I am writing a book based on a real person's life (he used to be my
father's boss). The other day I discovered that he already published
an autobiography with Minerva Press.
My question is whether I can still go ahead with my book from a legal/
copyright perspective.
I will give a tip for a good answer |
Request for Question Clarification by
juggler-ga
on
28 Jul 2003 03:16 PDT
In what country do you plan to publish this book?
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Clarification of Question by
dogsbollocks-ga
on
28 Jul 2003 04:24 PDT
I plan to publish the book in the UK.
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Request for Question Clarification by
mvguy-ga
on
28 Jul 2003 06:36 PDT
The quick answer is that facts aren't copyrightable, but the way they
are presented can be, so the existence of the autobiography doesn't
change anything as long as you don't use it.
So to answer your question, it would be important to know to what
extent you plan to use the autobiography as a source of information,
and especially to what extent you plan to quote from it.
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Clarification of Question by
dogsbollocks-ga
on
28 Jul 2003 08:26 PDT
Hi, I don't plan to quote anything from the autobiography. I might use
the facts to embellish a little (e.g. if the author writes that he
participated in a war I might describe the war).
My original book was based on my personal acquaintance and also an
extensive article in the press that uncovered a "scandal". I thought
this would be a great idea for a book, but he obviously beat me to it
and published his own autobiography.
So to sum up
1/ No quotations from autobiography
2/ Some possible embellishment (I've ordered the book from Amazon and
now waiting to read it)
3/ I still plan for this to be a work of "faction" as was originally
intended with some non-defamatory (i.e. not hurtful to his character
and standing in society !!) fictional material intertwined within the
actual facts
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Request for Question Clarification by
mvguy-ga
on
31 Jul 2003 17:14 PDT
I'm not going to be able to give you an official answer on this;
hopefully some other Researcher can. My familiarity is with U.S.
copyright law, not British. I have found in researching for you that
British law is quite similar; it allows "fair dealing" while U.S. law
allows "fair use" of copyrighted materials. I can tell you that under
U.S. law there would be no problem at all with what you're doing. I'm
almost certain the same is true under British law, and nothing I have
found about British law would indicate otherwise. You aren't copying
any material, only using facts as you know them.
You can find a copy of the British copyright law here:
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_1.htm
The exceptions (what you can do with copyrighted material) are listed
here:
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_4.htm
Note that the law freely allows "incidental" use of copyrighted
material. I would say that's what you're doing. But, again, I am
unable to spend the time it takes to become familiar enough with
Brftish law in order make this an official answer.
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