Looking for Copyright Permission

Copyright is a type of intellectual property. Like physical property, it cannot usually be used without the owners permission. Of course, the copyright owner may refuse to give permission for use of their work.

Fair amount of uses (e.g. fair dealing for the purposes of research, review and news reporting; reasonable extent for the purpose of instructions or examination) may fall within the scope of one of the exceptions to copyright, but if you want to use a copyright work, you will usually need to approach the copyright owner and ask for a licence to cover the use you require. A licence is a contract between you and the copyright owner and it is for both parties to negotiate the terms and conditions, including the payment or royalty for the use. There are no rules in copyright law governing what may be acceptable terms and conditions might be relevant to licence agreements.

Sometimes copyright owners act collectively to license certain uses and collective licensing bodies can be approached for a licence. In particular, collective administration bodies exist for licensing certain uses of music and sound recordings, printed material

It is important to remember that just buying or owning the original or a copy of a copyright work does not give you permission to use it how you wish. For example, buying a copy of a book, CD, video, computer program etc only gives you the property right on the chattel. It does not usually gives you the right to make copies (even for private use), play or show them in public. Other everyday uses of copyright material, such as photocopying, scanning, downloading from a CD-ROM or on-line database, all involve copying the work so permission is generally needed. Also use going beyond an agreed licence will require further permission.