Re: Yet Another Copyright Question


28 Dec 1995 17:34:15 GMT

Magnus Olsson (mol@marvin.df.lth.se) wrote:

>What's the legal status of the cute little quotes that some authors
>(including me) like to put at the head of chapters (preceding each
>chapter with a motto, as it were)?

Thankfully, these quotes are perfectly legal. You can quote reasonably
sized portions of copyrighted texts if only you cite the author properly.
The legal constructions may vary from country to country (U.S. law treats
quotes as 'fair use' while some European countries tend to exclude quotes
from copyright protection as a whole) but the result is pretty similar:
don't make it too long, cite the author and go ahead.

>Isn't there a rule that says that a piece of music may quote a
>specified number of bars from another work without it being copyright
>infringement? If there is, is there an analogous rule for written
>works?

There are such rules, mostly stated by national courts as a rule of thumb
for copyright infringement in music. This is no question of quotation,
though, since you can't 'cite' notes in a piece of music :)

- Martin