united-states copyright fair-use derivative-work
Can I write (and sell) a non-fiction technical book based on other(s) book(s)?
<p>I have been reading and studying a lot of materials about learning. I'm interested in writing a book (in a language different than the original) explaining the same concepts in different ways. </p>

<p>In other words, I want to "dumb" down the combination of multiple original works into a simplest, more digestible, version of it and sell it.</p>

<p>The original work is American.</p>

<p>Am I breaking any laws here?</p>

<p>Please note that I am not a lawyer.</p>

<p>First of all, ideas are not copyrightable, only their expression is.</p>

<p>Second, in order not to be plagiarism, a work has to be "transformative." That is, it has to be "different enough from the original so that one could not get <em>directly</em> from the original version to yours. </p>

<p>The original author retains "translation" rights, so if you did a "straight" translation that anyone else could approximate, then your work would be plagiarism because it is not "transformative." </p>

<p>But if you changed the contexts, used a lot of local idiom, and "dumbed down" the original concepts into different versions so that it could not be more or less reproduced by a "translation," that would probably be transformative.</p>
