: Do I have to pay royalties when I use research information? I'm in the process of writing my very first book and I'd like to use the internet for research information. However, I don't want

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Almost never. Royalties apply to copyright, and copyright only applies to the literal text of the material. Anything you learn, you can use, so long as you don't use word-for-word quotations without attribution.

Let's say you are writing a book about Lincoln and you read Team Of Rivals (the source material for the recent Daniel Day Lewis movie Lincoln). You can use absolutely any fact, idea, or story from that book in your own, and you can even quote little snippets, so long as you put proper cites.

Incidentally, if you don't quote word-for-word, you are not under any legal obligation to cite or acknowledge your sources. However, it's considered good form, especially with a non-fiction book, to do so.

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