Re: Copyright question - Doonsbury

[Billie Wahlstrom <bwahlstr -at- MAILBOX -dot- MAIL -dot- UMN -dot- EDU>]

Hi,
Unfortunately you do need permission to reproduce a cartoon, even for limited
use.  The copyright holder has all rights for reproduction.  You could always
hope that you'd not be found out, but it does happen.  You can see who holds the
copyright (it's a syndicate) by looking at the cartoon itself.  It's written
next to one of the panels.  The research librarian at any university can give
you a current address for that syndicate.  Costs vary with the use intended and
the amount of distribution that will be don.  You might want to get yourself a
copy of one of West Publications Nutshell series on copyright, patents, and
tradmarks or Ester R. Sinofsky's book "A Copyright Primer for Educational and
Industrial Media Producers (1988).  If you don't want to look for these, and you
do go ahead and use the cartoon, you might want to look into liability insurance
:-).   Billie

In message <01H7NVVVS5CIDBJJWC -at- VX -dot- CIS -dot- UMN -dot- EDU> "Technical Writers List; for all
Technical Communication issues"
 writes:
> I'm getting started on an internal report about PDAs (Personal Digital
> Assistants) next week, and the analyst wants to include the Doonsbury series
> from last year about PDAs (the now-infamous Newton-bashing week).

> My question is, if the report is strictly internal to the company (~200
> circulation), do I still need to get permission from the publisher to
> reprint it?

> If so, does anyone know who I would contact for reprint permission?

> Thanks in advance!


> --
> Nancy Cedeno       nac -at- well -dot- sf -dot- ca -dot- us       nac7 -at- pge -dot- com


Billie Wahlstrom
Professor and Head
Department of Rhetoric
University of Minnesota
St. Paul, MN 55105
Telephone: 612.624.7750

Home of the Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Technical Communication!