May I Have Your Permission, Please?

In my previous post, Honesty Is the Only, Part One, I discussed reasons why you can’t just edit or cut another writer’s material to fit your work. Think about it this way…you’ve researched, written, and published a twenty-page essay. You’re proud of your work and the essay says exactly what you want it to say. Two years later you’re glancing through a book and realize your essay was quoted. But one of the main points you were trying to make has been omitted and your bibliography was dropped. You’d be upset, wouldn’t you? You might even be upset enough to have your publisher take the matter to court. If the person using your edited essay doesn’t have written proof that permission was granted to use your material in a revised format, the law is on your side.

The only safe rule to follow is that when you request permission to use copyright protected materials your request MUST state exactly what you are using and you must make clear any changes being made to the original material.

Ladi Youssefi, Director of Permissions at Aunt Lute Books (www.auntlute.com) spoke for many permissions managers when she shared her thoughts with us.

“Sometimes people request rights for the first edition of a book and simply say that they are using five pages of a twelve page piece without specifications. Then the back and forth starts. We need to know exactly what material is being quoted.

“If someone wants to shorten a piece by an author that’s still alive and available to contact, I’ll just pass on the edited version to the author, and let the author decide if the cuts are acceptable. Sometimes article authors will permit cuts if they can see the proposed revision. Other times, no changes are permitted. This is a point I repeatedly have to stress to those asking permissions.

“Most times people try to hide that they are cutting stuff out—and that’s the super irritating part. For example, most of our reprint requests are for material in Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldua, where the text is both poetry and prose in English and in Spanish.

“For Gloria, we grant permission for shortened pieces but the reprint needs to be specific on where there are cuts and they need to include the variations in her writing style.

“But my biggest pet peeve is when a publisher faxes a copy of what was used in a previous edition of a text and what was used is filled with errors, typos, missing subtitles, cut lines, etc. Then the publisher gets annoyed when I want them to change it back to the original as part of the agreement for the new contract.”

Remember: your request MUST state exactly what you are using and you must make clear any changes being made to the original material. Have you made it clear that the article you are using has been edited?

© 2009 Anne Wallingford. All Rights Reserved.

There’s an interesting post by Brandon Mendelson about “How to Use Public Domain Content” at http://mashable.com/2009/11/02/public-domain-content/.

It’s not uncommon for authors (especially college professors) to condense or otherwise edit another writer’s work so the work can be included in their own book. Here are three typical reasons why you, as an author, may want to edit another writer’s work:

1. The essay you want to use is long, and your editor has said you have to cut twenty-five pages from your manuscript. Out come the scissors—you can cut three paragraphs from the original essay and that will trim one page from your manuscript. Those three paragraphs in the essay aren’t pertinent to your book, anyway.

2. You really only need to quote five pages from a twenty-five page essay but the five pages aren’t sequential. You decide to use only the five pertinent pages and drop the rest. This will trim twenty more pages from your essay.

3. One of the essays you want to use has four pages of bibliography. Why should you include the other writer’s bibliography? After all, your book will have its own bibliography.

The problem? You shortened your manuscript by editing the work of other writers. Can this be done legally? Sometimes—but only if you follow the rules. When you request permission to use copyright protected materials your request MUST state exactly what you are using and you must make clear any changes being made to the original material. Have you made it clear that the article you are using has been edited?

In the examples above you will probably be granted permission to make the first two edits as long as your manuscript clearly indicates where cuts have been made. However, in most cases you will not be granted permission to drop the other author’s bibliography.

In my next posting I will explain further.

© 2009 Anne Wallingford. All Rights Reserved.