Copyright puzzle
A couple of years ago I wrote a biography (still unpublished) of author William ‘Billy’ Holt (1897-1977; pictured at right), who was born in fortean hotspot Todmorden. I found some letters written to Holt by local novelist Phyllis Bentley, and a few pages about Holt in a book called Millstone Grit by local author Glyn Hughes. I wanted to use direct quotations from both, so I needed to get permission from the copyright owners of these two deceased authors.
In hindsight, I should have just contacted the publishers of their books for permission, but as I happened to be in the reference/archives section of Calderdale Central Library in Halifax, where I do much of my research, I asked the Head Librarian if there was some way of tracing copyright owners. I was pleased and surprised when she told me of a website of a university (somewhere in middle England, I seem to remember, Hertfordshire or Herefordshire, perhaps) where you could do a copyright research.
So I visited the website, did two searches, and discovered that the copyrights of Bentley’s writings were handled by solicitors in London, and that Hughes’s copyright was handled by his
