Is a Summary I Write Mine?

[m2c1r]

Here's the question- suppose I buy a book called "who moved my widget", and write my own 10 page summary of it- the ideas and thoughts included in the original without copying any of the actual language.

Can I sell this summary to people too lazy to read the original? Do I need the author's consent to sell a summary of their work? Can I actually copyright the summary I have written? I think this falls under what people call derivative works- but how exactly does that apply to this example?

Any help/opinions much appreciated.

[rogerd]

There is actually a service that has been doing this for decades. It is primarily a subscription service aimed at businesspeople with too little time (or inclination) to read actual books.

I reviewed the material from the business I mentioned above and even downloaded a summary. They do assert their own copyright on the summary, and make no reference to the author's copyright (as, say, an audio recording of a book would).

They also have a FAQ item that said that authors love to have their books summarized as it help publicize them. To me, this implied that the summaries were performed without explicit permission or royalties.

Big publishers have good lawyers, though, so I'd recommend an attorney vetting your final approach.

[rogerd]

Update - further study of the site in question disclosed this:

The very best of these books become Summaries (once we receive permission from the publishers).

So apparently they DO seek permission...

[m2c1r]

Yes- I've seen the service, and thought there might be some possible niche markets that would be well served by a similar product. I didn't catch on their site where they said they seek permission.

Still be nice to get a legal opinion on it, though- as in: if you write a review you don't need permission, but a summary you do- where is the line? Or, do they only need (seek) permission because they do use actual language from the books in their summaries, and not doing this would be a different story?

[rogerd]

Still be nice to get a legal opinion on it

Lawyers are a good source for those! ;) NOT a legal opinion, but I'd guess a key detemining factor is how much of the content is yours (commentary, analysis, etc.) and also how much you extract directly from the source document (quotes & paraphrases).

Once you get into the slightly murky fair use waters, be aware that even if the law seems to be on your side a deep-pockets company can still decide to sue you if they don't like what you are doing. They probably have lots more to spend on lawyers than you do. Hence, it's good to be absolutely sure before proceeding and to seek permission if in doubt.

[mgream]

Irrespective of the arguments that can be made about whether you are "fair using" or "derivative works", I think it's obvious that your summaries would be a "substantial taking" of the original work and likely to be depriving the original authors of income from sales of their works. Then again, as you say, such lazy people may not read the original works in the first place, so such a summary activity may actually satisfy a need that is not yet met (you found an opportunity gap ...). But if it does meet a new need, it's quite clear that you're still leveraging off the original owners efforts to meet that need and depriving them in doing so. This strongly suggests that such an activity is likely to be infringing as it causes actual loss.

In the case of summaries of movies or television programs or books or so on in guides, publications etc: the essential difference is that these summaries are not substantial enough to replace the original work (i.e. they don't "compete" with the work), and generally they act as sign posts or references to the work, they are not substitutes for the work. In your case, the summaries are substitutes. This would be a key matter of fact in the argument: just how far does your summary go from being a signpost to being a replacement.

I think that you would need to come to some arrangement with the owners of the works to do this kind of thing, but such an arrangement could still be profitable for both of you and make a good business (as evidenced by the fact that there are other businesses doing this).