Question on Non-Fiction Books/Scholary Publishing

[shadowkat]

A work colleague is hoping to publish a non-fiction book that references and uses other works in part and in their entirety.

He wants to know what he needs to do to get permission to use and reference other's work in his book.

I told him that I'm a bit rusty in this area, having been out of the copyright biz for at least 6 years, and also having avoided writing anything that requires that. But I did know of a few people who had published non-fiction books that referenced, cited and used other people's work -and that might be able to help.

So...can you provide any advice or insights? Mucho appreciated!

Comments

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

If it's been published, he has to go to the publisher. If not, to the writer.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily - the rights may have reverted to the author or their literary executors. I had a really difficult time chasing up rights for my anthology book because many of the original publishers were defunct, had renamed themselves, or had been taken over. I did find a useful website that helped with this, but not sure I've still got the link (may have been just UK). If they are texts by individuals who count as literary figures, there is a very useful database of copyright holders WATCH (http://tyler.hrc.utexas.edu/).