by Andrew Williams

Created on: September 01, 2009

The Internet has changed a lot about the way we look at copyright law. In this day and age, just about anyone can be an author with some level of exposure, whether through YouTube, Myspace, Garageband, or even writing sites like Helium. Combined with the ever-present threat of piracy, this range of new material that's not controlled by corporate interests has driven copyright attourneys into somewhat of a lawsuit frenzy. With all this controversy, even simple questions like whether an author should be allowed to make legitimate quotations can become a source of ambiguity. It doesn't help that the Digital Millenium Copyright Act is so vague about its definitions of Fair Use, but let's set the legal aspect aside for a moment and speak just on the moral implications.

I suspect that you'd be hard pressed to find someone who thinks quotations are morally wrong. If a journalist from the New York Times is writing about what she heard the president say at a press conference, I think we can all see the inherent danger in requiring that she ask permission from the president before printing anything he may have said. Even journalism aside, we've all quoted at least one of those timeless gems of sarcastic wisdom put forth by people like Mark Twain or Abraham Lincoln. Should we be required to ask permission from their estate? Even moving into the more abstract art forms, it's not uncommon to see a well-read author throw in a quote by Whitman or Yates - even Stephen King did so in The Stand. As long as it's properly cited and credited, few people take issue with a quote. How, then, are song lyrics different than poetry?

With larger artists, asking each author of the world to request the use of lyrical content is simply not practical. Try writing Elton John a letter asking if he minds whether you quote the chorus of Rocket Man in your astronomy essay. I'm guessing you won't get a response. The sheer amount of time it would take for each artist to review every request and read the work in context to see if they find it suitable would be overwhelming and, in the end, lead to a lot less music being written.

From a legal standpoint, the important issue to note is whether the printing of a song's lyrics will affect sales of the music. If anything, throwing in a reference to your favorite line from the latest Green Day song is only going to bolster sales, not harm them. I can't imagine even one legitimate argument that reading some of the words of a song could be in any way similar to listening to the song itself. Certainly nobody likes their work to be used without permission, but are writing and music even comparable artforms?

Fair Use may be somewhat shifty in its definition, but quotations are at least one example that is firmly protected. For that matter, a musician doesn't need permission to cover a song in its entirety or even to parody it. A good example is the 1996 Weird Al Yankovic album Bad Hair Day. Included on the album was Amish Paradise, Weird Al's parody of the popular Coolio song of the day, Gangster's Paradise. Coolio felt that his song was too serious to be parodied and he wasn't the first to object to Weird Al's version of a song. Nirvana was also unhappy with his parody of Smells Like Teen Spirit. Though Yankovic made a point of asking permission from the original artists (and was given permission in both cases) he was really under no legal obligation to do so. Parody, commentary, and quotation have always been key defenses in the fair use of other artists' work.

Should the music industry allow writers to quote song lyrics without permission? Fortunately, they don't have any choice.

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