The printing right and altering the original book

Question

Question: What is the ruling on reserving the right of printing and publishing some compilation or work of one’s own, and preventing others from publishing it? In reserving the right, along with the financial interest, it is also borne in mind that other people do not take care over correctness and the like in printing and publishing the book, and some even cut and mangle it and print the original book itself in a defective form.

Answer

When an author composes a work, he is its owner. However much labour he has put into it — the manuscript he produced with headaches, heartfelt devotion and toil — he has the full right to sell it for whatever price a deal can be made; the price of a few leaves can be thousands or hundreds of thousands of rupees.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

Preview. The full text opens with JavaScript enabled.