So, I've been going through my short stories lately (with the plan being, if I have enough, maybe I'll do an ebook of them). But something came up that I had a question about...
The specific short story was inspired by a song's lyrics. I include the entire song at intervals during the story (separating it into mini-mini-chapters). Now, I realize that the song and its lyrics are most likely copyrighted which brings me to my first question (which I've researched a little, but thought I'd include it anyway): Is there any way I can legally include these lyrics?
The song is still recent so its copyright still stands... on the other hand. While researching the song and who it's copyrighted to, I discovered the lyrics were actually from a poem written by Sir Walter Scott. The book that contains this poem is available for free on Google books.
So, in the end, after digging around a bit here and there, I have my final question: Can I use these lyrics?
(and how might I go about doing that to avoid plagiarism and other legal issues?)
A simple: No, you can't use them would be a perfectly acceptable answer
