quoting lyrics

[Dav]

A few things,

1) Music lyrics are not intelectual property as such.  They are commercial property available for sale, at profit, in the form of physical material good.  A sticky point, but as the Napster case established, lyrics, music, and the relevant industry is not an IP industry.

2) Quoting lyrics without permission is a technical violation of copyright.  It is also a violation to quote books, poems, or other published material.  "Technically" becomes the keyword.  While many could sue, none will.  I repeat: many could sue, none will.  The reasons for this are many-fold:
   a) not enough cash.  b) takes a long time.  c) 25-35% success rate, unless the quote is clearly derogatory to the original intent of the source.  d) no one notices.  e) artists have this thing about allowing other artists harmless reproduction and use (in many ways, it is an advert.)

That's the law as it reads.  An important note to include is this: anyone can sue anyone for anything.  The question becomes whether or not the suit will be upheld in the eyes of the law.  Quoting lyrics in a game is not a problem, and would only be upheld by the courts in the most extreme of circumstances.

Sidenote: this all does not include such material as has been designated as open source, or public domain.  This would include the bible (pick your religious text), and many older composers or songs that never found publication during the lifetime of the artist in general.  

To sum up, do what you want, you won't owe money.

Dav

[Adam]

Fair Use is covered in the following document: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/fls/fl102.pdf

There's also a mention of it at: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/faq.html [Which is where I found the fl102 document.]

Really though, no answers are provided. I could argue the issue either way based on the material given and depending on how one defines a RPG book. So I'm just going to hush up. ;)

[Bailey]

It's worth pointing out what "mechanicals" are since I mentioned them earlier and y'all might not know what they are.  A mechanical is a royalty that is not based on sales but on reproduction.  The term is shorthand from the royalty generated when mechanically reproducing a musical work or a part of it.  Unless you negotiate for a lower mechanical the going rate is four and a half cents per reproduction.

Which means if you have five quotes that costs you twenty two and a half cents for each book that the printer rolls out.  A print run of 2000 would incur a cost of $4500.

It's real easy to get license unless RPGs are on the artist's "do not apporve reproduction" list.  In fact you'll ususally go through ASCAP or BMI without the artist ever knowing.  If there isn't an ASCAP/BMI notice then contact the artist's management for securing rights.  It's also worth noting that several artists have switched over to SESAC to manage their publishing though ASCAP still acts like they do it if you contact them.  Check newer albums to see who they're with.  If there is any inconsistency check with the artist's management.

[woodelf]

i've seen numerous game books quote popular song lyrics (a perfect example of this would be the core rulebook for vampire: the masquerade), and i'm wondering if this is something that indie rpgs can do as well. aren't there fees? isn't reproduction of copyrighted material (like song lyrics) prohibited without permission (which is usually costly)? how is it that white wolf managed to include hundreds of quotes in one book alone?

the short answer: you can't legally do it and neither can WWGS.  the only reason RPGs get away with it is that the entire RPG industry, much less a particular company, is too small for the recording industry to even notice.

the long answer: you can only reuse copyrighted material with permission, or within the bounds of fair use.  using a quote from someone else's fiction (as opposed to non-fiction) writing as a mood-setter is probably not something that can be considered fair use, but i don't believe it's ever gone to court.  i do know that, in other circumstances, quoting even as little as a single line of a song has been held to be beyond the bounds of "fair use", given the poetic (i.e., word-precise) and generally short nature of song lyrics.  (you might we quoting 10% of a song--you certainly can't quote 3 chapters of a book (looking at the number of chapters in the novel sitting right next to me) verbatim and call it fair use.)

i asked WWGS about the song-lyric quoting a couple of times, once around the time M:tA came out, the other when i was writing for W:tO.  my recollection is that their answer on both counts was that the amounts quoted were small, and there was no intent to defraud the authors, so the quoting was ok.  problem with that is, what exactly constitutes fair use isn't so clear-cut.  a court *could* decide that the fact that you're infringing is all that matters--not whether or not you're making money, or confusing consumers, or defrauding the copyright holder.  the law only states what criteria may be considered when determining fair use, not how to apply those criteria (it doesn't even state whether one, the majority, or all must apply for something to be "fair use").

now, we're about to veer into the territory of my murky memory.  the above is, while not official legal advice, pretty sound.  the following is much shakier.

i have a vague recollection of hearing through the grapevine that the union representing song-writers and composers (ASCAP? AFSCME?) actually *had* brought suit against WWGS, precisely over the hundreds of appropriated quotes in their books.  i *believe* that the gist of the argument was that, even if any one of those quotes was legitimate, or made in good faith, the sheer volume of quoted material, and it's obvious importance to the overall structure of the work (even if only as a stylistic tool to indicate mood), made the quoting, as a whole, an infringement.  and since the union could speak on behalf of most or all of the copyright-holders, collectively, all of the quotes could be considered collectively.  anyway, my understanding (again, more rumor-mill than hard fact) was that it was settled out of court, with WWGS agreeing to make reparations and some sort of royalty payment (probably X cents per quoted line) to the organization in the future.  if my information is correct, WWGS probably got off much easier than they would have paying each artist individually--but then the artists had a much stronger case collectively (a given artist might only have 1 line from a song in a 300+ page book).  i believe you'll notice a definite decline in the number of quotes in more-recent WWGS books.

so, to summarize:
in the specific case of song lyrics and poems, i'd steer clear of quoting if you want to be absolutely certain of being legally safe.  or get permission.  if it ever came down to it, i suspect you'd have to argue that the quoted material was important enough to your work to justify using it, yet not so important that your work depends on it (i.e., you're not benefitting from using someone else's work, and you'd be doing just as fine without it)--which could be a bit tricky.  or at least keep the quoting down (a quote for every sub-section is probably just asking for it).  

realistically, anybody smaller than WWGS is probably safe, unless you honk somebody off.  but, shouldn't you show the artists the respect of not reusing their work without permission?  in the case of anything poetic, the expression really is the valuable part.  and you wouldn't be using it if you didn't think it was valuable, so reflect that value and ask and/or pay (at least proportionally to what you're earning--i.e., don't worry about it so much if you're not selling commercially).

[woodelf]

"Fair use" is completely irrelevant to RPGs. It applies to educational uses, parody, and reviews, and it never applies to song lyrics.

it's not that simple.  "fair use ... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. "  (quoting from the statute)  IOW, the *primary* areas for invocation of "fair use" are scholarship/education and commentary/criticism.  but it doesn't say those are the only possibilities.  

what it does say is that "In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include

"(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

"(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

"(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

"(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. "

note that it does *not* say *how* these criteria should be applied--in order of preference or equally?; at least one of them, the majority of them, or all of them?  now, subsequent caselaw has ironed this out quite a bit.  i don't know the details.  using a song lyric in another song?  no way.  using a Dylan lyric as a basis for a discussion of the sociopolitical environment of the 60s in a textbook?  almost certainly ok.  where a reuse that is not likely to in any way negatively impact the original, but is most definitely benefitting from that original, falls, i have no idea.  i agree that it is very unlikely to fall under the specific legal definition of "fair use".  but it might, nonetheless, be legal.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Which means if you have five quotes that costs you twenty two and a half cents for each book that the printer rolls out. A print run of 2000 would incur a cost of $4500.

Math error there--the cost would be $450, not $4,500.

[rafael]

i decided to contact the band whose lyrics i wanted to quote in my game rulebook.  they were receptive to the idea, asking only that i note, "lyrics used with permission," and that i cite the band's URL in the publication.  this seemed more than fair.  they also asked for a copy of the rulebook, which i'm more than happy to do.

there weren't any fees to pay or forms to sign.  it was almost too good to be true.  so there you have it: if you contact the artist directly, you might obviate legal issues altogether.

[J B Bell]

Deadguy:  how very nice to hear that, in the midst of all this somewhat depressing legalese, a couple of parties can work out something eminently fair without paying any lawyers at all.  Here's to common sense!

--JB