Saturday, March 5, 2011

The ebook journey: Part three - copyright permissions

Oh crap!

I mean it!

Oh crap!

My novel uses various song lyrics to set the tone of different chapters and I'm about to strip all of them out.

Here's the deal. Song lyrics are protected by copyright and in order to use them, you have to get permission from the copyright holder.

Well, let me tell you, this is a daunting task.

First you have to find out who owns the rights. Not so hard? Don't bet on it. Sometimes the author owns the rights; sometimes the rights have been transferred, not once, not twice but three times. Sometimes, the owner of the copyright is dead, which means looking for heirs. Then, if you manage to get to the end of the search, you might have to pay for using the rights.

This could take longer than it took to write the darn novel!

This seems weird, especially since the lyrics are spread across the web in dozens of sites, with no permission and sometimes without attribution.

But that's how it works. Don't believe me? Check out this article from the Stanford University Libraries.

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