Can You Use Song Lyrics in a Book? The Costly Truth

You know what will cost more than hiring Taylor Swift to sing at your book launch? Using her lyrics without permission. This came up again yesterday with a client who has lyrics in their book, and we are suggesting they remove them. They're trying to get permission, but it's delaying the book. So I wanted to talk about it because a lot of people do not realize what a problem song lyrics are it their book. Even just a line or two like hello from the other side can cost you. I've seen Multiple numbers from 150,000 to 250,000 per infringement if the court decides you did it willfully. And by the way, if you've sought permission and then still used them anyways, that was willfully. So quoting a song is really, really problematic. Now you might be thinking, well, I gave credit to the artist credit, but no, permission is not okay. If you change the lyrics, that's not going to help you either, because it's called a derivative work and you still need permission. And some people have said, Well, I changed 30% of them. I paraphrased it. Well, that doesn't magically make it legal. I think if you're doing a cookbook and you change the recipe by 30%, you're okay. But when it comes to a song, no, not okay. So fair use, highly unlikely, especially in books that you're selling, because judges don't care that it was just 10 words. So the safest move, don't use song lyrics or get permission or hire a songwriter to create something original for your book. But usually people are referencing it for some other reason, because I'm pretty sure if it's going to cost you $250,000, you'd rather have the artist sing at your book launch. So let's save that money for things that are a lot more useful than handling a lawsuit.