Mike C

Same applies to poems, prose, letters, shopping lists, any written word. You willl most likely be able to use work where the author has been dead for more than 70 years. If in doubt, leave it out.

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Athlynne

Thank you.

Susie's Mom

I just found this thread and have a question from my daughter who is working on a piece of historical fiction. She wants to use excerpts of lyrics from Francis Child's song collection (turn-of-the-century Scots/Irish ballads). Does anyone know where or how to check on copyrights for songs like these? Some of them are hundreds of years old with no known author.

Mike C

Child collected rather than wrote the stuff he collected, much of which was passed down with no known author. Effectively you can assume that if Child anthologised them in the 1890's, they're well out of copyright now.

I would suggest to your daughter though, copyright issues aside, that writing her own folk lyrics might be more rewarding.

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sdavis2k

Why not just make reference to the song playing in the background during a critical or climactic scene in the story ? It would still be giving a nod to the song without someone reading lyrics, which comes off a bit odd to me to begin with.