Rules on quoting lyrics?

[AlexBailey]

What are the rules on quoting song lyrics? Is there any wiggle room?

How far can I go in quoting a song?

A few words? A few lines? A stanza or a verse?

Does it change if you fully credit the song writer?


Is it different if its for a quote at the beginning of a story?


Is it different if it's fan fiction?


-Thanks

(I've seen this info somewhere before but my kindle search is fubar.)

 

[Bramblethorn]

What are the rules on quoting song lyrics? Is there any wiggle room?

Literotica is pretty generous on this one. I've seen quite a few stories quoting song lyrics heavily, and I suspect some of those stories would be considered copyright infringement if the rights owners chose to make an issue of it, but I'm not a lawyer.

 

[Handley_Page]

Just make sure you credit the source in full, somewhere about your story.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Given lyrics are generally publicly available online already and hardly secret, there shouldn't be a problem if you credit the lyricist.

Unless you're claiming that the words are secretly code for raising satanic beings from a demon dimension or the words prove the author is a paedo or something else that could count as libel or bringing them into disrepute.

 

[PennameWombat]

What are the rules on quoting song lyrics? Is there any wiggle room?

How far can I go in quoting a song?

A few words? A few lines? A stanza or a verse?

Does it change if you fully credit the song writer?

Is it different if its for a quote at the beginning of a story?

Is it different if it's fan fiction?

-Thanks

(I've seen this info somewhere before but my kindle search is fubar.)

This exact subject was recently covered here: Quoting Lyrics.

Some slight disagreement there. One statement said 2 lines will avoid copyright infringement (assuming the lyrics are under copyright). Another wasn't so clear. My understanding has always been any use of actual lyrics could be an issue if the owner decides to pursue. Also immaterial where in your story. And at least for US copyright, attribution doesn't remove infringement.

You can freely use the artist's name and song title. Another posting in that thread indicates one author here was able to actually get permission to use some lyrics (you can check, I don't know if that author also planned to release that work or related works commercially.)

Here? The site doesn't seem to have firm rules and plenty state they've used lyrics from songs. In addition, anything you release here is non-commercial. But. If the artist or publisher found it they could issue a DMCA takedown to the site. Likely? Probably not.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Given lyrics are generally publicly available online already and hardly secret, there shouldn't be a problem if you credit the lyricist.

Unless you're claiming that the words are secretly code for raising satanic beings from a demon dimension or the words prove the author is a paedo or something else that could count as libel or bringing them into disrepute.

This will bring out those who know US copyright law backwards. Having quoted a full song with credit to Led Zeppelin in one of my stories, I’m backing away now...

 

[ElectricBlue]

I could only quote 50% of a translated poem in one of my stories, which buggered up the point of the quote a bit.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Literotica is pretty generous on this one. I've seen quite a few stories quoting song lyrics heavily, and I suspect some of those stories would be considered copyright infringement if the rights owners chose to make an issue of it, but I'm not a lawyer.

I use song lyrics all the time, and more than once I’ve worked the lyrics for an entire song into a story. Literotica is very permissive that way. Commercial publishing? You’d never be allowed, by your publisher. Self publishing- you better not, because if they spot it they’ll Possibly come after you... and if they do, you’re screwed....

 

[BarracudaSwordfish]

I've quoted a few and prefaced one story with about six lines of a lyric with full provenance and they have all got through fine.

The one that fell foul and got sent back was for a lyric I wrote myself for a song that the male protagonist penned for the female lead. Once I convinced Laurel I had written it, it still got rejected for formatting issues and I am not really any the wiser, having made a few changes, as to why!

 

[Bramblethorn]

Given lyrics are generally publicly available online already and hardly secret, there shouldn't be a problem if you credit the lyricist.

I think a lot of those sites have licensing agreements with the rights owners, after some legal action a few years back. This is a bit out of date now but gives some background: http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/1/the-foolish-war-againstrapgeniuscom.html

 

[YDB95]

This will bring out those who know US copyright law backwards. Having quoted a full song with credit to Led Zeppelin in one of my stories, I’m backing away now...

In the case of Led Zeppelin, it's mostly a question of whether you should credit the songwriter they plagiarised...

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Quoting song lyrics... I have, in most cases it was just the chorus and I did give credit where credit was due. I have only done that in one story though.

 

[SimonDoom]

There are three different ways of looking at this question, and they all yield different answers.

1. The law. Under US Copyright law, the unauthorized quotation of a copyrighted song in a story is, without question, copyright infringement. The only question is whether the way you quote it constitutes a "fair use" within the meaning of section 107 of the Copyright Act, which looks at four different factors to determine whether something is a fair use, including the nature the use, the amount of the copyrighted work used, the nature of the copyrighted work, and the impact of your work on the market or value of the copyrighted work. Fair use is a murky doctrine and there are no hard and fast rules about how much of a copyrighted song you can quote. If you can somehow argue that your story constitutes a "parody" of the song or is a "transformative work" based on the song, then you might be able to argue it's a fair use, as well. But that's probably a stretch, under the law.

Bottom line: under the law, quoting a few lines probably (emphasis on "probably" -- there's no clear legal safe harbor for just quoting one or two lines, as far as I know) is fine. Quoting the entire song very likely is NOT fair use and therefore is copyright infringement.

Contrary to what some people believe, the fact that you can find the lyrics online does not mean the song is in the public domain. Also contrary to what some people believe, giving credit for the song does not in any way affect whether you have infringed the copyright. Giving credit to the song's composer is relevant to the ethical issue of plagiarism, the kind of thing a university professor or student writing an academic essay or article should worry about. But it's irrelevant to the legal issue of copyright infringement.

2. What you can get away with. Answer: probably more than what the law allows. This is a free site and nobody is making money off publishing stories here. Music industry investigators and lawyers (of which there is a large and very determined army) probably are not paying much attention to Literotica. You have to decide for yourself what your comfort level is in doing something that you may get away with but which the law says is probably copyright infringement.

3. Literotica's rules/Laurel. Literotica's terms of use bar you from infringing another person's copyright in your story. So it's possible that if Laurel noticed what you were doing or if someone called her attention to it she would bar your story from being published or remove it after the fact. I have no idea whether she has done in this in the past or how closely she monitors this sort of thing.

 

[AlexBailey]

I use song lyrics all the time, and more than once I’ve worked the lyrics for an entire song into a story. Literotica is very permissive that way. Commercial publishing? You’d never be allowed, by your publisher. Self publishing- you better not, because if they spot it they’ll Possibly come after you... and if they do, you’re screwed....

We're gonna watch the moon come up
I'm drinking salty wine
With some friends of mine
From our favourite cup
We're national parked, after dark
We're gonna watch sun go down
But you and I and the nights of sigh
In that house on the edge of town
Chinese eyes
You know it wasn't just a holiday fling
Chinese eyes
She's no take away Chow Mein


"Chinese Eyes", Australian Crawl,

from the Album "The Boys Light Up" (1980)

Hi Chloe,

Your quote above is what prompted me to start this thread. You had suggested I check out your story
https://www.literotica.com/s/chinese-eyes
'Chinese Eyes' for surfing and Aussie slang. Thanks. That was a fun story! I've posted 3/4 of my story so far. I'm just now getting to the part with the Oz talk, haven't posted that yet, but part 3 has a bunch of surfing in it. It's a long TG/CD story, but part 3 is a pretty good stand-alone if you're interested.


I want to use Leonard Cohen's 'Everybody Knows' as the 'soundtrack' for a dance performance in part 4, with emphasis on some of the lyrics. I found a remix with a dance track rhythm on YouTube. (Kinky fetishy video) It's funny though, the remix only uses the first verse and the chorus. I was wondering if they were only able to use a certain amount as sampling.

Thanks, everyone, for the thoughts and the links. I'm going to try giving credit and using about eight separate lines. We'll see how it goes... Fingers crossed.


Everyone takes their places. The captain raises her fist to silence the crowd and cue the music, and a dance remix of "Everybody Knows" by Leonard Cohen pours onto the stage.


Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost...

(Dance description)
That's how it goes
Everybody knows...

(Dance description)
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows...

(Dance description)
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past....
Oh everybody knows

 

[KeithD]

Legally? Two lines is all the industry seems to support and the song people are the most litigious--if there's money to be recovered.

On Lit? Pretty much anything goes and the Web site doesn't seem to know what's in law about this and that they are as legally responsible as the author. Since there's no money to be recovered, however, it pretty much is ignored by property owners.

And to an up-the-line comment: just because you see others doing it on the Internet doesn't mean you can legally do it without being sued. Their illegal behavior doesn't absolve yours.

 

[Omenainen]

I’m thinking how this affects my idea for “Song for my Story” thingy. My most influential songs are in Finnish, so I can’t rely on everyone knowing what it is, and also I’d probably have to translate it myself, which is probably a bad idea. I wasn’t planning on using the lyrics as such in the story, but I did think I’d mention the band and the song, in an author’s note or maybe in a comment, and include the lyrics. I want my story to work without the song, but isn’t the whole “Story for my song, song for my story” kinda pointless if you can’t say what song? I’m conflicted.

Then again, I don’t have the story yet. So maybe it’s not gonna happen anyways.

 

[AlexBailey]

I’m thinking how this affects my idea for “Song for my Story” thingy. My most influential songs are in Finnish, so I can’t rely on everyone knowing what it is, and also I’d probably have to translate it myself, which is probably a bad idea. I wasn’t planning on using the lyrics as such in the story, but I did think I’d mention the band and the song, in an author’s note or maybe in a comment, and include the lyrics. I want my story to work without the song, but isn’t the whole “Story for my song, song for my story” kinda pointless if you can’t say what song? I’m conflicted.

Then again, I don’t have the story yet. So maybe it’s not gonna happen anyways.

Is there anything to suggest that naming a song and the artist could be troublesome?

I get the impression that using the content without permission is the problem. When I searched 'lyrics everybody knows'. The lyrics were at the top of the google search results with a note at the bottom: "for non-commercial use only".

From what I'm reading, if you're not making money or damaging the artist's interests, they are very unlikely to peruse 'recovery of damages'.

Thanks for the nitty-gritty, KeithD. If I ever post this for profit I'll make some adjustments.

 

[Omenainen]

Is there anything to suggest that naming a song and the artist could be troublesome?

Not to my knowledge, but me naming a song and the artist is gonna get the rest of you absolutely nowhere. But I’ll see if I even get the story done and worry about the rest later.

 

[SimonDoom]

Is there anything to suggest that naming a song and the artist could be troublesome?

I get the impression that using the content without permission is the problem. When I searched 'lyrics everybody knows'. The lyrics were at the top of the google search results with a note at the bottom: "for non-commercial use only".

From what I'm reading, if you're not making money or damaging the artist's interests, they are very unlikely to peruse 'recovery of damages'.

Thanks for the nitty-gritty, KeithD. If I ever post this for profit I'll make some adjustments.

Keep in mind that unless the message "for non-commercial use only" has been written and disseminated by the copyright owner --which probably is NOT the case -- it has no legal effect at all. It's worthless. You cannot rely on it.

Naming the title of the song and the artist is not a problem. Titles are not copyrightable. Naming a singer or songwriter in a story does not infringe anyone's intellectual property.

If you are not making money from the use, then it greatly increases the chances you will get away with it, but it may still be, legally, copyright infringement.

The best way to look at these issues is in the context of specific examples rather than in the abstract.

Suppose you write a story where a man saunters up to a woman at a bar, and he says, "Hey, baby, if you like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain, I'm your man."

That's not copyright infringement. No court is going to rule against you. Use common sense.

But if you write a story where a man saunters up to a woman at a bar, and he says, "Hey, baby, I'll bet you didn't know I can recite the entire lyrics to 'Stairway to Heaven,'" and he proceeds in the story to recite every single line of that song, then you might have a problem. I don't recommend doing that.

 

[AlexBailey]

...
But if you write a story where a man saunters up to a woman at a bar, and he says, "Hey, baby, I'll bet you didn't know I can recite the entire lyrics to 'Stairway to Heaven,'" and he proceeds in the story to recite every single line of that song, then you might have a problem. I don't recommend doing that.

So, have I violated © law by posting the Lyrics I’m my previous post?
uh-oh.

Lol.

 

[KeithD]

So, have I violated © law by posting the Lyrics I’m my previous post?
uh-oh.

Lol.

If those lyrics aren't formally in the public domain, then yes, absolutely. Violating and getting away with doing it, of course, are two different animals. (This is the point at which a thinking writer will give thought to what happens to what they themselves create and how they expect others to respect it.)

 

[AlexBailey]

If those lyrics aren't formally in the public domain, then yes, absolutely. Violating and getting away with doing it, of course, are two different animals. (This is the point at which a thinking writer will give thought to what happens to what they themselves create and how they expect others to respect it.)

That’s interesting, Keith. I do see your point.

As a musician and a songwriter, I’ve had other musicians and bands cover a few of my originals. My understanding is that I have a valid claim to some undetermined portion of any profits someone else might make by playing my song, but I can’t bill them for playing it on a street corner or around a campfire. As far as I know, the most anyone has gathered using my work has been a few hundred bucks for a night of playing where my song was one of 20 or more. Come to think of it, I’ve been paid in pints.

Musically speaking, I’m flattered to hear someone else pick up my song. It’s great to hear how it comes out after rattling around in someone else’s head. But if it made it into a platinum album or the soundtrack of a movie, I’d want some love.

Also, I doubt I would have ever heard of Australian Crawl without Chloe’s lawlessness. Maybe if I were to pay for and download a copy of their song, when the Swat team comes for Chloe, she could make a defense by pointing to how her illegal quote brought them some revenue they would not otherwise have had.

Too bad reflections and sentiments are worthless in court.

 

[Rustyoznail]

'Chinese Eyes' for surfing and Aussie slang. Thanks. That was a fun story! I've posted 3/4 of my story so far. I'm just now getting to the part with the Oz talk, haven't posted that yet, but part 3 has a bunch of surfing in it. It's a long TG/CD story, but part 3 is a pretty good stand-alone if you're interested.

Mate, you'd bloody well better have that bit sussed out or EB will be down on you like a ton of bricks...

 

[ElectricBlue]

Mate, you'd bloody well better have that bit sussed out or EB will be down on you like a ton of bricks...

Chloe's the secret weapon, mate. Where do you think she got the Oz Rock from in the first place?

Alex will figure it out - a tranny in a Sandman, that's unexpected, but in long tradition - Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, etcetera...

 

[Bramblethorn]

There are three different ways of looking at this question, and they all yield different answers.

1. The law. Under US Copyright law, the unauthorized quotation of a copyrighted song in a story is, without question, copyright infringement. The only question is whether the way you quote it constitutes a "fair use" within the meaning of section 107 of the Copyright Act, which looks at four different factors to determine whether something is a fair use, including the nature the use, the amount of the copyrighted work used, the nature of the copyrighted work, and the impact of your work on the market or value of the copyrighted work. Fair use is a murky doctrine and there are no hard and fast rules about how much of a copyrighted song you can quote. If you can somehow argue that your story constitutes a "parody" of the song or is a "transformative work" based on the song, then you might be able to argue it's a fair use, as well. But that's probably a stretch, under the law.

Bottom line: under the law, quoting a few lines probably (emphasis on "probably" -- there's no clear legal safe harbor for just quoting one or two lines, as far as I know) is fine. Quoting the entire song very likely is NOT fair use and therefore is copyright infringement.

Contrary to what some people believe, the fact that you can find the lyrics online does not mean the song is in the public domain. Also contrary to what some people believe, giving credit for the song does not in any way affect whether you have infringed the copyright. Giving credit to the song's composer is relevant to the ethical issue of plagiarism, the kind of thing a university professor or student writing an academic essay or article should worry about. But it's irrelevant to the legal issue of copyright infringement.

2. What you can get away with. Answer: probably more than what the law allows. This is a free site and nobody is making money off publishing stories here. Music industry investigators and lawyers (of which there is a large and very determined army) probably are not paying much attention to Literotica. You have to decide for yourself what your comfort level is in doing something that you may get away with but which the law says is probably copyright infringement.

3. Literotica's rules/Laurel. Literotica's terms of use bar you from infringing another person's copyright in your story. So it's possible that if Laurel noticed what you were doing or if someone called her attention to it she would bar your story from being published or remove it after the fact. I have no idea whether she has done in this in the past or how closely she monitors this sort of thing.

I agree with all of these, with the answer to #3 being "very little if at all" from what I can see. I would add a fourth angle to consider:

Nine times out of ten, when somebody uses a song in a story here, it's because the song creates a certain mood or expresses a certain sentiment that they want to invoke in their story. Author quotes a love song to set the mood for a romantic scene, that sort of thing. I did it myself in one of my early stories here.

But if I quote, say, "Romeo and Juliet", and so put my readers in a wistful romantic melancholy sort of mood, how much of that is me and how much of the credit should go to Mark Knopfler?

I'm a big fan of transformative work. Several of my stories here are transformative pieces based on older properties (1001 Nights, King in Yellow for starters) and I've just finished a piece of outright fanfic, to be posted elsewhere. We are all the product of our influences. But in those cases, even when I'm obviously building on somebody else's idea, I've injected my own creativity all through it. If I just copy-paste "Romeo and Juliet", OTOH, that part of the story isn't really mine at all.

Sometimes it's okay to outsource. Historical fiction and fanfic outsources the work of world-building, usually to give the author more room to focus on character and/or plot (and/or steamy sex scenes...) and that's fine, if those parts are the emphasis.

But if romance is the heart of the story, and I'm borrowing the romance from Dire Straits, that's a different matter. Ethical issues of credit aside, if I depend on some other creator to make the heart of my story work, I may not be learning how to do that myself.

It feels funny taking this side of things, because my current narrator Sarah is very music-oriented, and song lyrics do get mentioned several times in the story - but I'm trying to avoid depending on them to generate emotion. They're there for other reasons. And I ended up going back to my early story and editing out most or all of the lyrics I'd used there.