Sing a Song

It is annoying.

Songs are copyright, of course. The music, the sheet music, the lyrics, most recordings. As are many things. ASCAP, however, is very protective. Basically, you can't quote a single line of a song in a work of fiction. Nor is it easy to get the legal rights if you chose to go that path (just figuring out who to contact is a chore).

Means you end up with scenes that are the narrative equivalent of those weird cigarette brands you used to see in movies. But instead of having something that looks familiar but isn't the same, instead you have these weird gaps in the text where the characters (and narrator) are suddenly forced to talk around it.

"Like Shakespeare said, 'A rose by any other name.'"
"Or like John Lennon. The Beatle's song 'Imagine.' You know, 'something something something.'"

I have people quoting from Tacitus. Quoting from operas that are older than 1929. But then I get to certain scenes where I have five hundred Oktoberfest guests clapping and singing and all I can write is, "They sung that song by John Denver."

There are two other places where a song comes up the same way a quote from Shakespeare would come up or a plot line in a movie would come up in conversation. In one case my historian character is about to board a plane to Istanbul and -- just like everyone I hang out with -- immediately quotes from the song. Except of course she can't. She can only describe that she thought of the song or sung part of the song but I have to leave the actual words unsaid. There's another bit where an impromptu rendition of a Disney song crops up from an unlikely source. And if there's one rule to live by in copyright, it's don't mess with the mouse.

It reads very weird when you are in the middle of a fully-quoted conversation, is what I am saying. And it isn't because those words have a special poetry that, alone, can express my meaning. All I want to reference is the presence and meaning of the song in this particular decade, in the same way I'd give the color of an automobile or the author of a book or the ingredients of a pizza.

(It is especially odd since the title of the song occurs in the chorus. So if you write, "She sang 'Country Roads'" you are fine, but if you write, "She sang, 'Country Roads...'" you are in copyright violation?)

And, drat, it is worse. I've got a couple of scenes dependent on snippets of the librettos from three operas being quoted. It has to be the actual words, in the original Italian, for them to work. And it turns out that although Puccini is indeed in public domain, "Nessun Dorma" -- is not. (It was completed after his death and bears a copyright renewal date in the 50's).

Yes, there is Fair Use. But it is notoriously murky. There is no bright line. No seven second rule or anything like that. It is determined by a judge evaluating the balance of four conditions (commentary, transformative use, damage, and extent).

It still annoys me that the Orangeman can play a recording of Pavarotti singing the thing, but I can't risk quoting as little as a single line in my novel.