A social worker writes, “I work in a fertility center. I am a big fan of guided imagery and I plan to apply for a grant to study the efficacy of guided imagery for helping couples attain their fertility goals.  

“My question to you is if you would be willing to create a CD specifically for our clinic so we can have the copy right privileges in order to freely provide these to our patients.  If so, would you be able to give me a ballpark idea on how much this would cost? I need to know some specifics for this grant and I have never done this before.”

Thank you.
Lorene P.

Dear Lorene,

I’m delighted you want to study this.  Over the years we’ve heard numerous anecdotal success stories about this imagery (for a while there we were even tracking our Health Journeys babies) and I’d love to see some serious research done with this imagery.  

There is no need to make a separate audio for this – in fact, this would be very expensive for you – much more expensive than purchasing the already existing CDs.  Besides, we’ve already put everything we know into the fertility imagery that already exists.  We wouldn’t want to modify it – it seems to be doing a good job.  

Additionally, the value for us would be in finding out how the already existing imagery stands up to randomized, controlled scrutiny, being as how this is the recording that everyone is using.

You do not need a copyright to use our imagery for research.  Of course, if you’re writing a grant proposal and you’re planning on using the CDs, we prefer that you include the cost in your budget.  If you can’t afford CDs or prefer not to use them, you would need our permission to burn CDs on an as needed basis for your subjects; and more recently investigators have been uploading our imagery onto their subjects’ phones and MP3 players – you would need our permission for this as well.  None of these methods require a separate copyright.  We would just need to be assured that this is a serious research effort.

Good luck with this!

All best,
Belleruth