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Major Textbook Publishers Sue Open-Education Textbook Start-Up
linjaaho writes "Three major textbook publishers have sued a startup company making free and open textbooks, citing 'copyright infringement,' as the company is making similar textbooks using open material. From the article: 'The publishers' complaint takes issue with the way the upstart produces its open-education textbooks, which Boundless bills as free substitutes for expensive printed material. To gain access to the digital alternatives, students select the traditional books assigned in their classes, and Boundless pulls content from an array of open-education sources to knit together a text that the company claims is as good as the designated book. The company calls this mapping of printed book to open material "alignment" — a tactic the complaint said creates a finished product that violates the publishers' copyrights.'"
An analysis of facts and figures can also be copyrighted, and many textbooks (particularly liberal arts) contain as much analysis as anything else.
rewording a paragraph and passing it off as your own is plagiarism, not copyright infringement. Two entirely different things.
Taking a paragraph of someone's work and rewording it may not be infringement. See the Wikipedia article on close paraphrasing for exceptions. Close paraphrasing of copyrighted text is not allowed when it is substantial, but is also allowed when there are limited ways to say the same thing.
U.S. Copyright Law
Is the Table of Contents Copyrightable?
Bernard C. Dietz, current head of the renewal section of the examining division of the U.S. Copyright Office, October 17, 1991, stated in his deposition, "...it has to be kept in mind that in the vast majority of cases the table of contents itself is not copyrightable; it's nothing more than a listing of the citations in the book. There has to be something uniquely attributable to that author of the table of contents to make it copyrightable."
From here. (Never heard of that book before. The world is bizarre.)
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