May I Have Your Permission, Please?

On Dec. 15th . 2009 I was taken to the ER and am still in the hospital. Will be doing a new post once I’m out of here and able to work at my computer again. Thanks for your patience.
Anne

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.