May I Have Your Permission, Please?

Over the years, I’ve been asked variations of this question many times: “While in school, I wrote a paper that was essentially a literature review. If I had waited to get permission for every item I quoted or referenced, I’d still be holding the paper–and that was in the late 90s. How can such issues be addressed?”

Students can now breathe a sigh of relief! Copyright laws are meant to protect authors and stop plagiarism, but the laws are not meant to interfere with scholarly research. You can do your homework without the Copyright Police coming after you. There are some general guidelines that allow for fair use of materials. Think of this as the 10% rule:
10% or 1000 words of a text
10% or 2500 cells of a database
10% or 30 seconds of music or lyrics
5 illustrations or photos by an artist or photographer
10% or 3 minutes of a video or other motion footage
10% of text or 15 images from a collective work

However, this is NOT a legal rule, simply a guideline. I’m not an intellectual property lawyer and there are times when the 10% guideline does not apply. For example, how long is your own work? If you’ve written a 10-page paper and have used a thousand words from someone else’s work you have definitely violated the fair use guidelines. On the other hand, if you are simply quoting or referencing a small amount of text from another author in your own paper, normally you are legally okay as long as you use a proper footnote.

I say “normally” because this isn’t always the case. If you are writing something that is being published, ask for permission. For example, an author of a book on criminal law wanted to use the American Heritage definition of the word “law.” In this instance, the author was required to obtain permission from Houghton Mifflin, publisher of the American Heritage dictionary. Houghton Mifflin required a $25 fee and use of an approved credit line, “Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Reproduced by permission from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition” as a requirement for use of the definition.

In other words, the “10% Rule” is simply a guideline and not a legal law. When in doubt, ask for permission to use the material in question.

In my next series of posts I will go into greater depth about the business of asking for permission to use someone else’s material.

© 2009 Anne Wallingford. All Rights Reserved.

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