Are you allowed to quote song lyrics in a screenplay? Only lyrics that are directly relevant to the story being told, which would only be 1 line in the overall song.
Also the specific songs I'm thinking of are all available to watch for free on YouTube. Would there still be copyright issues in that scenario?
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You cannot use copyrighted lyrics without the permission of the copyright owner. Many people erroneously believe you can copy and use 7 seconds, 10 seconds, or even 30 seconds without permission, but this is incorrect. The legal doctrine of fair use only allows you to use copyrighted songs for circumstances such as criticism, education, parody or journalistic reporting.
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What about The Hunchback of Notre Dame's Hellfire? Isn't that public domain after 28 years?
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Tom Norton public domain probably is different in each country, but in the UK it's around 70 years I think.
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Tom Norton the least you could do is ask for permission. That would get the ball rolling and answer your question. Don't be afraid to step out and do this.
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Geoff Hall Thanks for the advice but who could I ask? I don't know anybody at Disney and I don't know any legal experts either.
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Yup, you're writing a spec script. Readers are just praying for good reads by unknown writers. Anything after that (like a production deal) can be fixed by lawyers & money.
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Copyright is authors life plus 70 years. I believe this is international after an agreement on January 1, 1978. I don't think there's an issue if a character refers to lyric or line from established work. A direct parody, however, is cleared thanks to Carole Burnett.
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What Dan MaxXx said ! At the studios I read plenty of scripts that quoted, had lyrics or quotes from book. When it's made the person doing Clearances and Music execs will handle things, pay for things, and change things as needed.
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As far as I know you are legally able to use a certain quote length however, I do include song lyrics in my work as they come to me, and figure if they like the script the lyrics can be sorted or removed. I do reference the lyrics and mention that the lyrics rights are not included in the work. I have also done this with Indigenous content that needs permissions.
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If you are quoting someone saying something there should be absolutely no problem. If you quote it along the lines of: 'As the great philosopher, Mick Jagger, once said: "You can't always get what you want."'
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It’s a screenplay. Do whatever you want. The filmmakers can then decide to pay for it or change it.
On the other hand, if you quote lyrics to excess, that will raise some eyebrows and be seen as a negative. Writing “Across the Universe,” which is wall-to-wall Beatles lyrics, that would be dumb if you didn’t have a deal in place already.
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Great question TOM... I just procured permission from a few song lyric creators to use in my FILM - Success After Insanity. THE two I asked for permission are not major names in the industry but have done very very well in their genre... so I am excited that they allowed me to use the lyrics! GOOD LUCK TO YOU!!
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In one film I produced, one of the actors in a scene improvised a moment where he sang the chorus of an old standard. It was kept in the cut against alot of people's advice, the higher ups thought they could just use it and ask permission later, and when that didn't seem to fly they thought they could make a deal. After seeing the astronomical amount to license just the performance rights for the song (since it was just being sung, it wasn't the song itself), and again after being told it was going to cost quite a bit way beforehand, we had to go back in and recut the scene which cost time and money we didn't have. This cost wasn't nearly as much as the licensing fee, but it was nonetheless a completely avoidable situation. The point, tread carefully in any and all instances of music licensing.