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.
First, nothing in this post constitutes legal advice.
Generally speaking, an author does not need to request permission to use the title of a song in his/her work. However, authors generally need to request permission to use song lyrics in their works. 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. Whether or not a work falls under fair use is a question of legal interpretation.
Picture it: you quote a song lyric in a fiction novel and do not request permission. 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. 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.
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.
From whom does the author request permission? Here is where the process becomes a bit cumbersome.
How to find the copyright holder of the song
To use/quote song lyrics, authors need to request permission from the music company that holds the rights to the song.
When you have a particular song in mind, you need to figure out what company holds the copyright to the song. As noted in this post, all music producers and songwriters must belong to one of these companies: www.ascap.com, www.bmi.com, or www.sesac.com.
Start by going to these websites and searching for the song in which you are interested. When you find the right listing, the listing will include the copyright holder.
To use my search as an example, I searched for the song We Belong (performed by Pat Benatar) on www.bmi.com. I found the repertoire search here. Here is the entry I got:
“Publisher” here denotes the copyright holder. Click on it and you get this info:
Next, you draft a letter and email it to the email address listed (here, info@sonyatv.com). Note that Screen Gems/EMI Publishing was acquired by Sony in 2012; therefore, the copyright holder is now SonyATV. Also note the songwriter/composer names, which you will need to include in your permission letter.
Draft the permission letter
Email a letter requesting permission to the email address listed for the copyright holder. The letter should note the following:
- Explain that you are an author of a book (name the book’s title).
- Indicate the expected date of publication of the book.
- Indicate where you expect to publish the book (e.g., North America, worldwide, etc.).
- State that you seek permission to reproduce the following lyrics from the song. Indicate the lyrics and indicate the songwriters and performer.
- Indicate how you expect to use the lyrics in the book (e.g. as an epigraph at the beginning of the book, at the beginning of the chapter, within the text, etc.). Here, give as much context as possible. 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.
You can find a sample permission letter at the bottom of this post.
What happens after you send your letter
Like in any big company, you kind of get the runaround.
After emailing my permission letter, I received an automatic reply indicating several email addresses for specific areas of inquiry:
I resent my permission letter to the Print License email address.
Next, I received an email from an actual person, indicating that I had to make the request using their online form:
I completed the record company’s form, emailed it, and received yet another email:
I completed and submitted the online form. In response, I received an automatic message indicating that I could expect a response in four to eight weeks’ time. At the time of this writing, I have not heard anything.
What if you don’t hear back at all?
As this post notes, as long as you have evidence that you reasonably attempted to obtain permission, then you may want to go ahead and use the lyrics, and state on the imprint page of your book language akin to, “all reasonable efforts were made to contact the copyright holders.” And remember to keep all relevant paperwork so that you can prove that you tried to request permission from the copyright holder!
If it were me, and I did not receive express permission, I would not use the lyrics because I would not want the hassle of a possible lawsuit. In my mind, it is easier to just not use the lyrics at all, or perhaps mention the title of the song (for which you do NOT need permission) instead of using the lyrics.
This area of law is pretty murky, and I see a lot of bad information on online groups given by people who are not copyright attorneys. In researching for this post, I came across this blog by a publishing/entertainment attorney. See particularly this post on Twelve Common Copyright Permission Myths.
I hope that this information is helpful to you!
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Hi Maria,
Thanks for this article. Just wondering if you ever received permission to use those song lyrics.
Do you also know whether there is typically some kind of fee involved, or is permission usually given freely?
Hi Josh, so sorry for the delay in response! WordPress doesn’t always notify me about comments. I did hear back from the copyright holder several months after my request. By that time, I had already gone ahead and published my book without the lyrics since I didn’t want to hold up publication. There is typically a fee for use of the lyrics; the amount of the fee differs. That would be a good topic for me to research and update this article!
Hi Maria. Sorry if I’m intruding, but could I get a copy of the email they sent with the licensing approval? I’m going through a similar process but the owner of the songs is a friend of mine and does not have a template for approving this so I’m drafting a document as a template she can use and cannot seem to find anything useful.
Huge thanks in adavance,
Gaby
gsaamore@gmail.com
Maria, this is such an outstanding post! I’ve written a story in which I quote lyrics to 4 different songs. I was able to find the publisher of 2 of these songs thanks to your help!
But 2 of the songs were not shown on any of the site repertories. The strangest one was a Dave Matthews song, where the song was listed but it showed that ASCAP did not own any of the copyright, and this message was shown: “This work has been removed from the ASCAP Repertory except with respect to final written license agreements in effect on the following date(s) (corresponding to each interest referenced above)”. Any idea what THAT means?!
And the final song (granted, a very old song) did not appear at all.
Any clue as to what the next step would be? I *suppose* I could just remove the song lyrics (sob) but I don’t really want to if I don’t have to! 🙂
Hi Nicole, I would recontact ASCAP and ask if they could tell you who is the current copyright holder. You should be able to find a general email address for ASCAP, and your message may likely get bounced around to different people. Honestly, the process takes so long that most authors eventually just remove the lyrics. Sorry it’s so frustrating!
I greatly appreciate the example you used 😀 Dan(el Anthony) Navarro will begin recording his second (or third, depending how you count) solo record in July of 2021 <3 Make sure you find and listen to Shed My Skin if you haven't already!
What if I can’t find the song listed with the 3 suggested publishing companies
It’s possible that the copyright has been reverted to someone else, maybe an individual. What song lyrics are you looking to use?
This is the best bit of information so far in explaining the process and possible expectations in asking permission to use lyrics. Thank you!
You got it!
Hello, I sent a request for permission to use lyrics in my novel and the publisher replied, and asked that I provide our normal agreement. Where would I find a standard agreement for this purpose, without employing an attorney?
If the publisher does not have a standard agreement that they use, and instead asks you for one, then you can research online to put one together if you don’t want to consult an attorney. The legal fee for drafting it will vary widely based on where you live.
I heard from an acquaintance who’s a well-known author that the legal department of his latest publishing company has told him that quoting under 4 lines of lyrics from a song in his book is legal and he doesn’t need copyright/permission…is this the case?
To my knowledge that is not the case and you would still need written permission from the copyright holder. Unless perhaps the publishing company has a special agreement with a music company or producer? I would be very careful about taking legal advice from people thirdhand.
The publisher may use the fair use argument for that (which I cover in detail in my new book), but I personally would not take the chance and wind up having to potentially litigate fair use in federal court. Fair use is a matter of interpretation, and there are no bright line rules.
These comments are all very helpful. I am also having a lot of trouble finding the current copyright holder of two old songs. One copyright holder listed has a phone number that is no longer working. Same with their company name. Gone.
I will try to find someone at ASCAP I can write for help.