Guide to Rights Clearance & Permissions in Scholarly, Educational, and Trade Publishing

Avoid Costly Rights Clearance and Permissions Mistakes

Learn what you need to know to avoid and manage copyright infringement claims that arise from the publication of your book, article, or media project. In this book, intellectual property attorney Stephen E. Gillen covers the unique rights clearance and permission issues related to writing scholarly works:

• Attributing text and ideas borrowed from others
• Fair use
• Dealing with authorship credit
• Variations in rights-clearing strategies from field to field
• The upside-down business model of open access journal writing
• The non-exclusive rights reserved by some universities to the writings of their faculty
• Whether self-publishing affects the potential to publish traditionally in the future
• The variability in licensing models for open educational resources

You’ll also get practical pointers and guidelines, and more than a dozen templates you can use to request permissions and secure releases. Put 40 years of rights clearance and permissions experience on your bookshelf.

"Guide to Rights Clearance & Permissions is a must-read for every author. It contains essential information that will help authors steer safely through the sometimes treacherous waters of copyrights, fair use, permissions, and scholarly integrity. Mr. Gillen makes legal issues easy to understand, interesting, and at times downright fascinating. Even experienced authors who think they've 'seen it all' are likely to be surprised by some of the information that can be gleaned from this book." – June Jamrich Parsons, Author, New Perspectives on Computer Concepts

"Gillen’s new book on rights clearance and permissions is a perfect—and perhaps required—addition to every author’s professional library. In Gillen’s usual style, he covers topics that are well beyond the expertise of most authors in a way that makes important principles easy to understand and implement. I have already used this handy guide to find clear and useful answers to some of my questions about trademarking book titles and finding copyright holders." – Kevin Patton, PhD, author of Anatomy & Physiology, 10e

"Whether you are an author wishing to minimize your liability in publishing a work, or a publishing professional with a permissions and licensing program of your own, you’ll find a wealth of good, practical advice in this book." – Barbara Price, PhD, textbook editor/publishing professional

"In today’s litigious environment, Steve Gillen’s Guide to Rights Clearance & Permissions is a godsend to all authors who want to avoid being sued. This invaluable guide also presents a set of priceless templates that will save authors incredible time and anguish in obtaining and tracking permissions."  – Dr. Mary Ellen Guffey, Cengage author of three market-leading college textbooks
"Textbook authors quickly learn, but usually too late, the truth of the old saying 'a hard way to earn an easy living.' Steve Gillen has been alerting authors about 'the hard ways' for decades through his presentations at TAA conferences, in publications, and in private practice. In this new book, he tackles the complexities of clearing intellectual property rights in an expert, comprehensive, and highly readable fashion, and advises how to avoid legal jeopardy from the misuse of copyrighted materials. My reaction is the same as after reading Gillen's other invaluable publications: I wish I knew all this then!" –Fred S. Kleiner, Professor of History of Art & Architecture, Professor of Archaeology, Boston University, textbook author
"Steve Gillen’s book is a concise and straightforward explanation of the issues that arise from the rights clearance process. It’s thorough, well-written, and accessible to non-lawyers; it’s a valuable resource for anyone who needs to understand the rights and permissions process."–Ashley Messenger, Senior Associate General Counsel, National Public Radio, and author of A Practical Guide to Media Law