Hello friends, I am complete new here, in fact was searching for an answer. I am writing a book where i will be inserting quite a few popular quotes ranging from Steve Jobs, Dalai Lama to Winston Churchill etc. Is there a copyright issue i have to consider. Sorry if i have asked a silly question but i do need seeking answer. Thanks in advance.
Yes. For quotes, coypyright, trademark, and name and likeness are all possible issues come into play. The main considerations are 1. where you got the people's quotes, and 2. whether or not the person's name is a registered trademark. It can be a labrynth. Let's say you're watching a documentary produced by TCM and see a good quote from Marilyn Monroe from an old red carpet interview at the Oscars. Marilyn's name is a registered trademark owned by her estate, and the original red carpet footage may belong to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (the organization that does the Oscars). The footage was used by permission from TCM, who got it from an old vault at 20th Century Fox (Marilyn's old movie studio). Now you have to figure out who owns the quote to get their permission and credit them. Of the names you've mentioned, Steve Jobs would be the most entangled. You'll need to know: Is his name a registered trademark? Does Apple own it? Were the quotes you want to use from press releases, Apple corporate correspondence, newspaper and magazine articles or news footage quotes, or what? For world leaders, the main question is where you got the quote, because since they're not saying it themselves to you personally, you'd be pulling it from somewhere. You're safest with a thoroughly vetted source like Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. Do not use just any online compilation site. I am not a copyright attorney; the info I just gave you came from back when I was a celebrity assistant in 1829. Part of the gig was knowing when to call the attorney. You, my friend, will need an attorney to vet your quotes.
Keep in mind as well that copyright/trademark status can also change from country to country. Films like Night of the Living Dead, Dan Candy's Law, or Charade are in the public domain in the US due to problems with their copyright registration when they came out. In Canada, though, media doesn't have to be registered to be copyrighted and enters the public domain 50 years after the death of the last party involved in it's production and creation.
Very well-known quotes are generally exempt from copyright issues. I think it's likely anything from Winston Churchill and the Dalai Lama would be fine to use. Less sure about Steve Jobs - I can't think of any quotes of his, and I'm not sure they're in general use.
Exactly. I'm from the US, so my answers are always from the perspective of US Copyright. The Canadians are lucky. In the US for works created after 1978, it's life of the author plus 70 years, except: If it's a Work for Hire, or if it's written under a pseudonymn or anonymously, it's 95 years after first date of publication or 120 years after it was created, whichever comes first. (See Copyright.gov) Some copyrights for works prior to 1978 were renewable, but that's a whole other thing for an attorney to sort out.
And these laws may change again as Micky Mouse gets closer to entering the Public Domain. Originally his copyright was set to expire in 1984, but lobbyists got the laws changed in '78, extending the copyright until 2003. Then in '98 the laws changed again, this time granting an extension on the Mickey Mouse brand until 2024. I guess in the next couple of years we'll see whether on not the laws will magically change again.
Exactly. For Steve Jobs, here in the US we see his quotes all the time in business contexts, but since they'd probably come from some sort of official Apple communication, there's a good chance that Apple actually owns them. Dead world leaders / dead world religious leaders are safest to use, but not always. The Martin Luther King Jr. case was a bit of a game changer here in the US, so I tend to play it really safe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_of_Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.,_Inc._v._CBS,_Inc. Celebrities are usually the least safest to quote.
Oh they most definitely will magically change again. Think of all the companies Disney has bought just since the last round of changes.
Pretty sure General George Patton will not mind the use of a quote. Though he may surely role in his grave if he were taken out of context.
