Summary: Sample Letters of Permission

[Maria Melssen <mariamelssen@xxxxxxxxx>]

Many thanks to everyone who responded to my question regarding sample
letters of permission and for those who shared their templates!  Below is a
summary of the responses I received.



Best,



Maria





"I have found that presses have not only a designated contact for asking for
permission but often have a form of their own which they ask you to use.  If
there is no such form, I would just provide information about the desired
use: what and much of it you want to use, plus how this work/excerpt will be
published elsewhere."



****



"As for denied responses it varies:



7         If we are asking for too large of a percentage of a text--over 10%
is the general rulethe professor will edit the original request to within
guidelines the rights-holder has stipulated and resubmit.



7         It is possible that the rights-holder has changed and permission
should go directly to the author.



7         In the case that the rights-holder denies the request completely,
the professor will either adopt the text or place the article or chapters on
reserve in the library."



****



"We do academic course packets in three languages, which adds untold
complications! But we've had success with this format. I've attached it as a
pdf. If you are working with English only materials, I'd use Copyright
Clearance Center - it's easy to set up an account, you can be billed or pay
online with a credit card, you can also usually request, print or electronic
rights, including for posting to secure websites. PARS International also
handles quite a bit of content for licensing, they handle Discover, New York
Times and Washington Post content. Usually if you can locate the content on
their archive sites they will have a quick link for permissions that lets
you request the material online fairly quickly."



****



"It sounds like you should create a sort of Mad Libs: "[who] seeks
permission to republish [images/articles/etc.] in [a book/an article/etc.]
to be distributed either (a) in [x] copies or (b) put online at a site
[publicly available/available to certain users] for a [y] period of time."
 There are so many different possible things you might ask for that I'm
skeptical about the possibility of a universal template."



****



"Oh, yes, I have been denied permission. Sometimes the distributor does not
own the rights to grant the permissions. Sometimes a producer will be
anxious to get their films shown and not charge anything additional.
Sometimes the rights are too expensive to purchase, but at least we know if
it's a possibility. Also, if it's a feature film, or a foreign film, we do
not even try. Unless you go through Swank or some other licensing company it
is too hard to track down someone at a major film company who can actually
grant those rights. For those, we put a note in our bibliographic record for
the title which states it is for Classroom Use and Home Use Only.

I maintain a spreadsheet by company with their policies, and by title, for
individual titles we have received rights for. I also maintain a similar
spreadsheet for our staff at the desk who are responsible for checking items
out for Reserves. Depending on the rights, we also add other notes to our
bibliographic records such as Public Performance permitted, etc.

We have the capabilities on campus at our IT department to convert to
streaming media when we receive those rights. We can password protect for a
single class or for a semester. Our IT department has strict instructions to
NEVER convert a Library owned title to streaming unless it comes from a
Library staff member. That way professors could not circumvent our rights by
checking out a title and taking it to IT. What they do with their own copies
are not our concern."