FAQs

You will first need to contact the most recent publisher of the book who will know whether an option has already been taken over that book / published work.  If the publisher is not the rightsholder they will likely know who you should contact.  If the rights are available, then you will negotiate with the publisher or rightsholder (i.e. the author) over the terms. The same applies to prose or poetic material you should contact the last publisher of that work for permission.

You will need to obtain permission from the rightsholder to use it. The APRA website has good information on obtaining licences for music.

The important issues here are between using material (e.g. writing a play based on the film Citizen Kane) and referring to the material (e.g. having characters joke about the other things ‘Rosebud’ could have referred to). Copyright law allows certain reasonable uses and incidental use in an artistic work will likely fall within that category, especially if it’s for the purpose of review, comment or satire.  If it goes beyond this type of incidental use, however, you will need permission.