Legal question - Can I legally write a summary of a book, and charge for it?

Question

Am I legally at risk if I were to create a summary of a book and provide access to it online as a download? Key phrases in the book would be repeated, but overall, it would be a summary written by someone else (pretty similar to 'Cliff Notes'). Do I NEED to get any permission from a publisher or autohor, or can I write and make available such a summary independent of any such interaction with the author/publisher. If it were necessary to notify the publisher, would my obligation simply be to notify the publisher, or would I have to seek their permission? I would not be quoting passages verbatim, but would be using some of the key terminology/phrases in the book, where required.

The content would be a summary of a full book - not a review or comment on the bug. Rather, it would be written to be a shorter substitute to the original.

Hi Folks, thanks so much for the great input so far. To clarify further, the summary I would be writing would not be explicity positioned as a substitute for the larger, original book, but for practical purposes, some people would consume the summary as a substitute for reading the original, larger work. There would be some cannabalization (some people who would otherwise have purchased the book but would buy the summary instead).

That would be balanced by the fact that some people would purcahse the summary (who would not otherwise have purcahsed the book), and through consuming the summary, buy the book. Overall, the user would be encouraged to buy the book as well.

With that in mind, I want to make sure that my legal risk is reduced if not eliminated, and I don't want to have to ask anyone's permission if I don't legally have to, because that would be too time consuming and not very scalable if I'm talking many books and many publishers.

Thanks in advance for any and all input!

Answer 1

Yes you do! Read the copy rights in the begining of the book!

Answer 2

Strictly speaking, no, in the U.S. you don't need permission to publish a summary of a book. However, you must be very careful about how you describe certain unique philosophies or ideas. You can't copyright an idea (or a title), but you can copyright the way in which that idea is expressed, especially regarding your "key terminology" in the book. You can also trademark certain terms, which then cannot be used for financial gain by anyone else. You would be wise to do some specific research into copyright law and trademark law before you begin.

I am especially wary of the "substitute" comment you make in your last sentence. That might fall under a different part of law, "restraint of trade" which I'm not all that familiar with. You can write a study companion, like Cliff's Notes, for example, but you I[m pretty sure you can't write an alternative version of a work for the express purpose of using it as a substitute for the work.

Answer 3

What you are thinking is similar to the business model of businesses such as Soundview Executive Book Summaries http://www.summary.com/cgi-bin/Soundview.storefront - they write summaries of business books and they offer these summaries for sale via subscription to their website (and they're not cheap!). I suggest you study their offering and similar websites to see how you can do this business as well

I suggest you contact the marketing department of publishers or PR folks of authors. Authors and publishers would love the exposure of such a service as it brings attention to their book -- and marketing a book is not that easy unless you are a very well known author. Discuss with them any copyright issues or other things you need to consider. They are often very helpful as they are keen to get the word out there to the buying public.

The key though is to get their permission that you will be writing book summaries and expect to get paid for these summaries.

Answer 4

you can't charge for something for which you have not previously arranged and/or have been given authorization to do. Published material is copywrited. If you write a summary, you need to have the payment arrangements, if it's legal to make them, arranged ahead of time. Don't expect payment for a summary if you do it on your own.