Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

I am an independent author about to release a third book. I would like to use short quotes from reviews of my previous books that were posted by readers on reading websites. Do I need to obtain permission from them first? I ask, because in all cases, I have no way to contact them.


Asked on 6/03/12, 6:36 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Bryan Whipple Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law

I'd guess your chance of being sued by any particular writer of a review is less than 1% for a casual fan and maybe 3 to 5% for a professional reviewer. Also, sometimes Web site operators require persons posting on their site to assign copyright to the operator, so maybe you'd be best off to deal with the site operator(s) than the original writers. Finally, you might research the copyright-law concept of "fair use" which likely would be a defense to any claim against you -- but having a defense and winning the suit does not take away the time and expense of the defense. Without more information, I couldn't be more specific.

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Answered on 6/04/12, 8:55 am


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