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I am planning to create and then sell a book of quotations. All the quotations in one book will belong to just one person, for example Steven Spielberg or Jay Leno. Do I need a license/permission from the author?
Optional Information: State/Country relating to question: California Already Tried: Nothing
Getting permission never hurts and is always a good idea, but it may be time-consuming or difficult to get. Generally, quotes are not covered by copyright so you don't need permission, but you have to make sure you are not violating the person's right of publicity, which can be very tricky, but if you are prominently using the person's name or image/photo, then you may have a problem if the person finds out and cares to pursue the matter. The right of publicity is generally defined as an individual's right to control and profit from the commercial use of his/her name, likeness and persona. However, the right of publicity is balanced against 1st Amendment interests, so there are exceptions. I suggest you read this summary in the context of your proposed book, and that should give you a good idea of where you stand...but as in many cases, the answer may not be legally clear and you have to make an calculated risk.http://www.publaw.com/rightpriv.html
Thanks for the answer. I have a follow up question. I would also like to know how this applies to user comments on a youtube video (or comments on sites like huffingtonpost and politico). On youtube for example, may videos have over 50,000 comments. If I selectively choose about 100-200 of them and sell them, is that copyright violation?And lets also assume 2 worst case scenarios here1) this is done on a large enough scale and attracts youtube's attention.2) the entire business is based on selling these "selected comments" from youtube.Is this fair under the law?
The first thing to look at would be YouTube's terms of use as posted on their site, there is likely language in there that relates to this. Most sites do not claim the IP in "User Content" that is uploaded or transmitted to their site. User comments themselves are generally not not likely protected under copyright law as they are not the type of original & creative work contemplated by copyright, and they are arguably functional by nature...copyright does not cover functional aspects of a work, only expressive/creative ones. Now, that's not to say that youtube wouldn't make an argument/claim about unfair competition or IP violations if you got big, that's possible, they probably have something in their TOU about crawling their site or using info for commercial purposes etc. So really it starts with a careful look at the IP/Content provisions on their TOU. Ultimately, you may need a license/permission from YouTube to do so.
Experience: Experienced in intellectual property law