Not sure if I'm the right place to ask this,
I've just had to request permissions from two different music publishers to quote lyrics from songs in my book.

Anyone know how much this is likely to sting me in financial terms?

I gather it's completely unpredicable, because it's wholly up to them, but some companies are notorious for asking a lot of money. Are you contractually obliged to pay any or all of it, or should your publisher be chipping in?

Emma

Look into a legal matter known as fair usage. Sometimes, you are allowed to use a certain portion of a song gratis and free of charge if the usage isn't derogatory to the artist and the artist is credited. Check this out professionally though, as I am not a lawyer, thank God.

Alternatively, you can try the brass balls route, which is the one I favour. Ask, and let them know how good it is for them too. Who wouldn't want to be included in a literary work? But as Emma says, the results are variable. I've said this before, but Ricki Lake's agent at Sony wanted $500 for the use of just one quoted sentence from her show in my novel Unrequited. I told Ricki to get stuffed. However, my correspondence with Marilyn Manson, Canadian poet James Reaney and the estate of Tennessee Williams has all yeilded written permissions without cost.

Maybe I'm lucky, but I'm just saying don't let the ones who ask for money - money that they don't really need - put you off.

JB

The Society of Authors knows all about this stuff, and have a booklet - free to you Claire if you're a member. But because it's so variable, can take forever, and can cost from nothing - yes, that happened to me too - to thousands, their advice is 'don't do it if you can possible avoid it'.

Emma

In my experience of requesting permissions for non-fiction, most publishers/companies are pretty reasonable, particularly if in your letter you promise them a copy of your book for their records. Quite often it depends how big a print run the book is going to have.

It's the same with fiction, but that can work in your favour too, and get your book in places where it might not necessarily have reached.

JB

Well in the first instance I quote one line from the U2 song 'One'. The book could survive well without it.

The second is actually quoting from the Carpenters, Rainy Days and Mondays.

Contractually I'm obliged to do all the legwork and meet all the costs, so I guess it is a matter of seeing if it is worth it.

Neither are vital to the plot.

$500 for Ricki Lake! madness!

Are we okay to refer to songs without quoting directly then? My agent seems to think so. (ie: such and such a song is playing on the radio...)

Yes, I think so, because there's no copyright in a title, so you're not breaching copyright by putting it in.

Emma

I quite enjoyed hunting down and securing my own permissions. I felt like a 'real' writer, though the costs are welcome to be taken care of by somebody else.

JB

Oh dear, I wish I hadn't stumbled across this thread... It occurs to me that I refer to the lyrics of several Christmas songs in a scene in my novel (book 2) where the MC is in a Little Chef with her mother, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's. I wonder if it matters if the quote is indirect? I mention there are sleigh bells ring tingle tingling in the background, and snow glistening in the lane, and later on I actually name Slade. They tell her across the decades to look to the future and she fears that Noddy Holder may be right, and it really has only just begun. No direct citation, but the scene does rather turn on the song lyrics.

I'm going to raise it with my editor and see what she says.

Rosy.

Sorry to jump in here, but the is a topic i have been wondering about also.

First I have a question for Emma D.(I may have missed the point here, but here goes).

Emma said......

because there's no copyright in a title, so you're not breaching copyright by putting it in.

Does that mean I can use a song Title as a book or chapter title, even if the book/chapter has nothing to do with the song at all? the reason I ask is because I wanted to use Eddie Grants song ' Don't wanna Dance' as a chapter title. And also wanted to use one of Shania Twains song as a Title (again nothing related to song itself).

Yes, you can - but double-check with the Society of Authors.

More generally, what you're using something for, or how much of it, and so on, doesn't come into it: either some words are in copyright and you need permission, or they aren't and you don't. (There are different rules for academic writing, but they don't apply to commercial publishing.)

Emma

I’m pretty sure you can use song titles; Hornby’s High Fidelity is choccabloc with them.
I don't think lyrics, in copyright, should be used without permissions.
I've got a two lines of a song in my book, I've changed a few words to make it different from the original. Is that ok? Possibly but I'm not sure.

Just resurrecting this thread because I have an issue similar to Murphy's. If someone sings a line of a song, but incorrectly (I mean, she sings the wrong words), do you need permission for that? It's only three words, and I suppose it could sound like she's making up her own song.

I've got the SoA booklet but it doesn't go into details.

Thanks!

Luisa

Totally off the top of my head, I'd have thought you'd be okay from the copyright point of view, because you're not quoting the songwriter's words. Is it obvious what song she's misquoting? If so, the only worry I can think of would be that, by misrepresenting the song, you're infringing the songwriter's moral rights to have their work reproduced properly or not at all. Whether moral rights have ever been tested in a court I don't know.

Emma