Is Anne's "Tomorrow" in Public Domain yet?

[Naruzeldamaster]

I kind of want to use some lines from Anne's Tomorrow in a sad/creepy way for one of my antagonists. (She's a mechanoid villain)
Not the full song but a couple of lines (and later the melody is described to fit the songs description the song itself is not explicitly mentioned other than one or two verses)
Similarly I also want to use some lines from that Bicycle built for two song also. (I don't know the name of it or the full song)

 

[Rexenm]

Tomorrow, I love you tomorrow? And that hard knock life? Big Ounce would have loved those, and Poppy. I love Prairie Dogs. Yahoo!!

 

[Finchbearer]

I’m going to be annoying and say why not come up with your own satirical or sarcastic humour? Maybe your work will be something someone somewhere will want to copy in the future? Who knows. All I can say is that it will probably make your creative life harder if you’re looking too much at other work that you admire. Look within and take inspiration sparsely.

Something that is very old, like Shakespeare could probably be used if you’re are wanting to use references from existing literature - but there are some things you just cannot copy because the estate or whoever owns the royalties will come after you and won’t care how little money you have. Such as the Tolkien estate - you cannot use anything from Middle Earth unless it’s fanfiction that you intent to make zero money from, and ideally you share it anonymously too.

 

[Prince of Spires]

That should be a very easy google search.

Copyright lasts for the life of the author + 70 years. That means that pretty much anything you might know is probably copyright protected, unless it was published before the second world war. And even then it might not be.

Google tells me Annie came out in the 1970's....

 

[Finchbearer]

Annie the musical is also still big business.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Annie the musical is also still big business.

That's not really a factor in copyright considerations though. Both Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse are still big business, however, both are also public domain (at least some versions of them). And Lord of the Rings will enter public domain on September 2, 2043 , no matter how popular it is then, simply because that's 70 years after Tolkien's death.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

I’m going to be annoying and say why not come up with your own satirical or sarcastic humour? Maybe your work will be something someone somewhere will want to copy in the future? Who knows. All I can say is that it will probably make your creative life harder if you’re looking too much at other work that you admire. Look within and take inspiration sparsely.

Something that is very old, like Shakespeare could probably be used if you’re are wanting to use references from existing literature - but there are some things you just cannot copy because the estate or whoever owns the royalties will come after you and won’t care how little money you have. Such as the Tolkien estate - you cannot use anything from Middle Earth unless it’s fanfiction that you intent to make zero money from, and ideally you share it anonymously too.

I mostly want to use the song Tomorrow because it fits the villain's motivation for being insane. (or rather the meaning of the song is what made them insane, since she misinterpreted the point of the song for thousands of years.) And like I said, not the entire song, just a verse or two.

If there's another similar song that can be spun in a creative way that's in public domain I'd use that.

 

[Finchbearer]

What you trying to convince me for? I don’t own the right to Annie. I’d say you’d still be better coming up with something original from your own brain - you’ll learn something in the process too.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

What you trying to convince me for? I don’t own the right to Annie. I’d say you’d still be better coming up with something original from your own brain - you’ll learn something in the process too.

Ye, it'll be a while before that antagonist is a part of the story so i got time to sort it out.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

We quote a lot. Lots of Shakespeare (we've got two characters breaking into a scene from "Coriolanus" in our next book), Marlowe (because someone's got the be the rebel), Carroll, pretty much anyone... within the law. And mostly just United States law, since that's where we live and publish. So, anything I'm going to tell you is US based. If you aren't, you're going to need to roll up your sleeves and do some homework.

Now, what we haven't done is use any works that fall under United States copyright, yet. Yet. We'll get there soon, I'm sure.

This is the web address for the US Copyright Office. U.S. Copyright Office | U.S. Copyright Office It's got information about filing for your own copyright (Spoiler: Don't fuss about that if you're a US author.) and about how the law works to protect you and whoever you want to quote. Something about you can use so many words/beats/bars/bits of imagery as long as they do not bear the core meaning of the work in question.

This is just a little thing we did a while back using a traditional ballad called, "The Parting Glass." Way way in the public domain, so we went wild. There are probably more than a few like this out there that would work for you as well or even better than "Tomorrow."

The Parting Glass – A Books of Binding Flash Fiction - A. E. Lowan

 

[Demesnedenoir]

The lyricist passed in 2019, Martin Charnin. My memory of my screenwriting days says I wouldn't quote Tomorrow's lyrics with a ten-foot pen IF I was going to produce the movie myself because I have zero clout/connections in getting permission. Now, if submitting the spec script to a studio and the production company buys the spec script, it's then up to them to get permission, and they would have the clout/connections. Same goes for big publishers. So! If self-publishing, I'm not even going to mess around with it. You might get away with it due to limited distribution and using a very small fragment of the song, but I wouldn't risk it. Parody it, name it, source it at will, but I'd find my way around direct quotes. If bought by a Trad publisher, they would decide the legal risks and seek permission if it was worth it.

This is a gray area in copyright law, so I'd play it safe.

Quoting large books without permission is safer, but songs being so short in word count makes it trickier.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

We've nabbed real world brand names like Coke and Star Wars for various reasons. The rule of thumb from what we've been able to find on the subject is that as long as a product isn't being disparaged, most corporations either don't care or don't have enough genre readers of Urban Fantasy who love indies to spot little things like this. But that's us. I'm Irish, born with spectacular luck - I'm critical roll girl and I'll either roll a 1 or a natural 20 any day - and more than my fair share of the blarney, so we skate along on that a lot. lol If anyone has any thoughts or experiences with this, it's an interesting subject.

It's copyright law. We are all so very geek.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Names are "facts," so they can't really do much of anything, including brand names. Unless, of course, you try to use their brand for your brand, then they send hitmen. Or lawyers. One or the other.

 

[Rexenm]

Names are "facts," so they can't really do much of anything, including brand names. Unless, of course, you try to use their brand for your brand, then they send hitmen. Or lawyers. One or the other.

The reason they have copy right is curious.. You would think they would be contractual, or like getting your key stuck in the lock.

The rule I heard was fifty, but after the passing not the books NEW release.

 

[skip.knox]

I join with other voices here. If you have a copyright question, it's on you to do the research and make sure. Same goes for A Bicycle Built For Two. I'm sure that the legal department attached to 2001 A Space Odyssey did the requisite research and paid the necessary fees so Hal could sing that clip.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Names are "facts," so they can't really do much of anything, including brand names. Unless, of course, you try to use their brand for your brand, then they send hitmen. Or lawyers. One or the other.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

The reason they have copy right is curious.. You would think they would be contractual, or like getting your key stuck in the lock.

The rule I heard was fifty, but after the passing not the books NEW release.

No, Prince is right. It's 70 after the death of the author.

Okay, this is me literally clicking the link I posted above and now giving you another link two clicks away. U.S. Copyright Office Fair Use Index There's only one way to learn about this stuff, and if you want a career in writing in the US you need to learn this stuff. That one way is by spending time doing your homework. You're going to want this information on hand when you start publishing, no matter what avenue you choose, and now's as good a time as ever to start building your resource lists.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I just remembered something. It is perfectly legal to use an artist's name and the name of their work. We do this a fair bit, which is probably why I didn't think about it. It's a non-issue for my squiggy little brain. As long as you don't use them to talk about them in a derogatory way, you should be good.

This is a bit from our first in series, Faerie Rising. Referencing someone else's work should be a light touch, like this. You can do more, though. Just make sure to verify. I could be talking out my ass.

~~

“What I think is that you can’t do this alone!”

“I have to.”

“Bullshit!”

Halfcocked’s version of ‘Bad Reputation’ suddenly erupted into the small break following Erik’s exclamation. Michael pulled his phone from his pocket and bent his head to read the text message. Again, he was bland. “Erik, Katherine says if you don’t stop bellowing at Winter and interrupting her writing while she’s on deadline she’s going to kick your ass back to the Middle Ages.”

 

[Finchbearer]

Haruki Murakami uses a lot of pop culture references - he loves The Beatles so they gets mentioned a lot in his novels, but he’s not using any of their intellectual property as if he came up with the words himself, or pretending that he came up with them in the first place.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Haruki Murakami uses a lot of pop culture references - he loves The Beatles so they gets mentioned a lot in his novels, but he’s not using any of their intellectual property as if he came up with the words himself, or pretending that he came up with them in the first place.

We're huge Bon Jovi fans (went to one of their concerts a few years ago, the last one Richie Sambora played) so of course we have a character who's an homage to Jon Bon Jovi. Johnny Smith, from New York City. We get introduced to him in Faerie Rising when our teenage wizard and the guy across the street are cleaning and playing his music with much enthusiasm.