The comments about a piece of work posted in the archive have turned into a discussion on obtaining permission to use copyrighted work so I thought it should be opened up to a wider discussion.

The laws on copyright are clear but also complex and very strict. My only information about them is from what I’ve read in books and magazine articles and from talking to other writers and I wondered if anyone on this site has had personal experience? Have you had to obtain permission to use copyrighted work? How easy/difficult was it? Or, worse, have you come to grief for not getting the permission?

Dee.

I've had mixed results from obtaining copyright permissions. For use of a poem by Robert Graves I contacted Carcanet Press by email with my request and was asked for details of title, territories and number of books in the edition, and when I supplied that info. was given a price and asked if I wanted to go ahead. I confirmed that I did and they obtained permission from the trustees and sent me a form which I returned with a cheque. It was all very easy and civilised.

My other experience involved a request that seemed to disappear into the ether, a second request which was answered in a very unpromising way, a request for an outline and no reply on my dispatch of this by email. After many weeks (and this was extremely stessfull because this particular permission was absolutely essential to the book) I began to research on the Internet and found that the source of the work was in doubt, although the original people claimed copyright. I contacted the other source and was told I was very welcome to use the work for an acknowledgement in the book. I contacted the first source again with this info. and was told that they had replied to me but that the email must have got lost. They wished me luck with the book though.

I think that in the future I'd be inclined to use only my own material, or else only work that is well out of copyright; i.e. where the author has been dead for more than seventy years.

<Added>


I meant of course, to type 'stressful'!

What comments Dee?

Geoff, I’m slightly reluctant to go into detail as I don’t want to risk upsetting the people who made the comments in good faith. I’m hoping that they will see this and join in the thread.

I do get the impression that assumptions are being made; the scariest one being that if you have no money you won’t be sued for breach of copyright. (There's a horror story in there just waiting to be written!)

Dee.

Some useful information there, Nell. I'm inclined to agree with your last remark. I had several quotes from songs in one of my novels but took them out after reading Carole Blake's From Pitch to Publication.
The only quote I'm using in the current work is from a poem written by Anon in the sixteenth century... think I'm safe with that one...

Dee.

There is so much I feel I could say on this topic.

First of all I agree with Dee, these days people will sue you for any reason so trying it one pleading ignorance or poverty wont wash. When it's a straight lift of a whole section of song you have trouble and you will probably have to pay for it but again it depends on the individual. Some will want a lot of money (most likely those sad disgruntled fuckers, who were fiddled out of the real money in the first place) but some will allow it for free.

I use lines from songs all the time in my writing but only single lines and not ones that tend to leap right out as being obvious. I think it was Newmark who commented on some of my work saying it was like Fight Club (my style is similar to Palahniuks) and there are actually two lines that are either in that film or the book but (wether you believe this or not) I wrote them entirely independently, before ever seeing the film and certainly before reading the book. So what whould be the case here? By the way they are two random lines and lines that I have heard a million times over in other places.

If you had an idea and not just a straight lift, and someone tried to sue you. What I would do is look for other ideas that preceded theirs and claim that they can't possibly claim it as their own, because someone had already dreamt up the same thing. I know I'm getting slightly off the subject here but I remember reading an article years ago about someone trying to claim royalties from an author and the author won out, citing a number of other works that showed the disputed idea had been published several times before.

Geoff



<Added>

You know I'm beginning to develop a complex about spelling and grammar. One day, one day.....

If you want to use a quote from someone else's work, isn't the propriety of that action something that needs to be researched before you put pen to paper? Isn't writing first and asking questions later just asking for trouble?

Nell's advice sounds good for those instances when the source is older and now out of copyright, that is where the author has been dead for more than seventy years.

But in all other cases perhaps the safest course of action is to make absolutely no assumptions at all about being allowed to use anything written by someone else - that is until you have checked, and double-checked, the legal position.

I realise that this probably doesn't add anything new to the debate, but I can't help thinking that if you really need to include a quote or extract from someone else's work, playing it safe will always be the best - and perhaps the cheapest - way forward.

But then, I'm no gambler!!

John

Well said, as always, John.

Dee.

You're welcome, ma'am.

I suppose it really depends on how many words you use. If you lift five words from a sentence then you certainly won't need to seek permission. So taking it to it's logical conclusion if you lift one sentence then that must be fine too, so long as it's not a huge sentence with a very specific meaning or reference. If they ever started putting language under that kind of scrutiny we'd all be f****d. It would be tantamount to language control!

Geoff

Unless the words are as well known as When shall we three meet again?. OK, that's six and and it's a few hundred years out of copyright but I'm sure you get the point.

I just think it's better to be safe than sorry (apologies for the cliche)

Dee.

Are you sure that last line is out of copyright?



Geoff

Aaaarrrrgggghhhhh!!!!

Hang on. I used Aaaarrrrgggghhhhh!!!! in my first novel.