Do I need to request permission to quote a devotional address or forum?
The need for permission when quoting material in a publication depends on the length of the individual quotes. Typically, permission is not needed for short quotations from other publications as long as the quotes are matched accurately and completely cited. Permission is required for long excerpts or reproduction of whole works.
For a short quotation (up to a few paragraphs), a citation telling where it came from should be sufficient. Be sure that the portion being quoted is material directly from the speaker and not a quote within the talk. If quoting quoted material, you should reference the original source. In our publications we set up our BYU Speeches citations in this order: speaker, title, talk type, and date (e.g., Kevin J Worthen, “Enduring Joy,” BYU devotional address, 7 January 2020). If a talk is not available on the BYU Speeches website and only appears in a hard-copy publication, we then include a page number along with title of publication, place of printing, publisher name, and date of publication.
People seeking to include quotations longer than a block quote of a few paragraphs would need to obtain permission from the individual speakers, who retain the copyright to their material. BYU does not keep and generally cannot share speakers’ contact information with people interested in obtaining copyright permission to reprint or cite large portions of a talk. Permissions for use of material presented by Church leaders is managed centrally by the Church’s Intellectual Property Office.