authorship - Solution manual and copyright?

Recently, I have worked out a solution manual for a book.

I have not found on the Internet any existing complete solution manual for this book.

Since the solution manual of mine contains every exercise given in the book, my question is: In order to publish or distribute publicly this manual, do I have to first request the consent of the publisher of the book?

[Editors note: A solution manual is an accompaniment to a textbook that provides the answers and/or techniques to solve the exercises given in said textbook. Other names for these include: answers keys and teacher's handbook.]

Answer

I would like to offer a viewpoint that dissents from the typical conservative safe take-no-risks-and-get-permission view. Yes, the publisher most clearly owns the copyright and the right to create derivative works. Your work, however, is probably still be protected under a reasonable interpretation of fair use.

In many ways, creating a solution key is actually a very similar activity to writing fan fiction: you like the original so much that you're adding you're filling in the gaps that the creator left with your own additions. As such I would expect that your solution key falls into a similar legal grey area. You are creating a derivative work, but:

1. You're distributing your solution key as a public service, and making no money from it.


2. You're not using much of the text (assuming a normal content-to-problem ratio)


3. Your work enhances the value of the original, rather than detracting from it.

Right now, without having talked to the company, you can in good faith put your solution key online, with appropriate attribution and making sure to point people to the original textbook, and trust that it's a reasonable interpretation of fair use. From here, the most likely scenarios are:

• The company either doesn't notice, doesn't care, or decides to turn a blind eye, and everybody benefits.


• The company notices, and asks to make your work official in some way: great!


• The company notices, and tells you to take it down; you apologize, explaining that you acted in good faith, and comply. Nobody is any worse off than if you hadn't posted it in the first place.

It is very unlikely that the company would do anything more than ask you to take it down: it's not worth the money to them and it would look very bad for them to be so mean-spirited.

If you do approach to the company, however, you force them to take official notice. Their lawyers are not paid to make good things happen: they are paid to take safe and conservative actions. Where they might have ignored it as being beneath their threshold of caring, if you force them to pay attention, the default answer is "no," because "yes" probably takes a lot more work, and it's probably still not worth their time.

Put more tersely: "never ask a question that you don't want to know the answer to."

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.