As author of your MS, you are responsible for obtaining permissions to use material owned by others. Because the permissions-seeking process can be remarkably protracted, it is wise to begin writing for permissions as soon as you sign your contract with the Press and can confer with your acquisitions editor or MS editor about which permissions are necessary. In addition, you will need to prepare credit lines for illustrations and acknowledgments, pay permissions fees, and, eventually, provide complimentary copies when they have been requested as a condition of permission. Please send us photocopies of letters or forms granting you permission for the use of copyrighted material so that we can see that any special requirements with regard to cropping and to wording and placement of credit are fulfilled. Copy both sides if there is any writing on the back. Keep the originals for your files.

We will ask you to complete a Permissions Questionnaire. Completing and returning this form promptly when you receive it will enable us to advise you about which permissions you should pursue for your MS.

No MS can be transmitted for copyediting until all necessary permissions have been obtained, so it is crucial that any final permissions issues be resolved and all permissions letters be on hand by the time you mail your final MS to your acquisitions editor. The appendix to this guide contains sample forms for requesting permission.

Fair and Unfair Use of Copyrighted Material
You will need to secure written permission to quote previously published written or illustrative material if it is still in copyright (generally, if it was published fewer than 75 years ago) and if your use exceeds fair use. The "fair use"of properly attributed copyrighted material is permitted by law, but the extent and limits of fair use itself are not defined by word count alone.

Brief extracts from published sources may be used for comment or illustration without permission if the source is cited. You should not quote at such length from another source as to diminish its value. Proportion is to be considered: to quote 500 words from a 5,000-word essay probably exceeds fair use, whereas quoting 500 words from a work of 50,000 probably does not. Quoting more than three lines of poetry without seeking permission is inadvisable if the poem is still in copyright. Again, however, proportion is an issue: if the poem is only ten lines long, quoting even one full line would likely exceed fair use. Quoting briefly from published prose sources is allowed by fair use; using whole chapters, poems, maps, most tables, graphs, and other items of illustrative material is not. Under the fair-use principle, very short tables in which the data could be explained in a paragraph of text can usually be used, as long as the source is clearly identified and as long as the original table is not photographically reproduced.

If you are reprinting your own material from a collective work published after 1 January 1978, you need to request permission from the publisher only if you transferred your rights to that material by an express written agreement. Whether or not you need a formal permission letter, you should list such previous publication in a paragraph in your acknowledgments. Provide us with a photocopy of a statement from the journal indicating that copyright is in your name, that copyright has been transferred to you, or that permission is being granted for publication in your current MS. If a chapter in the present MS does not entirely duplicate text you have published previously (e.g., a journal article or a chapter in an edited volume), we need to know what percentage of the present chapter is contained in the previous publication. In any case, indicate the date of your signed contract for the earlier publication.

If you and your acquisitions editor or MS editor determine that you need to seek permission to use previously published material, direct your request to the publisher.

If in doubt whether or not permission is required for a particular item, please check with your acquisitions editor or with the managing editor before seeking permission. Unnecessarily requesting permission endangers the principle of fair use.

If after signing your contract with the Press you wish to publish any portion of your MS in another venue, contact your acquisitions editor. He or she will then advise you to make your request in writing to the University of Virginia Press, Rights and Permissions.

Manuscript Materials
Both copyright protection and the principle of fair use apply to manuscript materials, although the issues are even more ambiguous than with published materials. Public regulations or private restrictions unrelated to copyright may restrict the use of unpublished material. Permission to quote from unpublished materials should be obtained from both the owner of the literary rights (the author, author's heirs, or designated representative) and the owner of the property (the possessor, often a repository), if these rights are held separately. The custodian of the collection--usually a librarian or archivist--is the best source of information, including what permissions must be sought and from whom.

Illustrations
Obtaining permission for illustrations is perhaps even more time-consuming and undoubtedly more expensive than for text. As with manuscript materials, there are two separate and distinct legal protections for illustrations: one is extended to the owner (library, archives, or other institution) of the item, and the other is extended to the holder of the copyright (if there is one, normally the photographer or artist or that personšs heirs). That a photograph (or other visual art) carries no copyright notice does not necessarily mean it is in the public domain. It is your responsibility to ascertain its status from the institution holding it. The institution in turn will alert you if further permission is required from an owner of publishing rights, that is, the copyright holder.