Lyrics Copyright: The Challenge
The Law is an ass. Sometimes.
In the case of lyrics copyright: always.
My first book, “The Fifties Child: A Social History Through the Songs of Barclay James Harvest”, would have made a profit – not enough to live by, you understand, just enough to buy a round of drinks for some friends – had it not been for the fact that the song copyright holders insisted I pay a fee for quoting from the song lyrics. Half-truth: one particular copyright holder insisted I pay fees and, because of a bizarre “me too” clause in law, this meant that three of the other four also claimed fees.
But why did they insist? After all, quoting poetry in a literary analysis does not incur licensing costs. The value of my book was not in the lyrics quotations – which, by the way, are freely available on any number of internet sites, as is the band’s music, all for free – it was, just as in poetry criticism, in their analysis. Over a period of more than four decades, these songwriters’ lyrics, suitably analysed, told the social history of a whole generation from he United Kingdom.
Of course, I could have paraphrased the lyrics, as John Blaney did in his 2016 “George Harrison: Soul Man”. That is a drudge, both to write and to read, and not to my liking.
So, why did they insist? The answer is, basically, precedent.
However, no-one to my knowledge has challenged this precedent. Precedents are there to be broken, and it is time that it happened.
After all, did Bob Dylan not win the Nobel Prize for Literature? He won it for his lyrics. The lyrics of many songwriters have literary value, not just Dylan’s.
The blood red rose of summer
Grows elegant and tall
In memory of the green grass
Beyond the guardian wall
The green grass grows forever
Beneath the bloody sky
In memory of the martyrs
She'll cover when they die
We are love, we are, we are love
We are love, we are, we are love
When I publish the second edition of “The Fifties Child”, I’m not paying for lyrics excerpts.
In the case of lyrics copyright: always.
My first book, “The Fifties Child: A Social History Through the Songs of Barclay James Harvest”, would have made a profit – not enough to live by, you understand, just enough to buy a round of drinks for some friends – had it not been for the fact that the song copyright holders insisted I pay a fee for quoting from the song lyrics. Half-truth: one particular copyright holder insisted I pay fees and, because of a bizarre “me too” clause in law, this meant that three of the other four also claimed fees.
But why did they insist? After all, quoting poetry in a literary analysis does not incur licensing costs. The value of my book was not in the lyrics quotations – which, by the way, are freely available on any number of internet sites, as is the band’s music, all for free – it was, just as in poetry criticism, in their analysis. Over a period of more than four decades, these songwriters’ lyrics, suitably analysed, told the social history of a whole generation from he United Kingdom.
Of course, I could have paraphrased the lyrics, as John Blaney did in his 2016 “George Harrison: Soul Man”. That is a drudge, both to write and to read, and not to my liking.
So, why did they insist? The answer is, basically, precedent.
However, no-one to my knowledge has challenged this precedent. Precedents are there to be broken, and it is time that it happened.
After all, did Bob Dylan not win the Nobel Prize for Literature? He won it for his lyrics. The lyrics of many songwriters have literary value, not just Dylan’s.
The blood red rose of summer
Grows elegant and tall
In memory of the green grass
Beyond the guardian wall
The green grass grows forever
Beneath the bloody sky
In memory of the martyrs
She'll cover when they die
We are love, we are, we are love
We are love, we are, we are love
When I publish the second edition of “The Fifties Child”, I’m not paying for lyrics excerpts.
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