Does anyone know the rule for using lyrics and/or the copyright law for use of lyrics in a novel? My current book has the main character either remembering lyrics or singing real songs, is it okay for me to do this? Do I have to mention the artist? Is there only so many words of lyrics I can use until I'm infringing upon the rights of the songwriter? Any knowledge would be greatly appreciated. Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Assuming the lyrics are not in the common domain, the possibility of running afoul of intellectual rights is likely if not inevitable. Also, many outlets reject stories outright that contain other artists' intellectual properties, contests or magazines, book publishers less so, ordinarily for accomplished authors. A limiting factor is whether it's worth the cost or trouble to acquire permission to publish.
Copyright policy, fair use policy, style manuals all have guidance on rights and limitations on using other artists' property. There are no hard and fast rules other than the best practice is alway ask permission or simply don't use another's property. In my view, using someone else's stuff is subject to controversies and lawsuits.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited August 07, 2008).]
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
The recording companies are absolute barracudas when it comes to publishing lyrics to songs they own. The actual lyricist may be fine with someone putting their lyrics in a story, but the lyricist does not always own the rights to the lyrics.
You must contact the rights owner before you can quote any lyrics, and do not be surprised it they require you to pay them several hundred dollars for permission to quote. Writer who don't get permission from them, can be (and have been) mercilessly raked over the proverbial coals.
It's better (simpler, easier) to make up your own lyrics, or to just refer to them, than it is to quote them.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!! Don't EVER quote lyrics to a song on this forum.
Posted by JamieFord (Member # 3112) on :
I have a Duke Ellington lyric as an epigraph in my book. I had to obtain the rights from the Ellington Estate and had to pay a fee.
Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :
What was the fee?
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Some of these copyright holders might insist on a fee before permitting use...that can get quite expensive.
I'd recommend either don't use the actual lyric---if your characters are, say, listening to a song together, mention that, but don't cite any lyrics...
(...either that or write Internet Fan Fiction, where anything goes...)
Posted by Rommel Fenrir Wolf II (Member # 4199) on :
Waite you cant use song lyrics from real songs in a book with out getting permission.
Oops..
Hopefully Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and the ghost of John Bonham will not hunt me down. That is the last thing I would need.
RFW2nd
Posted by Tiergan (Member # 7852) on :
quote:Hopefully Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and the ghost of John Bonham will not hunt me down. That is the last thing I would need.
Now, there Rommel is a book I would buy. And with your training it could get interesting.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
If you absolutely must have some song lyrics in your work, you could always write your own...
Posted by Rommel Fenrir Wolf II (Member # 4199) on :
What kind of training are you talking of?
Army training, flight training, survival training, dog training, gun smith training, aircraft repair training, alcoholic in training, writing training, or other?
Anyway I have lots of short stories of floppy disk that have many Led Zeppelin song lyrics in them, the only problem is the floppy disks are so old (8 years and older) that most of the files have become corrupt due to use in many computers and or just due to lack of care, or something.
RFW2nd
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Sidebar to this thought...ever pick up a DVD and find the words on it: "Some of the original music content has been edited for this DVD release"?
It's a clear indication that they couldn't (or wouldn't) spend the money to clear the rights to songs played in the original versions---not a problem on broadcast or cable TV, where different rules apply---and what you're getting doesn't represent at all either the original artistic vision or (often) the original version.
It's downright distressing to pick up a DVD of, say, "WKRP in Cincinnati" only to find music missing, the point of jokes killed without the music, whole scenes edited or missing altogether because they made no sense without the music...made all the worse from remembering what the original was like.
(Even something like "The Odd Couple" loses this or that...what does it do to a show to take a simple joke, like starting with off-camera Felix singing "Peg O' My Heart" only to end in an off camera strangling?)
*****
What does this have to do with inclucing lyrics in writing? Only that, thanks to this clash between song publishing and copyright law, against artistic creation and consumer demand, that there's likely to be a big change in how things operate somewhere down the line.
Prediction: It will get easier and cheaper to include these songs in home video release, and a likely fringe benefit will be making it easier and cheaper to include lyrics in print publication.
When it comes, really depends on when somebody pushes. I've complained, here and there, but haven't found the right fulcrum on which to push my lever. Anybody got any ideas?
Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :
quote:It's downright distressing to pick up a DVD of, say, "WKRP in Cincinnati" only to find music missing, the point of jokes killed without the music, whole scenes edited or missing altogether because they made no sense without the music...made all the worse from remembering what the original was like.
My brother is a fan of thsi show... and I was certain no one else on earth remembered it.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Tell him not to pick up the DVD if he remembers the show with any fondness---I sure wouldn't've if I'd'a known.
Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :
You can tell how old we are if we actually remember the original broadcast (in black and white) of Rawhide, starring a VERY young Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP2mcVwQ2as
Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :
Yeah... I'll stick with Seinfeld, thanks.
Posted by ozwonderdog (Member # 7837) on :
I have four lines from a song that were playing on a juke box in a scene. I should remove them, yes?
And on an aside. Zero Punctuation, cray game review guy on the Escapist magazine, he used to have bits of real songs intro and outro for his reviews. I think he had to stop doing that coz of copyright, and now has some generic metal bangbang music.
Sad.
Posted by JamieFord (Member # 3112) on :
Zero--I probably shouldn't say how much the fee was, with respect to the estate. But it was reasonable.
Posted by WouldBe (Member # 5682) on :
How about 2-4 line snippets from 180 yr old poetry (Wm Blake)? Do they need attribution? They're used as thematic starts to various sections of a short story.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Anything by an 180-year-old poet is surely in the public domain.
You would attribute them, of course. You certainly don't want anyone who recognizes them to think you're trying to claim them as your own work.
Posted by innesjen (Member # 6126) on :
I may be beating a dead horse, but it has come time for me to tackle the lyrics problem in my story and these final posts about poetry got me thinking. If 180 yr old poetry is "public domain" what about 180 yr old lyrics? How old does something have to be to be "public domain"? (With appropriate attributions of course).
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
The only way something 180 years old (poetry, prose, lyrics, whatever) wouldn't be in the public domain is if there is an estate that still controls the copyright. (I believe such an estate controls the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, for example.)
I just did a google search on "Greensleeves" and found this, among other websites, so it is possible to do a copyright search on the web.
Posted by aspirit (Member # 7974) on :
Well, I need to rewrite a few scenes now. For one of my WIPs, I expected to use made-up lyrics and lyrics from popular songs throughout. Which reminds me, does anyone know any tricks for creating acceptable song lyrics? That is, how do I keep the song from reading like poetry?
innesjen, thank you for starting this topic.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
You might start with the time signature and go from there. 3-4, 4-4, 6-8, the number of beats in each measure over the note value that constitutes one beat. And say, 12 bars or measures to the song, in 4-4 time that's roughly 48 syllables-notes all told. Also any one mode of music will have traditional conventions or time measure or tempo or melody. Blues, for example, is commonly three-chord riffs in 4-4 time with a meter of iambic verse, accents on the second and fourth notes in a measure, and the second or third beat of each measure being a diminshed fifth note. "How dry I am, / How wet I'll be, / If I don't find / the bathroom key. / #### / I found the key, / but lost the door. / Oh, it's too late. / I've gone on the / floor. ### / How dry I am.|:"
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited August 29, 2008).]
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Well, one other problem with copyright would be that the song might be in public domain, but the arrangement could still be under copyright. The Beatles included a snipped of "In the Mood" in "All You Need Is Love"---"In the Mood" is in the public domain, apparently, but the Glenn Miller arrangement isn't, and the record company had to settle the matter.
Check your sources. If you use, say, a slice of a folksong from a Bob Dylan album, chances are Dylan changed the lyrics some, and those changes are copyrighted.
*****
On writing fresh lyrics...try to keep in mind that most song lyrics are doggerel at best, and are only rarely poetry.
Posted by TheOnceandFutureMe on :
My story that I sold to Candlelight, "Call and Answer," revolves around that song. Obviously I need to remove the quoted lyrics, but what about the title? Can the words "Call and Answer" be copyrighted?
Posted by TheOnceandFutureMe on :
FYI, I just spoke to the publisher and I'm removing every hint of the BNL song and replacing it with something I'll make up.
[This message has been edited by TheOnceandFutureMe (edited September 12, 2008).]
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Titles can't be copyrighted, and they can be quotes.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I can't say I've heard of the song---or at least I've never heard the name of it if I've heard it.
As for titles...I know of at least five hit songs in the rock era called "Lady"---maybe there's been more since the last time I heard, which was a while ago. You can lift a title and write a whole new song around it. (I suppose you could write a song called "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" that's totally original---but I'd count on some scrutiny from someone's song publishers in any case.)
