Product Development

Last time I started explaining the role of permissions in the publishing process. As a school textbook publisher, like any other publisher, we must get permission to use other people’s material in our products, be it elementary school science textbooks, or a high school physics textbook.  We’ll finish this discussion in this post about fair use, public domain and citations.

Fair Use

The "fair use" clause comes into play if the writer wants to use an excerpt or quote from a work of substantial length; they still need to cite the source. Generally, we consider up to 250 words from the text of a book, magazine or journal fair use.

Public Domain

There are some items that are considered "public domain." These are works that have either expired or were not protected by copyright.  They can be used freely with applicable citation. Once they become public domain due to expiration, the copyright protection cannot be restored.

Works that cannot be copyrighted are those consisting of information that is common property with no specific authorship such as calendars, height/weight charts and rulers. Also items with standard information such as tables, schedules of sporting events, blank forms designed to record rather than convey information are also public domain. Official U.S. government works cannot be copyrighted, but the original source must be cited, for example NASA photographs.

Citations

The materials that are borrowed require a credit line list to be published within the textbook. Some require the credit line be printed with the actual image/article; others are generally listed in the back of the book or on the copyright page.

Next time, a few words about our Permissions Department.