Permissions for Using Popular Songs

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > CONTENT > SUBJECTS > OTHERS > SONGS > PERMISSIONS

'When Homer smote his bloomin' lyre
He heard men sing from land and sea,
And what he thought he might require
He went and took . . .'

-- from Rudyard Kipling

There's no problem here if you're snatching The Willow Song from Old Bill's OTHELLO. But if it's a ditty you've heard on the radio -- or your grandparents could have heard out of their old AM set -- sticky fingers are not in order. The things that feed Tin Pan Alley and its equivalent anywhere else in the world are protected property. That goes for the lyrics [the words] of a song as well as the music, even if you only want to use a line or two.

When playwrights today use the lyrics of popular songs in the first drafts of their plays, they are obligated to get the rights to do so before running off copies at their neighborhood copy joint. Do most of them do this? No. Should they -- and you? Yes.

For better or worse, the common practice is to wait to jump through these legal tangles until a theatre -- or occasionally a publisher -- commits to taking on your play. Getting these permissions is usually a fairly simple affair and you owe the song writers the same favor you'd like from others about your own work.

If you want to avoid the whole ethical issue, don't quote the lyrics in your manuscript. Just say in a General Stage Direction or Character s.d. something like . . .

 
		(Julie sings the opening lines of Betty 
		and the Bunch's So Long Sister.)

And all the other ways to get there . . .

ASCAP
One Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY 10023

(212) 621-6000
info@ascap.com