am writing a novel length story, my first such effort, and i have a query... I am from a computer science background and am one of the many techies out there. Is it ok if I include prose that would involve slightly niche subjects? Like for example, talking about youtube, the Favorites section of the Internet explorer where you can save web links etc? Am sure many people would be conversant with these, but there are many who wouldnt be also...is that fine? Deep down i feel that it should be fine, considering novelists write about many profound topics like science fiction and time travelling and the like and we still try to grasp what they mean, but I was somewhat unsure about this one..
It depends on the age category you plan to write for. Teenagers are more likely to know what YouTube and Internet Explorer are than pensioners. But there's also copyright to consider if you intend to get the novel published.
In most cases, you can get away with it as long as you don't make the content completely inaccessible to the more uninformed readers. Tom Clancy and Jules Verne do/did it all the time, and look where they are. I'm not really a fan of either one, but that doesn't change the sales charts.
what kind of copywright permissions do i need? Just to quote the IE and the Youtube brands in the book or is it something else?
I think so. You won't need much more. In all honesty, you may not even need that, depending on how exactly you're presenting the material.
