Legal Question in Intellectual Property in New York
Book Summaries
I recently started a business book summary service where we create 5-8 page summaries of business books which we send out to subscribers via e-mail. Actually the first page carries publishers' details of the book and one third of the second page carries a brief review. So in other words, about 20% of the publication is devoted to the sale of each book which we also undertake.
We actually encourage subscribers to buy the books summarized by either calling us or by visiting our website. We constantly make efforts to contact publishers to secure permission for our summaries but we hardly even get replies. In the meantime, we have continued with our business while we try to fulfil all righteousness.
The bottomline is that we have studied the law and believe that our activities are covered under the ''fair use'' provision of the law. I am also aware of a number of other similar services based in the US who operate without express copy right permissions.
What do you have to say about all this? What steps do you advice us to take?
4 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Book Summaries
It does not sound like fair use would help you. You are essentially summarizing another's book for profit. As an earlier post said, fair use is available if you use only small amounts from the book. Here, however, although you use your own words, you are adding nothing to your summary. I don't know how other companies do this.
Re: Book Summaries
If your material consists of true summaries, that is, you write them in your own words, you are not violating the copyright on the book. If you are using excerpts, that is words taken from the book, that is a different story. I don't see how including identifying information from the book violates either copyright or trademark, assuming of course the books you sell are lawfully acquired. The first sale doctrine gives you the right to dispose of your lawfully acquired copies of a book any way you wish.
Re: Book Summaries
Before we give very detailed advise on this, we would like to know if your question actually relates to Nigeria as that is where our law firm
It is important we know this to enable us give an acurate answer.
Thanks
Re: Book Summaries
A fair use analysis is very fact-specific so I can only offer some general thoughts.
If your book reviews constitute "fair and reasonable criticism," are written by your own people, do not reproduce material verbatim from the books you review, and do not create "derivative works" based on the books, you are unlikely to have copyright legal issues in the first place. Further, if you quote small passages from the books for the purpose of reviews, depending on the amount of material, its significance, context, nature of use, etc., you may be able to rely on "fair use" as a defense to copyright infringement claims. However, this is not a mechanical test that always concludes that any book review is non-infringing: some are and some are not.
There may also be non-copyright law issues to consider, such as the use of third-party trademarks in your reviews and on your website and any contractual restrictions you may be subject to with the publishers, if any. Reviewing unpublished books, for example, may create legal problems.
If you are concerned about your legal exposure, have an IP attorney review your site and clear your book reviews.
The above reply is in the nature of general information, is not legal advice and should not be relied on as such.
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