How can I Include a verbatim passage in my fiction without plagiarizing it?
In my novel, the MC goes to a resort and at the resort, they offer two types of Buddhist meditations. Those meditations are from another book and I cannot fiddle with the meditation steps without taking the main point of the meditations away.
I want to include these steps in my book, and I can't change them, but I don't want to plagiarize the original author. What can I do?
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3 answers
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Older meditations are almost certainly in the public domain. In the United States, anything published before 1924 is in the public domain as the copyrights have expired. Newer works may also have expired copyrights, depending on the circumstances.
While copyright law varies from country to country (and you should check in the country you're publishing in), it's a fairly safe bet that anything 100+ years old is fair game. This is true even if someone has reprinted them in a book they have then copyrighted. The specific portions that are quotes from older works can not be copyrighted (though commentary about them can be).
If the meditation is newer, it may be protected under copyright, in which case you need to get permission from the author (or copyright holder if different).
And here's the twist...
Translations are derivative works and they may be copyrighted as such.
For example, say you wish to quote a meditation written down nearly 2000 years ago in the Pali language. There's no question this is in the public domain. But the English translation of the specific one you want to use? That could be from 10 years ago, and copyrighted. Ditto for translations in to any other language, if it was in the last century.
Many texts have multiple translations into the same language and they will have been done at different times, by different authors, with different copyright status. And yeah, you have to check them one at a time. Sometimes the endnotes of the book (or elsewhere) will give more specific sources and offer thanks for reprint rights. Other times you just have to search.
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Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Forest House is a lose retelling of Belini's opera Norma. Several hymns were taken from the opera verbatim, something done as tribute to the source material. Zimmer Bradley states all this in a short author's note in the beginning of the novel. As @CrisSunami states in a comment, this is common practice. The author's note can be located in the beginning or the end.
However, it is important to note Norma is in the public domain. The situation is somewhat different for texts which are still copyrighted, as @Amadeus states.
In such a case, you would need to obtain permission from the author to use his text. Write to the relevant copyright holder, get the permission. Unless you're putting the thing in very negative context, it's extra publicity for them. That's always good. As an example, in the Acknowledgements section of Olympos, Dan Simmons writes:
I would like to thank Jean-Daniel Breque for his permission to use the details of one of his favourite walks down the avenue Daumesnil and the rest of that Promenade Plantée. A full description of this delightful walk can be found in Jean-Daniel's essay "Green Tracks" in the Time Out Book of Paris Walks, published by Penguin.
Note that in this case nothing is quoted verbatim, but nonetheless permission has been obtained, and credit is given. This is not to say that a verbatim quote could not have been used.
It is for you to find out whether the work you wish to quote is copyrighted, and to obtain permission to use it if it is. Then, just provide accreditation in the beginning or the end.
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Real Buddhist meditations are probably public domain (not copyrighted, or in current USA law copyright lasts for the lifetime of the author plus 70 years).
Presumably they are very old meditations and thus not intellectual property of any person or entity.
You can still avoid plagiarism by having a character reference the book, telling people a meditation "comes from the X Y Z".
Or in prose, you can say
The meditation they used was first written in the scroll X Y Z.
For many ancient works, if you can find the instructions unattributed in multiple sources so it isn't possible to know the original source, then you do not have to cite any of them.
If your book claims a copyright, read to see if it allows limited copying. It is legal to copyright a translation from the original language, so if you are presenting the English version of a meditation originally written in Chinese, then you have a copyright issue, but the author may allow copying of a single meditation. That is often done for copyrighted Bible verses (because the original was not in English). The King James version is public domain, but not the NEW King James version or many other recent translations (recent being in the last century or two).
If the authors don't say they allow copying on the copyright page, then you are getting into legal territory, and I am not a lawyer.
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