united-states intellectual-property
Am I authorized to publish a solution manual for a book I haven&#39;t written?
<p>Bob wrote a solution manual  for book X. (solution manual = a manual that presents solutions for some/all exercises of the book)</p>

<p>Is Bob authorized to publish it, given that Bob hasn't written book X and doesn't own any right on it?</p>

<p>Book X was written and published in the United States, and Bob plans to publish the solution manual in the United States (either on Internet or on paper, and either free of charge or with a charge).</p>

<p>Bob is not authorized, but he may legally do so (in the US, you don't need specific authorization to perform a non-forbidden act). In creating the manual, Bob would need to avoid reproducing the questions (which are protected by copyright), and just give the answers. Copyright protection for the textbook includes not just the actual words, but also organizational structure, so Bob would need to avoid copying the structure of the exercises.</p>

<p>As for "structure of the exercises", textbooks often have exercises for each chapter, with a clear logic to the order and content of chapters. Within the chapter exercises, there is often some rationale to the order of presentation of the dozen exercises, like starting for with simplest concepts presented in the text and moving up the ladder. In a given exercise, there my be subparts, where understanding part 1 leads you to understanding part 2, and so on. In a well-structure textbook, maybe 20% of the creative nature of the book is that artful ordering. Imposing an entirely different order on your solutions avoids copying the author's protected expression.</p>
