Use of lyrics

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Senor_Biggles

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Sep 13, 2015
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Question to the floor. Mr King often uses snippets of song lyrics at the start of different sections or even different chapters of his books. My question is, do authors/publishers have to gain permission from the artist and/or pay some kind of fee to reprint these, or are you allowed to reprint a certain percentage of song’s lyrics for free?
 

Moderator

Ms. Mod
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Jul 10, 2006
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Question to the floor. Mr King often uses snippets of song lyrics at the start of different sections or even different chapters of his books. My question is, do authors/publishers have to gain permission from the artist and/or pay some kind of fee to reprint these, or are you allowed to reprint a certain percentage of song’s lyrics for free?
As Tery said, it depends upon how much is used before permission is required and more often than not, a fee is required to use them if it's over the limit. The fee is set by the owner of the song and if the fee being asked is exorbitant, there are times when Stephen has changed the song.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
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Thanks Ms Mod. Appreciated.
....I have no idea how they track for royalties on songs these days, but when I was full time in radio years back-we used to be required over a period of time to keep a paper log of each and every song we played during our broadcast day, then had to submit them-as did other stations across the country, this helped the artists get what they were entitled to.....became much simpler when we moved to satellite programming-because then, only the originator of the programming had to submit their daily broadcast logging....
 

Bev Vincent

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Apr 11, 2006
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www.bevvincent.com
Most artists or their publishers request pay for the use of their lyrics. A single line of lyrics from a song is a significant fraction of the total work, so it flirts with the "fair use" doctrine. And it is the author who is expected to gain permission and pay any associated fees...not the publisher.

However, some artists grant permission without charging a fee. Every case is different. King talked in an interview once about how much he had to pay (in general terms) for all of the lyrics that appear in Christine.
 

Moderator

Ms. Mod
Administrator
Jul 10, 2006
52,243
157,324
Maine
Most artists or their publishers request pay for the use of their lyrics. A single line of lyrics from a song is a significant fraction of the total work, so it flirts with the "fair use" doctrine. And it is the author who is expected to gain permission and pay any associated fees...not the publisher.

However, some artists grant permission without charging a fee. Every case is different. King talked in an interview once about how much he had to pay (in general terms) for all of the lyrics that appear in Christine.
I shouldn't be surprised, but most of the time it's the less-recognized artists who don't ask for anything or just a signed copy of the book when it's published because they're honored to have their song included. It's the ones who don't even really need the money or recognition who ask the major fees for usage.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
62
Cambridge, Ohio
I shouldn't be surprised, but most of the time it's the less-recognized artists who don't ask for anything or just a signed copy of the book when it's published because they're honored to have their song included. It's the ones who don't even really need the money or recognition who ask the major fees for usage.
....indeed.....and the same can be said in other facets of "business".....people like this have no conception of when "enough is enough".....