This seems to be something that requires some manual tweaking by Laurel. I would recommend using the Notes field when you submit the story, to flag that there's a poem and ask for appropriate formatting.
I'm not aware of any reason why it would be a problem to mention the musician or band.
Laurel let me keep 50% of a copyrighted translation of a poem, from a Russian original. So I quoted (and referenced) every second stanza in my text, which just caught the flavour of it. Several years later a commenter provided the two missing stanzas, which worked in the end as I'd originally intended.
I have written a character listening to Skrillex, but they did not sing along. However, I have also written characters singing a few lines from songs by other bands, which, after a few previous discussions about using lyrics used in stories, I stopped doing so for a bunch of reasons, including the Artistic reason you give. Especially in the lead up to the Song for my Story event a few years back, where I found other ways to attempt to induce emotions produced by music. However, I don’t agree with the premise that a writer who uses lyrics is not doing the job they should be doing themselves. IRL people sing and dance to music and song, where it’s a powerful medium and even a language that by its very nature has the ability to produce an emotional response in people. I think it makes characters more real in a story if they also sing and dance. For this reason movie makers use it all the time. Of course they may get the rights to a song, and we can hear the song, but song is still used to effect mood, whether used in the soundtrack or by characters singing. Consequently, if legal aspects of using someone’s lyrics weren't a real issue, I wouldn't see an author writing a scene where characters sing an established song as not doing their job.
I get the royalties and legalities, which is one reason I don’t write the lyrics into a song anymore. Not even a line or two, which is all I ever used. But on an artistic level, I think it depends on how ‘heavily’, as you say, that a writer depend on the lyrics to create mood as to whether they’re relying on the song too much to prop up their writing. Suppose someone wrote a story titled Walk of Life about a character named Johnny who sings golden oldies, and he has action and motion and boy he can play, it would be a total rip and lazy and would probably not be surprised if lawsuits followed. Plus it would have to be damn good writing to create mood. But I think if, in a hypothetical world without legalities, an author wrote a story about a character or characters going about their daily business in life, but at some point they get drunk in a pub and during a karaoke session they belt out a line from the song Walk of Life (perhaps they’re singing about the trouble and the strife?), I personally think that would be fine in an artistic sense, because that’s what people do in real life.
Absolutely. This is connected to the concept of "transformative use" - if you chop up somebody else's work and use the pieces as part of something new and different, that gets a lot more leeway than if you're just recycling it as-is.
I just used double carriage returns at the end of each stanza, and a single carriage return at the end of each line - checked carefully on Preview.
I don’t want to be a bringer of bad news, but be aware Don Henley is notoriously protective of the Eagles songs and music (probably even covers) and even testified to the US Congress about copyright law, wanting it made stronger.
You should be okay with that, but don't quote the whole song. Singing along to the name of the song shouldn't be a problem at all.
Thank you so much for the prompt reply! The story is named "The Skipper and the Cabin Gurl" Chapter 1 published.
Thank you. I had much the same thoughts, but felt that due diligence was in order to check prior to submitting for publishing. I would think most artists would be flattered if not, at least thankful for the promotion of their craft. And yes outright theft as you have described from Lit. authors, is a crime. thanks again!
Use without permission is a question of risk, not intent. If you violate someone's copyright, which is a legal issue, you have intended to steal without permission.
