DOI (Digital Object Identifier)

The DOI field on the Book Info page displays this information in the Metadata section of the webbook homepage.

Copyright and license information

Using information entered on the Book Info page, Pressbooks generates a number of automatic pages, information blocks, and statements that provide license and copyright information. (See Automatic Pages and Features.)

Although it may look different, this information will appear in all formats.

Webbook

The home page of the webbook will contain the book title, subtitle, author, the license type, and a license statement. Further down the home page will be the metadata for the book, including the book title, author, publisher, reviewer, translator, illustrator, license type and licensing statement. License and copyright information is also listed at the end of every chapter.

PDF

PDFs will contain a title page providing the book title, subtitle, author, and publisher name and city. There will also be a copyright page that provides the licensing statement, which includes the book title, author, and license type.

Other things to note

Here are some items to take note of:

• The default license setting for a new book in Pressbooks is “All Rights Reserved.” Select a Creative Commons license or public domain from the Copyright License drop-down list to change this.
• The author and copyright holder for a book are not always the same. However, Pressbooks creates the licensing statement based on information entered into the Copyright Holder field, not the Author field. (See Exceptions to copyright ownership: employment in the Self-Publishing Guide.)
• Once a Creative Commons license or public domain has been applied to a book, information about copyright disappears. This information must be added manually to the Copyright Notice field on the Book Info page.
• Information entered in the ISBN fields does not appear in the PDF files. A work around is to add this information to the Copyright Notice field.

Copyright Notice field

See below for suggested language to use in the Copyright Notice field on the Book Info page for both a new and adapted open textbook.

Copyright notice for a new open textbook

Following the Copyright Holder and Copyright License fields, is the Copyright Notice field where information is provided about copyright, the license, and related actions. Items that can be added are:

• The name of the textbook
• The author(s)
• Copyright year and owner
• A type of open copyright license used with a link to a description of that license (See creativecommons.org for license descriptions.)
• A description of what the license permits users to do
• An explanation about when and how to attribute the author(s) of the textbook
• A description about the conditions for redistributing the textbook
• An example of how to cite the textbook
• An attribution statement for the image used on the textbook’s cover, including links to the image’s source and creator’s home page (if available) and a description of the license under which the image has been released

Here is a sample:

Copyright notice for an adapted open textbook

The copyright notice for an open textbook that is adapted is similar to that for an original textbook, with a few exceptions. Items to add are:

• The name of the original textbook, its author(s), copyright owner(s), date of copyright
• The type of the open copyright license used for the original textbook, with a link to a description of the license (See creativecommons.org for license descriptions.)
• The name of the adapting author(s), copyright owner(s) of adapted/new material, and date of copyright for adapted/new material
• The type of open copyright license used for adapted/new material with a link to a description of the license (See creativecommons.org for license descriptions.)
• A description of what the license permits users to do
• An explanation about when and how to attribute the author(s) of the original textbook, including links to the textbook and a description of the license
• A description about the conditions for redistributing the textbook
• An example of how to cite the textbook
• An attribution statement for the image used on the textbook’s cover, including links to the image’s source, creator’s home page (if available), and a description of the license under which the image has been released

This chapter is an adaptation of the Book Info Page (on Pressbooks Guide) by Lauri M. Aesoph and is used under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.

Aesoph, L.M. (2016). Pressbooks Guide. Victoria, BC: BCcampus. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/pressbook