The Permissions & Content Licensing team is responsible for licensing material from books published by Penguin Random House UK and unpublished materials found in the Penguin Random House UK Archive and Library.
We receive a huge variety of permission requests from authors, publishers, exam boards, charities and TV, film and radio producers. We are always happy to hear from requestors who want to use material from our books in their projects.
Please use our online form to request permission.
You can use our permission request form for the following projects:
The use of an extract within your publication (e.g. your novel, textbook, anthology or academic journal). This may be a quote used in the body of text or as an epigraph (i.e. a stand-alone quote preceding a chapter).
In order to license this, we will need to hold quotation rights in the title you are hoping to reuse from, which we will check before we get back to your request form.
This is the use of our books in films and TV, either as a handheld prop or as set dressing in the background of a scene. This can also use of book covers as posters, flyers, or any other use of our book covers onscreen.
We are not always able to license these uses without author approval and in order to meet tight deadlines for clearance, we ask that all information is provided in the initial request form (you can read more about what information will be asked for in the further FAQs below).
Reading extracts aloud or broadcasting portions of our audio books on television, radio and elsewhere.
Using the cover or any illustrations in another publication.
Please note that if you are looking to use our cover on your publication, you will need to contact our rights team. You can find them here.
For anything that you think does not fit into the other categories, use the ‘Other’ option on our form. However, we do recommend reading our FAQs prior to this.
We know requesting permission can be a bit confusing, so our Permissions & Content Licensing team have put together a list of FAQs to help you through the process.
In the first instance, please check the copyright page to ensure that it is material published by Penguin Random House UK.
If yes, and your request to use material falls into one of the usage options on the online permission request form please email us: penguinpermissions@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk
Please include the ISBN for the specific edition you wish to reuse from. If the edition was released without an ISBN, please provide the year in which the particular edition was released, and an edition number if available.
If you require material from a selection of books, please submit one online permission request form for each book.
We endeavour to get back to you as soon as possible, though it may take us longer to respond during busy periods.
Unfortunately, due to the high volume of requests we receive on a daily basis, requests cannot generally be prioritised.
For more information on how to contact our Rights team, click here.
For more information on how to contact our Rights team, click here.
For more information on how to contact our Rights team, click here.
Please scroll back up the form and double check that all mandatory fields are completed before pressing submit.
If you are still unable to submit the form, please contact CustomerSupport@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk
There are certain, very specific situations where you may be permitted to reproduce extracts of books without seeking permission from the copyright owner, including for research and private study and for criticism and review.
More information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptions-to-copyright
Images are often used in our books with permission from other sources. Please check the copyright page and any credits in the book to see if the material in question is credited to another source; if it is, contact that party directly. If the image is not credited anywhere in the book, please submit a request using the online permission request form.
Copyright generally expires 70 years after the end of the calendar year in which the author dies.
Unfortunately, we cannot advise on legal matters relating to copyright. For these queries, you should visit https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/intellectual-property-office
The Fair Dealing exception allows a party to use a work without the copyright owner’s permission and without compensating the copyright owner for such use in certain circumstances. Copyright law identifies certain types of uses, including quotation, criticism and review, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research as examples of activities that may qualify as a Fair Dealing.
We generally don’t determine if something is 'Fair Dealing', but may issue a Gratis licence if the usage warrants it. We advise that it's always best to request, just in case.
Unless your project is going to be published or released commercially, we wouldn’t expect to need to grant permission. If your written work is going to be accessible to a large number of people outside the remit of your course, we would advise getting in touch.
Penguin Random House UK Rights Department license US rights, translations, film, serial, audio rights of complete books and merchandising. Please direct your request to the appropriate Rights Department: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.uk/work-with-us/rights-licensing-and-permissions/
Penguin Ventures is the licensing and consumer products division of Penguin Random House UK. They manage our portfolio of iconic literary brands and characters: Peter Rabbit, The Snowman, Spot, Flower Fairies and more, across product, experience and digital. For this, please email: rights-brandsandlicensing@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk
All rights licensing departments are in contact with each other, so please don’t worry if you think you may have sent your initial request to the wrong place – we work together behind the scenes to get requests to the right team!
