. Sorry, too late, you gave up your rights.
    – Jay
    Feb 14, 2013 at 22:16

2 Answers 2

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The closest fit would be Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike". That will allow translations (and expansions, clarifications, electronic versions and so forth) but prevent commercial distribution of the original or any derived version.

1

How about creative commons "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs"?

1
  • Close, but that will prevent translations. Feb 25, 2011 at 7:41

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