I completed and submitted the online form. I completed the record company’s form, emailed it, and received yet another email: Next, I received an email from an actual person, indicating that I had to make the request using their online form:
I resent my permission letter to the Print License email address. Like in any big company, you kind of get the runaround.Īfter emailing my permission letter, I received an automatic reply indicating several email addresses for specific areas of inquiry: You can find a sample permission letter at the bottom of this post. You will likely want to include the pages of your book where you quote the lyrics, so that the copyright holder can see the relevant context. as an epigraph at the beginning of the book, at the beginning of the chapter, within the text, etc.). Indicate how you expect to use the lyrics in the book (e.g.Indicate the lyrics and indicate the songwriters and performer. State that you seek permission to reproduce the following lyrics from the song.Indicate where you expect to publish the book (e.g., North America, worldwide, etc.).Indicate the expected date of publication of the book.Explain that you are an author of a book (name the book’s title).Also note the songwriter/composer names, which you will need to include in your permission letter.Įmail a letter requesting permission to the email address listed for the copyright holder. Note that Screen Gems/EMI Publishing was acquired by Sony in 2012 therefore, the copyright holder is now SonyATV. Next, you draft a letter and email it to the email address listed (here, ). “Publisher” here denotes the copyright holder. To use my search as an example, I searched for the song We Belong (performed by Pat Benatar) on. When you find the right listing, the listing will include the copyright holder. As noted in this post, all music producers and songwriters must belong to one of these companies:, , or Start by going to these websites and searching for the song in which you are interested. When you have a particular song in mind, you need to figure out what company holds the copyright to the song.
To use/quote song lyrics, authors need to request permission from the music company that holds the rights to the song.
How to find the copyright holder of the song If you are risk-averse, like me, you will likely want to go ahead and request permission to use the song lyrics, without having to fall back to litigating the issue of fair use.įrom whom does the author request permission? Here is where the process becomes a bit cumbersome. You can hire an attorney and argue fair use, but how much will that cost? The only winners in that scenario are the attorneys, at your expense.
The music company who holds the rights to the song (and who has a basically limitless budget) sues you and now you are stuck defending yourself in a lawsuit. Picture it: you quote a song lyric in a fiction novel and do not request permission. Whether or not a work falls under fair use is a question of legal interpretation. You do not need to seek permission to quote/use work that is in the public domain, and you do not need to seek permission if your use of the work falls under the fair use doctrine. However, authors generally need to request permission to use song lyrics in their works. Generally speaking, an author does not need to request permission to use the title of a song in his/her work. Note: When you embed the widget in your site, it will match your site's styles (CSS).If you have ever wondered how to request permission to use song lyrics in your fiction and nonfiction books, then this blog post is for you.įirst, nothing in this post constitutes legal advice. Dub Da Calixan - Charlie Murphy Tunes Album Lyrics1.Love Sosa2.Love Sosa (feat. So nigga be cool like water, for you get hit with this llama They do it for Sosa, them hoes they do it for Sosa Bitch I does sell soda, and I does sell coka