fallsauce

Do biographers have to pay money to the person they're writing about in order to write them?

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Willravel

If you're going to be showing it to anyone, you need to show where you got your information. If you're going to publish and sell it, you need permission from that person or that person's legal representatives (I'm not sure what those 'unauthorized biographies' are all about).

Is this a school project, or are you having this published?

fallsauce

I'm just trying to find an example to show that a book called 'Tarzan Presley' should be able to be published without having to pay the original author of 'Tarzan' anything. But I suppose you answered my question, and I'd like to know what the deal with those unauthorised biographies are all about too.

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"Hey little kitty with your tail dragging on the floor
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Rodney

You're covering two different issues here: unauthorized biographies and trademarks.

The estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs has trademarked anything to do with the name "Tarzan" and fights furiously against any unauthorized use of the name. Because if they allow common use of the name without permission, they lose control of it. I suspect that you'd have a hard time if you used the word "Tarzan" in a book title without their permission.

Unauthorized biographies draw on public sources, news articles, and third parties who know about the biographical subject and are willing to talk about him/her. Since the subject of the biography is not involved, no permission is required. And as a public figure, the person's right to privacy is limited.

Without this way of operating, journalism as we know it couldn't exist. Journalists often write stories about people who really don't want their name in the paper -- criminals, crooked politicians, etc -- and they gather facts about the person usually without his or her permission. An unauthorized biography is basically a piece of journalism, and is unassailable as long as it hews to journalistic rules: all firm assertions attributed to named sources, no "reckless disregard for the truth" and so on.

The only guy I remember who got into serious trouble from writing an authorized biography was a guy named Clifford Irving back in the '70s. He wrote an unauthorized bio of tycoon Howard Hughes back in the '70s and, it turns out, made a lot of stuff up. Hughes even came out of seclusion to refute the book.

iccky

You definitely do NOT need permission from a biography's subject to publish. It's a free speech issue. I can write whatever I want about you so long as I don't cross the line into libel. Any good biography will bring out facts and perspectives on a person that are counter to that person's self-image and cultivated public image; to give the subject editorial control would go against both free speech and the principals of unbiased historical inquiry.

Many biographers will try to cultivate a good working relationship with their subjects, but only to get easier access to materials. I'd be very cautious around biographies that are authorized by their subjects: these are not historical scholarship but instead tools of the subjects public relations strategy.

A great example is Robert Caro, who wrote very unflattering biographies of Robert Moses and LBJ. In the beginning he had the cooperation of both subjects (or, in LBJ's case, his widow), and did extensive interviews with them. As they got wind of what he was actually writing about them they cut off contact and disavowed the works.

meembo

Rodney's got it, I think. I found this link. You can't just write about anyone you please, especially those who may have a presumption of privacy that the author would disrupt. The link gives good examples of these presumptions and other issues related to an unauthorized biography.

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