what is required to post an entire article from an out of business newspaper?

[need2kno]

I am working on developing a website but would like to feature some old newspaper articles about the business. Two of the newspapers are no longer in business. Both articles are printed in Japanese and I am not able to read them. I can get translation of the newspaper completed although it won't be very convenient. Currently trying to find the names of the reporters that wrote the articles in 1996. We don't want to just cite the newspapers but want to have available for viewing/reading the entire article from these two newspapers especially now that we know the newspaper is no longer in business. Attempts to contact these two newspapers by phone are fruitless as the number has been discontinued or being used by another business.

A third newspaper also featured the business in 1994. This newspaper merged with another newspaper after the article was published. Have called the new newspaper to inquire on how they would need us to properly feature a copy of their article on the website but still waiting for a call back. The third newspaper at least is in English so I hope that I will be able to get approval from them as needed or direction on what they will allow.

My greatest concern is figuring out the proper way to proceed regarding the first two Japanese newspapers. Was able to get in touch with a former article writer for one of the Japanese newspapers. They are trying to help me get in touch with both Editors-In-Chief for the Japanese papers. If they are not able to get in touch with the E-I-C to get approval to post the articles on the website (they are deceased or cannot be found) do we have any options to consider? What would we able to do with regard to featuring scan copies of the newspaper articles on the website if at all?

We want to display the entire article for all three entire articles on the website to show a history of where it began and where it is now. Hoping that maybe we can get another newspaper interested in featuring the business if the business can get enough interest at a future event.

If we are not able to get written permission to reprint or display the article on the website, is the only other option available for consideration having to properly cite these articles? We were hoping to be able to display the entire article including pictures where possible. Any suggestions as I am sure the way we want to use these articles would be some type of copyright infringement if not done properly.

Any assistance you can provide would be GREATLY appreciated! THANK YOU!

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Very good question. Without having rights, there isn't any way you can reprint these articles with absolute assurance you are within copyright law. I assume you don't fall within the "fair use" exception, if you are familiar with that (or you can search for "fair use" on this site.) You can paraphrase the substance of the articles and use your own words to describe what they say.

I understand though, that what you really want are the rights to use those articles. Some have chosen to use them anyway if the risk of being sued is minimal. I believe you're going about this the right way. Unfortunately things like this do happen, where works are technically owned by someone but obtaining those rights is virtually impossible (or just not practical.)

Best of luck whatever you decide to do.

 

[need2kno]

Thanks VERY MUCH for your advice!

In the last two days I made a TON of progress! As a result, I am happy to report GREAT news! With a lot of persistence, I was able to track down a few individuals that were able to help me connect with the proper parties to get permissions to use the articles. Even BETTER news is that they gave me permission to use a scanned image and article as it was originally printed (although my copies have yellowed a bit). They gave me specific instructions for how they wanted the article referenced and at no cost. I promised I would provide them a link to the website for them to review when the site is completed. This will allow them to view the website to provide comments and feedback should I need to edit the post or references to the article.

One of the papers provided a document that we needed to sign and return which grants us permission to reprint. I used the same approach with regard to anything that we wanted to display on the website. Since none of these agencies will be charging us any fees to feature these articles in full, I am adding a hyperlink to our website that links to their or their parent company. This helps to promote that agency online for free since they were helping us by letting us reprint the material for free.

Since some of the artwork or related material was copyrighted, citations to these were referenced as copyright material per the agencies request. The majority of the agencies just asked for a "courtesy of..." reference and an incredibly easy requirement to accommodate.

Since I had enough knowledge about intellectual property, copyrights, patents and related information/works I knew I needed to ask for help getting pointed in the right direction. Hope that sharing my experience here will be helpful to others that might have similar situations. This was a great reminder to keep contact information for people that you connect with. It may not seem to be very useful today but years from now (in our case as much as 22 years) you may need that little scrap of paper you scribbled a name and number on.

The website is about 75% complete and I couldn't be more excited to be able to complete it the way I had hoped to.

Mahalo for all of your assistance!