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A Legal Matter - quoting lyrics

Started by another Mr. Lizard, April 12, 2021, 10:43:41 AM

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another Mr. Lizard

Last year I edited a successful fundraising collection of new short horror fiction by largely amateur of inexperienced authors. It all went so well that I decided to do it again, and since the beginning of the year me and the team have been putting together two new volumes, which I intend to self publish next month. Again all proceeds go to various worthy causes.

The gimmick for one of the books, I decided, was to get the writers to pen a short horror tale and use the title of a well-known song as the name of the piece. Hence, our contents page would resemble a mixtape or playlist (indeed, we have a Spotify playlist compiled).

Naturally, a few of the authors wanted to reference their chosen songs. And it seems that 'fair use' doesn't apply, and that we can't. Using the titles is ok, so we can name stories after famous pop tunes - but, as I'm sure the writers among you will be aware, quoting a lyric can cost £hundreds if you go through official channels and approach music publishers, potentially thousands if you don't and get caught.

Most of the material submitted to me for edit is ok, using the title as a starting point and going off on a literary and non-musical tangent; but three or four of the stories contain chunks of Blondie, Cliff, or Kate Bush lyrics, and as we all know, Kate never ripped off other sources ever, oh no (which is where this whole agent/lawyer/publishing company stitch-up begins to get absurd).

I've spent the weekend sifting through and chopping down the song quotes, but am not removing them altogether, feeling that my authors are entitled to at least use phrases like "let me in" referencing La Bush's 'Wuthering Heights' without infringing copyright.

Am I being over-cautious, on a book likely to sell in the low hundreds and a non-profit charity concern? Some advice I've been given suggests the worst, and that even a minor quote could cause serious trouble; other guidance indicates that a quote of nine or ten words, or disguising the lyric or alluding to it, may be acceptable ways round the obstacle.

Has anyone experienced this situation? Did you get away with it, did you bump into Captain Sensible in a pub and get permission scrawled on a beermat, did a friend of a friend of a friend lose their house and all their worldly goods for writing "very superstitious" on page seventeen?

As usual with this type of issue, the 'law' seems to be open to massive interpretation, and the folk with expensive lawyers usually seem to win. And it seems there are different rules in different parts of the world.

I'm satisfied with the little bit of chopping and changing I've had to do (though there is still one reference to a Caravan song that I might take a closer look at today), but would love to hear about anyone else's experiences with this. It seems absurd that you can call a novel 'Bohemian Rhapsody' but that you can't write about someone doing the fandango in chapter three.

Mister Six

You should probably talk to a copyright lawyer rather than a bunch of mentally ill people on the internet.

But if a character who was stripping wallpaper found a spooky message underneath and became very superstitious about the writing on the wall, that strikes me as being an acceptably transformative use of the original work.

Also, the chances of Kate Bush or Stevie Wonder getting hold of your small-run, privately printed charity book seem very low indeed.

Would still talk to a lawyer about it though.

Zetetic

Which country are you and your authors in? If it's the UK, then the relevant concept is fair dealing and has different lines drawn around 'fairness' compared to other places.

It helps that it's unlikely that your anthology of horror fiction is unlikely to be a substitute for the original lyrics, particularly if you're only quoting an "appropriate and reasonable" portion of them.

One option might be to contact the rights' holders in each case, advise them of what you're doing (and the very limited scale of it), that you think it's all covered under fair use/dealing, and be clear that you'll provide a statement of attribution in each case. Of course, I guess that risks them telling you that they don't consider that use to be fair.


13 schoolyards

Here in Australia, when I and a friend were writing a novel and I kept trying to shoehorn in "jokes" that involved quoted lyrics, we were told that there was no way we could get away with any kind of quoting. I was surprised at how extensive the prohibition seemed to be - as it was fiction (and so not covered by fair use here as a non-fiction book or review would be), any quote in any context that was referencing actual lyrics and not just the title of a song would require permission.

That said, we did keep one section where a conversation used a brief stretch of song lyrics (someone said a line, someone else else the next line as a question, the first person replied with the third line) and nobody cared, so our publisher may have been erring on the side of caution / not wanting to waste money on our clearly already marginal novel.

JesusAndYourBush

The book of "ET" quotes from Jim Caroll's "People Who Died" but changes some words to get around copyright.

The original...

Cathy was eleven when she pulled the plug
Twenty six reds and a bottle of wine

What the book quotes...

She was twelve when she yanked the plug.
Fifteen reds and a jug of wine...

Although if you have to mangle lyrics in that way you'd probably not want to bother quoting them perhaps.

(And because I read the book before seeing the film I was looking out for the song in the film.  It is there in the background but you'd maybe not spot it if you weren't looking out for it.)