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Is it ok to use comments from facebook in my book? Advice needed please.
I am wondering if anyone knows the legal position on this.
I am doing a follow on book/a re-write (the first one was a learning curve and I know can be better so trying to expand it as well as rewrite it to cover more areas) and posted questions on various groups asking if people would be willing to share their experiences of how age affected their illness. Also for their experiences once they had passed through the menopause (ie had things improved or not). I now have a collection of replies and am wondering whether I can include them or not as quotes. Do I have to attribute them to someone, leave them anonymous or change the names?
Are there any legal potholes here?
If anyone know the answer I would be grateful if you could let me know.
Many thanks
Comments
CALLING ALL GROUPS FOR ME/CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME!
I am looking for women who are going through or have gone through the menopause while dealing with ME or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome who are willing to contact me re my revision of my book. I am looking for women who are willing to tell me their experience of how their illness has been affected during and after the menopause. I would appreciate it if you could share this post with as many relevant groups as possible. (Names will not be used unless specifically agreed in advance.) Many thanks. Gina
You could make sure by contacting the Society of Authors.
It is good to have somebody else confirm what I thought. Thanks everyone.
It's probably not a problem, but it would be worth checking.
https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms
"For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it."
As I understand it, that's just ensuring they have the permission they need to show the stuff you post on all your friends' news streams, and to ensure that if somebody clicks 'Share' they don't have to contact you for permission. So it's nowhere near as tricky as I thought it might be.
As long as you have permission from the contributors to use their responses (and edit them if necessary), you should be fine. Otherwise, you will need to paraphrase them. Don't use anyone's name unless they've specifically agreed to it.
I would suggest getting back in touch with your contributors and asking if they would do an interview (by email) for use in the book instead.