Forum: Author Hangout

I just spent most of the day trying to get permission to use six lines of a song lyric in my novel. I don't know if I'll ever get it. But my eyes are blurry and I'm cranky, so what better place to rant.

Google took me to the ASCAP ACE Database (whatever that is). I entered the song title and singer. It listed three companies. The first one was Brenda Richie Publishing and since the singer is Lionel Richie I thought, "Gotcha!"

I called them but was told to send an email to someone whose email was listed along with the phone number. She responded almost right away. She was a paralegal at a law firm. She said the ASCAP database was hard to use and ensured me that Warner/Chappell Music was the 100% copyright owner.

So I Googled them and called their L.A. office. Left a message, but got no return call. So I called their NY office and was told to call Alfred Music Publishing Co and was given a phone number.

The message at Alfred was to do the request on their website. I filled the form out, but a lot of the information couldn't be put in (company name, price of book, publisher, format (hard copy, soft copy), number of copies, etc.), so I put n/a in those spots. They also wanted a book synopsis. I used that box to tell them what I wanted and why. Then there was another box which I used to show them a sample of what it would look like.

Now I have to wait up to 45 days to find out if they'll give me the permission to use six lines of a copyrighted song.

G'day Switch,

I looked into this quite extensively some years ago when I wrote 'Out of Reach.' At the time I found out some very important things, which summarise as:

1. You need to identify who you need the copyright from.If you're only using the words you need to look up the lyricist, if the music is by another person you need to know their name, and if using the actual sound recording that's details of the recording artist or company.

2. Having found the correct name you then need to check who is the current copyright holder of that aspect of the song.

3. You need to check your country's copyright laws and identify how much of the copyrighted material you wish to use. Fair Use allows the use of part of copyrighted material without having to apply for permission.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Fair_Use

If you're using 6 lines out of 10 lines, you have issues, but 6 lines out of 40 lines is less of an issue. The US laws are on this are very fluid in their interpretation and application.

At first glance I think you have a good case for Fair Use but you need to check against what the article above says.

Edit to add: 4. You also need to check if the copyright is current or lapsed. You'd be surprised how many are lapsed, but most music recordings are still current, while the lyrics may be lapsed.
.............

Here in Australia the Fair Use provisions allow for up to 10% of an item as long as it doesn't exceed more than 10% of a chapter in a book. So I have it a lot easier than those in the USA.

I know what you mean. It's because of the those aspects I didn't use a lot of the lines from the song inOut of Reach but just referred to the meaning of the lines. My main problem came about with not being able to make contact with the current holder of the lyrics copyright. The song was still under copyright, but the contact details for the current holder were out of date.

The first one was Brenda Richie Publishing and since the singer is Lionel Richie I thought, "Gotcha!"

I called them but was told to send an email to someone whose email was listed along with the phone number. She responded almost right away. She was a paralegal at a law firm. She said the ASCAP database was hard to use and ensured me that Warner/Chappell Music was the 100% copyright owner.

When you asked the question did you point out it wasn't the music or the performance you were interested in, but only the lyrics. If you did and she clearly knew that, then the rights may have been sold on.