Website prints books on demand and shares profits with the author

17-9-2015 | IslamWeb

Question:

asalam is print on demand business online halal or haram ? I mean print on demand works like that for example I am going to write a book online (I would be the author of the book ) to sell it online I mean I would write in pdf or whatever way is , I mean I would write it in a digital way not in papers (I mean online). So if someone want to buy my book ,he will order it online and the website that do print on demand would print the book to the customers after they ordered( bought ) the book online ,and I would get my money and the website that do print on demand would get its part of money also (for example in every book printed I would get my part of money) . So is this haram or halal because in one of your fatwas you said it is not permissible to sell what you don't have in stock like for example a merchant who would sell a product that it isn't in his possession yet and the product is still in the hands of the manufacturer
Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam ( may Allaah exalt his mention ) is His slave and Messenger.

Since the book is written by you, you own it and you own the permission to print it and sell it through the website.

A resolution from the Islamiq Fiqh Council's 1988 fifth conference in Kuwait reads:

“First, trade names and commercial titles (brand names, copyrights and patents) are the exclusive rights of their owners. In contemporary custom, they have legitimate financial value because people make financial gains from them.”

So, if the website sells the book and pays you some of the proceeds according to your agreement with it, there is no harm in accepting it and using it since the website acts as a sales agent on your behalf, and this does not involve selling what you do not possess.

The agreement between the customer and the website to print the book is an order for something to be manufactured, which is permissible.

Allaah Knows best.

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