Using song lyrics in your novel? How to get permission. Or not.

by Liz Bradbury, February 5th, 2010

You may recall that at the very end of Angel Food and Devil Dogs, Kathryn sings and dances with Maggie to the 50s song - “Save the Last Dance for Me.” Well, in the original manuscript I actually had the words to the song in the text of the book. But of course, because this song was written after 1923, and is not in the public domain, I needed legal permission to have it in there - so I applied to Alfred Publishing for the right to do so.

Alfred Publishing controls just abut every song ever. Every little theater or marching band or big star who wants to print or record a song must apply to them. They are huge. But they are also one of the most woefully behind the times companies in the world. They do have web site (at least) - And what you do if you want to print the lyrics to a song in something you might make money with is, you write an email to them and ask them to send you a contract re the print rights to the song text.

OK, so I did that in January of 2008. At their site, they say you'll hear from them in 45 days.

Well, I didn't. Time passed. I really wanted to have the text of the song in there, but 4 1/2 months had gone by and I hadn't heard.

So I wrote them another email saying I was going to press in May (which was about 3 more weeks) and I really wanted to use the song text and to please let me know how much the rights would cost.

Well, I didn't hear and so I published the book by changing the ending around to just allude to the words, but not actually use them. I had a book release party and was off and flying with the book in print.

A month later, I got an email from a guy at Alfred who said -- “We got your request but we see your book has already gone to press so do you still want the rights?”

Well, I had some corrections to add to the text, so I wrote back in minutes saying -- “Well, yes I do. Please send me a contract and let me know how much the rights cost. --

That was June 18th, 2008 -- and why didn’t the guy just send me the contract and the amount I would have to pay in that email? Why did he have to ask me again if I wanted the rights? Frankly, whether I wanted the rights or not would certainly depend on the cost. It's not like I'm making a load of money from these books. $50 would have been OK, but I couldn't afford $200.

OK so...I never heard back. I made the corrections but left the song text out.

Fast forward almost two years. Just this month I get an email from Alfred saying -- “We sent you the contract and you never paid -- if you used the text you owe us $55. And you have to sign the enclosed contract.”

According to them they say that they emailed me the contract the next day -- June 19th, 2008 -- But AOL keeps my email files back to 2006 and I can see no record of them ever sending me the contract.

Regardless, I’m adding some corrections now...and updating some parts for e-publication so I’d still like to have the song text in that part of the book (it wouldn’t change the story). So I emailed back and said -- “I never got the contract from you. I published without the song in it, but I did want the song -- I’m doing an update right now, so I’m sending the check and the signed contract.” (You have to mail them a check or send them a money order.)

So I immediately get an email back in return from the same guy who says -- “Wait, if you are doing updates now, we have to get a new contract written up, so hold off until you hear from us and don’t send the check. When do you need the rights?”

I wanted to yell: I needed the fucking rights in 2008!!!!!!!!!

But I wrote back saying I needed them as soon as possible, I was going to “press” in February.

Well I haven’t heard back from them.

OK -- Here are the issues:

Remember that this company controls the rights to just about every song written in America since 1923.

1. They said it would take 45 days to hear from them -- it took 6 months the first time., and they still didn’t tell me what it would cost.
2. Then they lost my contract. Then they didn’t follow up on it for two years.
3. Then they wouldn’t just take my check and give me the rights now...
4. Why the “heck” don’t they have an automated system?
5. You have to send them a check or a money order? Haven’t they heard of credit cards? Much less paypal? They take 6 months to process an order and then you have to send them a check in the mail -- but Amazon can take your money and download an entire novel to you in what, like 60 seconds? Do they tell Barbra Streisand she has to mail them a check or money order for each track on her next album?
6. Their contracts are completely unaware of POD or e-books. They ask what your print run will be and seem to base your costs on that. When I wrote POD next to the print run question a box popped up that said - "Must Be Numeric Value". So forget about them getting the concept of e-books not having a "print run." I should have put zero.
7. And they require you to send them the whole chapter in which the song is used. Well, how do you know how to write the chapter unless you know if you can use the song? Furthermore, that means you have to finish the book before you can ask for the rights -- and then wait months before you can go ahead and publish it.
8. But you know what the real kick in the pants issue is? I would have gladly paid the $55. If there had just been a print-out contract on the web page and an amount, I would have paid it with Paypal or a credit card in Jan. 2008. But I couldn’t -- so I had to change the whole book. And now, I still don’t have the permission...so I’m not adding in the song or sending the check.

Who is really getting screwed here? Not me, after all I’m not out any money. And really Alfred Publishing makes so much money, they obviously don’t care about this transaction. No, the people getting screwed are the guys who wrote that song...or their heirs. This huge corporation is too lazy and cheap to upgrade their systems (or pay more employees to handle requests) so the songwriters they represent are losing out.

I really did want the song text in the book. So maybe I’ll give Alfred one last try. I wrote them back and said I could hold off a week more - we'll see if they write back. But I’ve found that rights like this are ridiculously hard to get -- for no good reason. Imagine if you had written this song and you found out that people who were willing to pay you cash were being put off for years by the very corporation that you had contracted with to sell the rights of your songs? When it comes to most songs and poems, I now opt for ones that are in public domain. And I’m sorry for the creative people who aren’t getting paid.

Hey songwriters and poets, skip the corporation and set up your own web site and I’ll pay you directly. I'll even show you how to set up a Paypal account.