Rights and Permissions Committee:
Tips for Requesting Permission to Use Copyrighted Literary Works

Members of the Rights and Permissions Advisory Committee (RPAC), of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), wish to provide the public with suggestions to help facilitate the permissions process. We hope this information proves useful.

1. Always submit your request in writing.

2. Always make your deadline known in your initial request. If you have a strict deadline, and the rights holder has not yet responded to your request, it is acceptable to telephone the rights and permissions department to notify them that your deadline is approaching. Please note that, on average, permissions departments respond to requests within approximately 4-8 weeks; if you do not receive a response within 8 weeks, follow-up is appropriate but please do not send duplicate requests unless the duplicate contains the date of your original request and is clearly marked "duplicate."

3. Always include as much information as possible regarding the work and the intended use, such as:

A. Information about the work you wish to use:

i. Title of the work in which the material you wish to use appears

ii. Author of the work in which the material you wish to use appears

iii. ISBN for the work in which the material you wish to use appears

iv. Exactly what material do you wish to use from the work? Give page numbers. (i.e. If you want to use a specific poem from a collective work, give the title and author of the poem.)

PLEASE check credits, acknowledgments and notes: if material is attributed to another source, person, or institution, or if publishers' edition was "Reprinted by arrangement with...", contact the cited party.

B. Information about how you want to use the work:

i. Is the resulting work for classroom use? Indicate the school name, course name and number, semester, professor, number of persons in the class (estimate if necessary) and who will have access to the work (e.g. students, general public, etc.).

ii. Will the resulting work be published? Include any publication information pertaining to the resulting work (e.g. publisher and date of intended first publication). How many copies will be published? Will it be for sale? How much will be charged per copy? What percentage of the entire resulting work is comprised of the rights holder's material?

iii. Will the resulting product be posted on the Internet? If so, please identify the site(s) on which the work will be posted and how long it will be posted (please give beginning and ending dates). Will the Internet site be password protected? If online, will downloading, printing and copying be restricted? If so, how?

iv. In what markets/territories will the resulting work be distributed?

v. Will the resulting product need to be translated into other languages?

4. The more research you do before you submit your request, the faster the publisher can respond.

Through AAP's web site there are links to the home pages of many AAP members. If you are unable to locate an AAP member, please call Barbara Meredith 212-255-0200 ext. 223. You can also find contact information for most American Publishers by referencing the Literary Market Place (LMP) by R.R. Bowker (found in most local libraries).