There are a lot of misconceptions about copyright.
Copyright starts with the creation of a work. The creator either holds the rights to his/her IP (automatic under U.S. copyright law), or assigns the rights to someone else (a publisher or record label, for instance). Whoever holds the IP rights to the work calls the shots on what can be done with the IP, no one else.
Under U.S. copyright law, any work created is automatically covered under an All Rights Reserved license, for the life of the creator plus 70 years—whether they want those rights or not. Creative Commons (and dozens of others) created a set of licenses that allows for way more control of your IP as a rights holder.
When Flat World Knowledge was founded, we decided that it was important to our business model to offer more control of our content to our users. We selected a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license, which is among the more restrictive licenses. The SA and NC clauses in particular provide a means for us to invest in producing a quality, professional work without fear of that investment being capitalized upon by some other publisher.
Our users—instructors and their students—would have unprecedented control of our content. Distribution for educational purposes is allowed; no additional permission is needed. Changes to the work are allowed, so that an instructor can teach a personalized course. We provided a platform that made it easy to do both.
Five years into the business, student behaviors changed. They got more comfortable with digital, and reading the free Web version was a “good enough” experience for them—even though, when asked, they clearly preferred traditional printed books, or e-reader formats.
This led us to remove “free” as a format, starting January 1, 2013.
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Disclaimer: All views or opinions expressed on this site are solely those of the author and do not represent those of the author’s employer, Flat World Knowledge.