| Author |
Message |
    
Jennifer L Smith
| | Posted on Monday, May 24, 2004 - 09:27 pm: | |
I am wondering what the procedure is when you wish to start your story with a quotation. Specifically, I would like to use some lyrics from a Sam Phillips song.
I figure I need to contact the rights-owning personages listed on the album liner, but what sort of proof of permission do I need to send with my manuscript? Do most magazines take stories with quotations, or are they rejected because of potential rights issues? |
Thomas R
| | Posted on Monday, May 24, 2004 - 09:39 pm: | |
I recommend not quoting a song at all. From what I've heard getting the rights are tremendously hard. If you must, there are a few SF/F friendly musicians who might allow it without a fee so high it'd make it a wash. Or you can use a song in the Public Domain in some cases.
Otherwise everything I've ever read or heard says avoid quoting a song. (This is part of why SF characters seem to inordinately love classical music, the rights to later music are a bear) |
Rob Darnell
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 25, 2004 - 12:30 am: | |
Or you can write your own song by a fictional band. |
mike bishop
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 25, 2004 - 06:02 am: | |
That last is a good idea. In No Enemy But Time years ago, having heard about the troubles George R. R. Martin had getting permissions to quote dozens of songs in The Armageddon Rag, I gave up and wrote parody lyrics of the Beatles' "Yesterday," without of course attributing my "song" to Lennon and McCartney or any other rock band. |
Jeffrey J. Lyons
| | Posted on Saturday, October 23, 2004 - 05:20 pm: | |
I asked about lyrics in another thread. I am not expert but my understandin of the basic procedure is that you have to write the songwriter and ask permission. You have to be able to guarantee a certain amount of sales or books published. You will probably have to pay some kind of royalties based on sales. |
Ellen Datlow
| | Posted on Sunday, October 24, 2004 - 12:41 pm: | |
You can find out who owns permissions by writing ASCAP or BMI (if they still exist under those names). No you don't have to pay royalties or guarantee a specific number of sales,but you very likely may have to pay a fee. |
TCO
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - 03:22 pm: | |
Is that the Jeffrey Lyons that does movie criticism? |
Yoon Ha Lee
| | Posted on Saturday, October 30, 2004 - 06:28 pm: | |
I won't touch song lyrics because of concerns like those noted above, but I have actually gotten, for no fee, permission to use a quote from a Fuchsian differential equation math text. (The story is Out At A Market right now. What the hey, it amused me to write it.)
...okay, I suppose math textbooks are not popular sources of quotes in science fiction. I can't imagine why...:-) |
|
