Copyright permission for use of song lyrics

Question

Do I need to have copyright permission for song lyrics if I am doing a written review of a concert that contains those lyrics and I quote the lyrics in my review?

Answer 1

First, nothing you read on Writing.SE should be taken as legal advice. I don't think anyone of us is a lawyer, and I don't even know where you are (I'm not in the USA for instance) and rules will of course be different in different places and so on...

Anyway...

EDLs advice on commerciality is probably a good indicator.

Another one is if you use the quote as part of an argument, it's easier to claim fair use.

Say for instance that you want to argue that the band has a dystopian, nihilist worldview. Then quoting lyrics that show a dystopian, nihilist worldview will be more on the side of fair use than just adding "nice" parts of the lyrics at the beginning of each chapter because they make the text sparkle more...

I.e. decorative use is seldom counted as fair use...

Answer 2

Broadly no, you don't.

Genuine review or research are excused from copyright in the great majority modern jurisdictions.

Check that by reading any textbook you can find which purports to be an introduction to law in general, or publishing law in particular.

(No idea why someone downvoted the question, unless it's for lack of research.)

Answer 3

As @erk said, understand that I'm not a lawyer. Take all of this with a grain of salt.

No, you do not need permission in this case. You do need to cite/credit the the song and artist appropriately. This is a review. Reviews are considered fair use because they are transformative.

From Stanford's website: You need to ask yourself the following questions:

• Has the material you have taken from the original work been transformed by adding new expression or meaning?

• Was value added to the original by creating new information, new aesthetics, new insights, and understandings

A review is definitely considered transformative. However there are other ways in which the review itself would disqualify itself. For example: if you sent out CD's with it, your review is libelous, something like that. Similarly, there are other ways something qualifies as fair use; educational material is typically given a pass.

Reviews are generally considered transformative, and thus fall under fair use.

This doesn't mean people won't try to sue you of course. Fair use is a legal defense, not a law.

TLDR

Reviews are generally considered transformative, and thus fall under fair use. This doesn't mean people won't try to sue you of course. Fair use is a legal defense, not a law.

You'll be fine, as long as you credit/cite the artist and song.

Answer 4

Yes. You don't need permission to list the names of the songs, but to quote the lyrics in a commercial work, you need permission. The laws around fair-use and song lyrics are really dicey and have been historically narrowly interpreted.

If this is for a college paper that is free, then you'll likely get a pass. You can quote song lyrics in your high school or college essay, but if it was every published commercially, permission would have to be obtained -- assuming the lyrics are not in the public domain.