united-states copyright public-domain publishing authorship
Are the Quotations in a Book of Quotations Copyrighted?
<p>I have a book of quotations that displays a 1967 copyright. I would like to use some of them in a current work of mine that I intend to publish.</p>
<p>Many of the quotations in the 1967 book I can trace back to sources, the copyrights of which have expired. However, there are some I cannot—though the quotes themselves were uttered more than 95 years ago. Also, I am quite certain that their written sources (which I have not located) would have been published more than 95 years ago.</p>
<p>QUESTION: Legally, may I extract quotes from the copyrighted 1967 book and incorporate them into my book, which I intend to publish in the United States?</p>

<p>The copyright on the book of quotations protects the <strong>collection</strong>. That is, it protects the author's choice of which quotations to include, and of what order to list them in.  It also covers any division of them into groups or categories, and any added text (intros, comments, and so on) written by the author. It does not protect the quotations themselves. As those are not the original work of the author, s/he can have no copyright in them.</p>
<p>Any quotes that are in the public domain (through expiration of copyright, or otherwise) may be used freely.  Any others are protected by copyright. However the use of a short quotation is often <em><strong>fair use</strong></em> under US law, or is subject to another <em><strong>exception to copyright</strong></em> elsewhere. But that depends very much on the details of the factual situation.</p>
<p>So quotes with expired copyrights are safe to use. Others may well be safe if they are relatively short, and proper attribution is given.</p>
