Copyright Aid

Hello,

I would appreciate advice about a book I am writing. In it, I explore the underlying messages, (political, social, cultural and philosophical), in the songs of a musician without quoting from any of the song lyrics.

The book’s focus is to explore the ideas behind the songs. The ideas are not unique to the musician but common to human beings and societies in general.

I am keen to know if such a book would, in any way, infringe the copyright of the songs even though no lyrics are quoted.

Hi rhythm24 and welcome to the forum,

Copyright only protects the original* expression of ideas, and not the underlying ideas themselves, so what you propose would not infringe. In fact if you wanted to quote a short phrase from a lyric to illustrate your particular point, that would generally be permissible under the fair dealing exception for the purpose of criticism and review (see section 30 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988) provided that you acknowledged the writer(s) of the lyrics (not necessarily the singer), which I am sure you would want to do anyway. Under this exception you wouldn't need to get permission beforehand provided that you used no more of the lyric than was strictly necessary for your purpose.


*Original in this context has a very specific meaning. It means something which originates from and exemplifies the creativity of the human mind of the author. Thus something which is banal or is copied from another source fails the originality test. Furthermore it only applies to the product of a human mind. So AI alone or an animal would not be classed as capable of originating a copyright work.

Hi Andy_1,

Thank you very much for your quick response to my enquiry. This information is exactly what I have been trying to find a while until I came across this forum yesterday.

I have been very careful to avoid quoting from the lyrics in order not to risk any future legal debate about the extent of use being covered by fair dealing. I believe that the book will fulfil its aim without the need to include any part of the lyrics.

In the unlikely scenario of the musician’s estate attempting to raise any issue of copyright infringement when the book is published, what approach should I have in mind in response? I just like to think ahead about possible solutions.

Kind regards,
rhythm24

Hi rhythm,

Until you know the nature of any claim being raised, it's hard to provide a specific response. However if you are not quoting any of the lyrics, the first thing to say is that there will have been no copying, hence no infringement of copyright. As I mentioned before, the ideas or concepts behind the words are not protected, and in any case they will probably be too broad or too commonplace that they couldn't qualify as original in the sense I explained previously.
For example, John Lennon's song 'Imagine' takes as one of its themes, world peace. This is not a concept that Lennon thought up, and if you read this Wikipedia article it sounds as if he got a lot of his inspiration from other people's work, including from Yoko Ono's poems and a Christian prayer book. So in terms of copyright it is only Lennon's actual words and phrases which garner any copyright protection.

Hi Andy,

Thank you so much for the very clear and precise information in your responses. I am also very appreciative of the speed with which you dealt with my questions.

I now feel a lot more relaxed about moving forward with the book project without the worry of potential copyright issues.

Best regards