Trademarks and Lyrics in Fiction (cont'd)
I googled Tradmarks in fiction and came up with a pretty good article from The Publishing Law Center. Here's a snippet from the article.
Generally, the use by an author of a trademark in a fictional work to describe or identify particular goods or services, such as "driving in my Ford", "eating a Hershey bar", "playing with my Beanie Baby" will not be considered an infringement as long as the use does not confuse the reader with respect to who actually owns the trademark. Trademark law also permits an author of a non-fiction work to include content that is favorable and/or critical of a trademark owner's products or services. In this type of work the author should only use the trademark to describe or identify the trademark owner's product or service and should be careful not to confuse the reader as to the actual provider of the trademark owner's products or services.
Read the rest
ETA: these on Lyrics:
There is no legally established word limit for fair use. Also, if the text you plan to quote constitutes the "heart" of a work, or its most interesting part, your use may be considered a copyright infringement even if the number of words used is not substantial. As a general rule, you may quote or closely paraphrase (a) up to 250 words from a book, (b) 10 percent of the text of an article, letter or diary, and (c) not more than two lines from song lyrics or poetry.
http://mcgrawschuster.com/Publishing_Law.html
http://ezinearticles.com/?Song-Lyrics-in-Fiction---What-Writers-Need-to-Know&id=1680296
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8231
http://kallmaker.blogspot.com/2006/05/should-you-song-lyrics-in-fiction.html
The subject of lyrics use is the murkiest waters. I'm inclined to think I should revise. And yet, the first article quoted seems to say I'd be in the clear. Or maybe not...
Confuzzled!
Generally, the use by an author of a trademark in a fictional work to describe or identify particular goods or services, such as "driving in my Ford", "eating a Hershey bar", "playing with my Beanie Baby" will not be considered an infringement as long as the use does not confuse the reader with respect to who actually owns the trademark. Trademark law also permits an author of a non-fiction work to include content that is favorable and/or critical of a trademark owner's products or services. In this type of work the author should only use the trademark to describe or identify the trademark owner's product or service and should be careful not to confuse the reader as to the actual provider of the trademark owner's products or services.
Read the rest
ETA: these on Lyrics:
There is no legally established word limit for fair use. Also, if the text you plan to quote constitutes the "heart" of a work, or its most interesting part, your use may be considered a copyright infringement even if the number of words used is not substantial. As a general rule, you may quote or closely paraphrase (a) up to 250 words from a book, (b) 10 percent of the text of an article, letter or diary, and (c) not more than two lines from song lyrics or poetry.
http://mcgrawschuster.com/Publishing_Law.html
http://ezinearticles.com/?Song-Lyrics-in-Fiction---What-Writers-Need-to-Know&id=1680296
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8231
http://kallmaker.blogspot.com/2006/05/should-you-song-lyrics-in-fiction.html
The subject of lyrics use is the murkiest waters. I'm inclined to think I should revise. And yet, the first article quoted seems to say I'd be in the clear. Or maybe not...
Confuzzled!