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Copyright

Q: Biographies - breaching copyright

I am writing a theatre biography which will include quotes from other authors and official sources. How do I ensure that I do not breach copyright?

A: There are two possible defences to an action for infringement of copyright in the circumstances which you describe. First, it is expressly provided by statute that "fair dealing with a work or the purpose of criticism or review, of that or another work, or of a performance of the work, does not infringe any copyright in the work", provided that it is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement. The acknowledgement must relate to both the source and the author. I suspect that in the circumstances which you describe it may not always be possible for you to establish that a particular quotation in the context of your book is for criticism or review so as to bring yourself within this exclusion, in which case you may need to fall back on the following alternative line of defence.

There will be no infringement of copyright unless the material which is copied comprises 'a substantial part' of the work from which you are quoting. It obviously begs the question as to what is meant by a 'substantial part' in this context, and there is a body of case law on the subject. Obviously the greater the quantity the more likely it is that it will be regarded as substantial, but quantity alone is not conclusive. The greater emphasis is on quality. For example, in one case, 20 seconds (8.3 per cent) from a piece of music lasting four minutes was held to be a substantial part. It sounds very little but then 8.3 per cent of a 100 page book would be a lot. If you quote a whole chapter or several pages from another book, that will almost certainly be regarded as 'a substantial part'. On the other hand, if you are quoting just a sentence or two from another book, article or reference work, this is unlikely to be regarded as 'a substantial part'. However, if you take a few lines out of a short poem, or even possibly a play, then depending upon the significance and importance of the selected quotation of the selected quotation and its relevance to your theatre biography, you may unwittingly cross the borderline between substantial and non-substantial. In any event, to enable you to run both defences at the same time, it is desirable for you to acknowledge the source and author of the other work, even though this is not strictly necessary for the non-substantial part defence.

There may be the odd instance where you feel that neither of the above defences is open to you, in which case you should seek approval in the first instance from the publishers of the other work from which the quotation is taken, because most book publishing agreements include the right for the publisher to authorise quotations from the published material. You may want to say, when seeking such approval (if it be the case that you think your quotation does not need consent but are asking for it just to be sure, and on the basis that you reserve the right to proceed in any event if the approval is not forthcoming.

Broadly speaking, for the purpose of a theatre biography, I would not expect you to encounter any problems if you keep your quotations short and to the point (ie so that they have an obvious relevance to the biography) and include a sufficient acknowledgement.

First published August 2001