Copyright for Creatives

2.6 Copyrighting Quotes

I recently received this great shirt with my favorite quote on it: Well-behaved women seldom make history. And even more impressively, it has the correct source, Laurel Thatcher Urban, cited. And even more impressively, it has a copyright notice, including her name. On the shirt. It's now my favorite piece of clothing.

As this quote is often misattributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, the fact the shirt acknowledges the proper source is kind of huge. The fact it also acknowledges her as the proper copyright holder as well is almost unheard of, as we don't tend to think of things people say as being copyrightable. But put those words into a fixed medium, be it a T-shirt, a poster, or anything else tangible, and it gains a little bit more status.

And then there's this great series of geeky memes that all follow the same format: a picture of a well-known character from a geeky fandom with a quote from another fandom next to them. The quote is then attributed to a character from a third fandom. There are many variations on this, but they're all poking fun at what has become a common practice: misattribution.

Quotes are misquoted or misattributed all the time, usually through accident or perpetuating without verification. But we have a rather disturbing situation now going among lifestyle bloggers and motivational speakers, taking what they believe to be a cool saying and, seeing no attribution at the time, claim it as their own and slapping their name on it, implying they themselves coined it.

This is plagiarism. Flat out, plain as day, plagiarism.

Then, they slap a copyright symbol on it, making the situation worse. Because we've become so used to seeing unattributed and misattributed quotes all over social media, most of us never think to verify the source...so these influencers get away with it. (Usually. There's one at the time I'm writing this who's getting hit with plagiarism claims left and right for claiming other people's quotes, book titles, and even chapter titles as her own work.)

Interviews have a similar problem. While the conversation itself may or may not be copyrights, the fixed, tangible means by which the interview was shared is. People under the guise of commentary will then take quotes from the interview and misrepresent them, not realizing that actually violates the Fair Use Doctrine. (We really do let way too much slide...)

For a really good, but condensed, explanation of the copyright issues in play in an interview, check out:

Basically, quotes fall under the same rules other creations do. Check your sources; make sure you have the quote correctly attributed. Check for whether or not you have the right to share that quote, in the context you're planning to share it. Always credit your sources, or at least acknowledge that you made the attempt. Don't be part of the problem on this one.