It depends on what country you're in too - a small quote with acknowledgement is considered fair use under UK copyright law (larger extracts are different) - as is use for the purposes of education, criticism, or humour; whereas 'transformative works' (whatever that means) are considered fair use in the US, but not the UK.

I'm no lawyer, but I know that copyright laws have evolved a lot in recent years to catch up with technology and society, and Morrison's piece in The Guardian was from 2010, so might not be so relevant any more. It's also interesting that it seems to be the publishers who particularly wanted him to go down the licensing fees route.