by Bretonrae

Created on: February 06, 2009   Last Updated: February 07, 2009

Should the music industry allow writers to quote song lyrics without permission?

The great painter and genius, Peter Paul Rubens, expressed himself in many portraits filled with deep crimsons, rich browns, exciting jewel tones, polished gold and textured velvets worn by those he represented in marvelous interpretations on his canvasses. Rubens chose the medium, style, and colors with which he could achieve full expression of his art. Every thing about his art was specific to his own work and was exquisitely individualized. Arturo Rubinstein was a musical artist whose work was to interpret the music written by great musicians. The choice of music written for the piano allowed him to use his unique abilities to play that particular instrument.

At this point, I would like to compare the art of the lyricist to the art previously discussed. The chosen form of expression and media of the lyricist is the setting of written word and the sentiment of that word to music. The lyricist chooses the style and setting of his written word so that the lyrics are an integral part of a song. We legitimately may surmise that without the music to which he has set his lyrics that his art is not expressed as he intended. The true poetic entity of his work is distorted when presented without the music just as Rubens artistic expression would be when presented without his chosen canvas, color, brush stroke, and technique.

Likewise, the writer of music in melodic form, line, and harmonics "paints" his works for the human ear and emotion. If a song's original presentation is intended to accompany written word, the composer's full art would be considered as a distortion if presented without the lyric.

The song's music and integral portion of the written word should only have it's expression set together and the lyricist may rightly have complaint that his art is being distorted by doing otherwise. Logically then, permission from the originator of the song and it's lyrics must be obtained because only those artists may know just how much of their artistic expression would suffer when presented outside of the original setting. Would Rubens be appreciative of his portrait of St. Jerome hung up in pastel shades of lavender paint or would Arturo Rubinstein's interpretations be as beautiful heard as played on a clarinet? Perhaps it would be so much better to have asked them first.

In light of the above discussion, it really would not be acceptable for writers to be able to quote song lyrics without permission since they are to be considered as the artists' intellectual properties.

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