Another permissions thread

[illiterwrite]

I've looked through previous posts on this subject, but what I want to do is (I think, at least to me) a little confusing.

I've been battling my editor/agent about the title of my novel for a while. Recently, I read a biography of a long-dead poet (Edna St. Vincent Millay) and came across a journal entry of hers written as a kind of poem but never published as such. The entry itself is perfect as an epigraph to my novel; more than that, one portion of a line, a single phrase, jumped out as a lovely title. Even better, my editor loves both the entry and the suggested title.

I'm going to write to the Society that holds all rights to her published and unpublished material and ask for permission to use it. The epigraph is pretty straightforward. I'm also going to ask for permission to use the one phrase as the title of my book, but I'm wondering if I really have to, or if it's just a courtesy. I mean, I know she wrote it, but she never did publish it (although I suppose it's now been published in the biography, and perhaps in other biographies), and it's not the whole sentence, just a fragment. I don't think her journals have ever been published on their own.

[priceless1]

I'd be surprised that your editor wouldn't insist on your obtaining permission. Any time you use something that someone else has written and it's not copyright free, you need to obtain permission to use the passage. Always.

[citymouse]

Look at it this way, if you ask and they say okay you're home free and everyone is happy. If they say no you're on safer ground. No one but the copyright holder can assure you the material is free to use.

[illiterwrite]

My editor did remind me about permissions; it was after that conversation that I became interested in using the one phrase as a title.

Thanks. :)

[AKillerCanCan]

Your editor won't let you choose your own title what? Lol I got confused...

[Homer]

I understand there is a market for permissions among academic presses and permissions are routinely granted for modest sums of money. Anyway, I've looked at some court cases on this and see that the issue is a morass in the legal system--usage of ordinary phrases or descriptive words is not protected, but highly original or artistic ways of conveying an idea are protected, the idea or information conveyed is not protected but the manner in which it is conveyed may be; fiction is more likely protected than non-fiction; it depends on how much is used and how it is used, etc., etc., etc. Of course, you don't want to go there, especially if permission can be easily obtained for free or a modest price.

This can be a symbiotic situation. For example, despite the copyright infringement lawsuit I assume The Da Vinci Code has been a boon to sales of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. (I don't know the similarity between these books since I've never read either of them.)