Partially Off Topic: Legal Status of Excerpts in Dictionaries and Quotation Books

[Garson O'Toole]

Dictionaries like the OED contain an enormous number of example
sentences extracted from copyrighted texts. Quotation books also
contain large numbers of copyrighted passages. I thought this use was
allowed in the United States under the "fair use" doctrine, but I
cannot point to a specific legal ruling.

The webpage at the U.S Copyright Office about Fair Use is ambiguous
and tentative:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Could an editor, publisher, or lawyer share thoughts on this topic?
Does the OED contact authors to clear rights to sentences? Does the
YBQ obtain permission from writers to include specific quotations?
Have publishers or authors received warning letters from lawyers?
Thanks
Garson

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