I'm starting a theatre company and one of the ideas I have thought of for a production is an ongoing series of monologue/scratch evenings. I want to have the premise of each night to latch onto the theme and revolve around the use of a song lyric and actors have to create their own original writing using this lyric as inspiration. For example, the lyric "All flowers are pretty when they're dying" is a taken from a Rina Sawaymama song called 'To Be Alive'. Would I be able to use this lyric as the title of the production?
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1Does this answer your question? Is it legal to use a song lyric on the back of a wine label if we give attribution to the creator? There are many other questions on this site about using song lyrics for different purposes. It is likely that one of the answers there answers your quesiton as well.– BenCommented Feb 14 at 20:18
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Here are a few: writing.stackexchange.com/questions/60977/…, writing.stackexchange.com/questions/27568/…, writing.stackexchange.com/questions/6797/…, writing.stackexchange.com/questions/21848/… and so on.– BenCommented Feb 14 at 20:21
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The gist of all answer is: Because song lyrics are so short, citing even one verse can be a breach of copyright, especially in a commercial context. (And please note that "commercial" doesn't mean that the event has to make anyone money directly. An event is also commercial if it gives artists exposure that will result in more invitations for performances that will eventually lead to someone buying a recording or paying for a ticket.) So you should always try and get written permission or use songs for which the copyright has expired or that are in the public domain.– BenCommented Feb 14 at 20:27
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1 Answer
There are two principles in copyright law that seem most germane to your question.
Lyrics are rigorously protected by copyright since by their nature they are very creative. But, the notion that dying flowers are beautiful is a long standing poetic theme. It comes in poems by Homer which predates the artist who wrote the song you are interested in.
If the refrain from the song is a simple restating of an old idea, then it might not be considered a highly creative work, therefore a short phrase might not rise to infringement.
Assuming it is regarded as a highly creative work, then if your use of the phrase expresses them same sentiments as the prior work, then you'd likely have a problem claiming fair use. In other words, if you are saying the same thing in your play as the artist said in their song, using the artist's words you might be infringing on their work.
But if your play takes the notion in a different direction than is established in the song, then your work might be considered transformational, and thereby covered by fair-use.
Copyright law is subtle and hard to predict. You can always ask for permission. But it doesn't matter unless the play is actually published. If it is only performed on one weekend in a dinner theater in East Hoboken, it doesn't really matter.
