just a quick question

[ledzeprock]

hey. do you think its illegal to use quotes from poetry or sayings in a song?

any help will be much appreciated

thankyou

[hale]

read the thread on top of yours, cuz i think it says something about not posting up other bands lyrics and those, but i'm not sure about those..unless you did read it, and didn't find anything against it....cuz i didn't..

[ledzeprock]

no i meant like can i use a phrase from a poem or something in one of my own songs or will i be sued?

[Slrainox]

Well you can use simple things, for instance:

Pearl Jam wrote "All you need is love." in the song Loveboat Captain, but they even admitted to taking the phrase from The Beatles song, All you Need is Love.

That's not a problem, if you took an entire verse and put it in as your second verse then tried to sell it, you could be in trouble, but I'd be willing to bet that no one would care, it'd just be a little lame. You could just give full credit for the verse to that band and make it clear they wrote it.

[ledzeprock]

Well you can use simple things, for instance:

Pearl Jam wrote "All you need is love." in the song Loveboat Captain, but they even admitted to taking the phrase from The Beatles song, All you Need is Love.

That's not a problem, if you took an entire verse and put it in as your second verse then tried to sell it, you could be in trouble, but I'd be willing to bet that no one would care, it'd just be a little lame. You could just give full credit for the verse to that band and make it clear they wrote it.

thanks!!

but what if im using a verse from a poem. im not sure who wrote , its just in my head.

[KillaBink]

I say it's alright. I look at it like this... I don't read poetry, so I would never be able to make the correlation between the two, and I'm sure most would say the same thing. I would just make sure to give credit where credit's due, if the question ever came up.

[RollerQueen]

Google the phrase. It should show up somewhere. Whatever you do with your own piece, I'd note the borrowed phrase/verse and who wrote it. Everyone's all crazy about proper citation these days.