Any published non-fiction authors here...I really need advice.

Firstly, I hope this is in the correct forum....

I am planning to write a non-fiction conspiracy-theory type of book, with a view to hopefully getting comercially published. One of the main focuses within the book would be a description of the ideologies , plans and activities of a religious/philosophical "movement" headed by MAITREYA via his public mouthpiece BENJAMIN CREME

This movement/organization has an international magazine called "Share International" and a website by the same name :

Share International

The website has been the main source for compiling my research into the Maitreya. There are books and free ebooks too.

Now, the content of my book would be casting this organization and this Maitreya in a very suspicious light, so there is no way I would be granted persmission to copy any text off the site/from books from Share International.

Is there any way to LEGALLY convey information about this Maitreya, his organization, his ideals , his plans for humanity, his thoughts and gist of his teachings etc WITHOUT having permission from Share International ?

I'm thinking of paraphrasing but apparantly this can be a dodgy area ?
Does anyone have any advice or suggestions, preferably based on personal experience ? I believe I've come across a big piece of the puzzle in terms of what is planned for the human race, it is very important information and I want to get it out. But how can I do so without legal permission, is there a way around this somehow ? I hope so.....

ps) I will not be discussing my theory in this thread, I simply want some sound advice if anyone has any, thanks.

Really, all you need to use are quotation marks and footnotes. Web publication is publication, and so can be freely quoted, but must be properly acknowledged by enclosing the content in quotation marks and then footnoting the source so that the excerpt can be independently verified.

You can also paraphrase outside content, but any ideas not your own must also be properly footnoted, and should be prefaced by a phrase such as "Mr. Doe stated in his book/blog/article entitled X that..."

Hope this helps.

reply to post by gottago


Thanks for your reply but what you said seems to fly in the face of the legal stuff I've read online...everywhere I go it says you have to seek permission before quoting verbatim from books/website articles etc due to those works being copyrighted. The share International site says exactly this also.
I've also come across a few publisher's guidelines which make a point of stating one must enclose proof of permissions to quote extracts from sources you have used.
UK copyright law in respect of "fair use " policy was updated a few years ago to disallow including sections of another author's work for commercial purposes....eg quoting from a copyrighted source in ones own book that goes on to earn one money is apparantly a blatant infringement of copyright if no prior permission has been granted.

So, I'm a tad confused by your take given it contradicts all the legal guidelines I've read so far....



[edit on 24/11/08 by cosmicpixie]

[edit on 24/11/08 by cosmicpixie]