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 Mr Morden wrote:


Having a passage from a song in a novel is not the same as publishing a entire song on its own and claming it as their own. That being said, many authors I have read tend to list when they have used such devices - be that anicent poems or modern pop songs however not always.

In this particular case was there any oblique reference - usually I found that BL tend to reference direct quotes with it being the work of some 1st / 2nd century auther and spell the name slightly wrong or similar to show how clarity has been lost.

I don't recall ever hearing a Rush song (not sure who they are) so I would not have understood it was a reference.

What is the cultural understanding of Easter Eggs and what ever the same thing is called as regards to litererature

(I really wish I could get the spell check to work on this forum)

At the risk of repeating myself:

Song lyrics are copyrighted, which means you need permission to use them. According to our legal expert Amy Cook, there isn’t any specific law about how much you can take under fair use, but it’s common for the music industry to say you need permission for even one line of a song.

It doesn't matter if you (meaning you as the reader) recognise the lyrics or not - obviously the author will know the correct source however and they are the ones who should request permission. Calling something an 'easter egg' or 'homage' or 'cultural reference' or 'fair use' does not change the context; if you use someone else's work (be it one line or massive screeds of text), you need to seek permission and give correct attribution.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not that bothered by an oblique reference to a Canadian Prog rock band in a BL novel and I'm not exactly outside GW headquarters waving placards, despite whatever emotional attachment yodhrin might ascribe to my posts but I *do* believe that you should always give credit for other's work. It's only right and fair.

Song lyrics are copyrighted, which means you need permission to use them. According to our legal expert Amy Cook, there isn’t any specific law about how much you can take under fair use, but it’s common for the music industry to say you need permission for even one line of a song.

Which means that they should have done so but there is no hard and fast rule? As the legal expert said.

repeating myself - Credits are often done obliquely in the actual passage - was this done or not? That would have been enough for me - you might feel different.

Calling something an 'easter egg' or 'homage' or 'cultural reference' or 'fair use' does not change the context; if you use someone else's work (be it one line or massive screeds of text), you need to seek permission and give correct attribution.

Except thats not actually the law and its a vague area as you state above - Personally I like such references to be called out as I often miss them and hence would prefer attribution.

 Mr Morden wrote:


repeating myself - Credits are often done obliquely in the actual passage - was this done or not? That would have been enough for me - you might feel different.

No - there was no attribution given either in the passage/paragraph itself nor in the publisher/copyright blurb given at the front of the book. Which makes me think that permission wasn't sought or necessarily given.

Except thats not actually the law and its a vague area as you state above - Personally I like such references to be called out as I often miss them and hence would prefer attribution.

No, it is the law - that part is quite clear. If you use song lyrics, for example, you must seek and be granted permission. If the song publishers are made aware of their material being used without permission they are well within their rights legally to request a fee for their use or demand removal. What is more nebulous and murky is the concept of what, exactly, constitutes, fair use but I don't believe that applies in this case.

Here is an example of song lyrics being credited in the blurb at the front of a book:




Edit: here is a good link on fair use written by an actual lawyer:

https://www.janefriedman.com/the-fair-use-doctrine/

The pertinent part of the fair use doctrine:

To bring your otherwise unauthorized use within the protection of the doctrine, there are two separate and important considerations. First, your use must be for “purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.”

So I don't believe usage of song lyrics in a BL novel fall under this category.

 filbert wrote:

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not that bothered by an oblique reference to a Canadian Prog rock band in a BL novel and I'm not exactly outside GW headquarters waving placards, despite whatever emotional attachment yodhrin might ascribe to my posts but I *do* believe that you should always give credit for other's work. It's only right and fair.

You're the one making forum threads about it and asserting that a throwaway reference in a fiction novel is ethically equivalent to wholesale academic plagiarism, playing the detached "not bothered" person now is a bit rich.

Also, even if we take this claim that you're purely and solely about the attribution at face value - how do you justify being associated with GW at all? They haven't credit Frank Herbert anywhere. Or Moorcock. Or 2000AD. The whole of GW's IP's are built on what you would define as "plagiarism", so what are you doing supporting them financially by buying their books in the first place?

 Yodhrin wrote:

 filbert wrote:

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not that bothered by an oblique reference to a Canadian Prog rock band in a BL novel and I'm not exactly outside GW headquarters waving placards, despite whatever emotional attachment yodhrin might ascribe to my posts but I *do* believe that you should always give credit for other's work. It's only right and fair.

You're the one making forum threads about it and asserting that a throwaway reference in a fiction novel is ethically equivalent to wholesale academic plagiarism, playing the detached "not bothered" person now is a bit rich.

Also, even if we take this claim that you're purely and solely about the attribution at face value - how do you justify being associated with GW at all? They haven't credit Frank Herbert anywhere. Or Moorcock. Or 2000AD. The whole of GW's IP's are built on what you would define as "plagiarism", so what are you doing supporting them financially by buying their books in the first place?

Because copying someone's academia and copying someone's lyrics without correct attribution is exactly the same, legally speaking, whether you agree with that or not. Now morally, you might not find them equivalent but then again, I don't give a toss what you think. You're not some sort of moral arbiter for the forum.

To address your other point influences and being influenced by things is not the same as copying them.

But then again, you know that; your entire raison d'etre on these forums is to angrily disagree with people because you get a rise out of arguing with them.

This is a discussion forum; I wondered what others thought of the issue and wanted to discuss it, hence this thread. I'm not sure why you seem to think I am that outraged by it; we're not talking picketing BL fiction and burning effigies of Graham MacNeill or angrily dousing my fiction in petrol here.

Again, I simply think proper credit should be given for the use of someone else's work. After all, other novelists do so - why should BL be any different?

 Yodhrin wrote:


You're the one making forum threads about it and asserting that a throwaway reference in a fiction novel is ethically equivalent to wholesale academic plagiarism, playing the detached "not bothered" person now is a bit rich.

Also, even if we take this claim that you're purely and solely about the attribution at face value - how do you justify being associated with GW at all? They haven't credit Frank Herbert anywhere. Or Moorcock. Or 2000AD. The whole of GW's IP's are built on what you would define as "plagiarism", so what are you doing supporting them financially by buying their books in the first place?

Regardless of what you think of the copyright law, directly using several lines from a copyrighted song without a permission is probably illegal, whilst vaguely taking inspiration from some aspects of copyrighted story generally is not.

Someone has lost far too much sleep over this.

Crimson King came out, what, 2 years ago? If a question of plagiarism hasn't been raised yet, then I doubt they care, or are even aware of the lyrics being used in a novel they don't know exists.

Stephen King was also the first thing to come to my mind since, well, I read most of his books, and he so prominently credits song lyrics. IIRC Thomas Harris also prominently does so - at one point I believe he even references that Hannibal (in the book) used some poetry by John Donne "without troubling to credit him".

Edit: I believe for Harris, it is: "Aside from individuals, Harris explains at the end of Silence that Dr. Lecter quotes from "The Feaver" "without troubling to credit John Donne" and that Clarice's memory has altered lines of Eliot's "Ash Wednesday" "to suit her.""


The lyrics should have been credited.

 Yodhrin wrote:
who's the next target in your Great Crusade filbert

Boy, the threshold for what constitutes "a great crusade" sure has come down some since the middle ages, huh?

 NurglesR0T wrote:
Someone has lost far too much sleep over this.

Crimson King came out, what, 2 years ago? If a question of plagiarism hasn't been raised yet, then I doubt they care, or are even aware of the lyrics being used in a novel they don't know exists.

Why do you assume I am sitting here twitching in white, hot fury?

I've only just read the book, hence why I posted the thread. If you read the OP, I stated that I only buy Horus Heresy novels in mass market paperback format. BL are so far behind themselves with regards to their publishing schedule that they have only just released Crimson King so it's new to me.

As to why it hasn't been picked up, who knows? Maybe it has, maybe it's been settled amicably. On the other hand, it's not like we are talking million volume selling novels here; it's a fairly niche market so it may well have slipped attention. I assume most cases like this are usually brought to the music publisher's attention rather than them actually spotting misuse themselves.

 filbert wrote:

Overread wrote:I feel like there's a difference from coping an publishing a poem and calling it your own when its not and publishing a single paragraph from a poem in a book that has nothing to do with poetry.

I mean I get the whole referencing thing when it comes to writing academic papers and of giving proper references; but at the same time this is a work of fiction and the quotation isn't even a major part of the story itself.

I'm no legal adviser but I'm fairly sure that there is a difference here between the two; or at least it feels like it should be. Sort of makes me wonder about Discworld because I know there are a stupidly high number of popular references to the modern world in that and I wonder if we get the same in something like the one where they discover Music with Rocks in it.

Nope. That's not how it works. There is no difference between copying in academia and copying popular music lyrics in a novel. Both are misappropriation of someone else's ideas and intellectual property. That is the dictionary definition of plagiarism.

As far as I am aware, Terry Pratchett has never inserted real-life song lyrics in his novels; he takes real-world situations and examples and reworks/rewords them for the purposes of humour and satire. This is not the same. Again, to reiterate, this is an entire passage of song lyrics (clumsily IMO) inserted into a novel.

As fate would have it, I've recently read the Long Earth series written by Pratchett and Stephen Baxter and there are, IIRC, a few instances of song lyrics being quoted in that, though they are usually literally a line or less and (also IIRC) attributed in the text itself. While technically you should attribute everything properly and Fair Use is not a catch-all magical exemption there's also context to consider (though not necessarily legally consider). An author who quotes one line from a song as a pertinent background detail in a story is doing a very different thing to the rather ham-fisted wholesale insertion of an entire verse from a relatively obscure song in a way that doesn't make it obvious it is a song or at least doesn't attribute it. For me it's not just about the legality of doing it (though I do think staying within the law is important) it's also about how important it is to the story and how well done the integration is. In the case of this BL novel it sounds like it's a pretty clumsy and ultimately self-indulgent and rather pointless inclusion.

I'm pretty sure I remember reading what had to be like half the liner notes from Slayer's Reign in Blood in the middle of one of McNeill's Iron Warriors or Horus Heresy novels. It's something he does.

Just to address a couple of words the OP used.

Rip-off: an inferior imitation of something.
Plagiarize: to pass another's work off as one's own.

I don't think it's fair to say that what McNeill has done here counts as either. It's clearly a fan tribute, probably intended to invoke humor in whomever recognizes it. If on the off chance, Rush did somehow take offense to it, they'd have to sue in court and one thing that people who quote law often forget, is that the law is not limited to mere algorithm; it's subject to the rationality and reason of the judges and jurors that interpret it. I think it's doubtful that Rush could prove that any meaningful damage was done to them by what is essentially an insignificant portion of the greater work.

At worst, I think what OP has found is a bit of carelessness and a lack of due diligence, and would probably result in some award of damages that had more of a token value than an impactful one. In all likelihood, if it ever came to it, Games-Workshop would likely own up to their mistake, quickly settle something out of court and update Black Library's editing processes to catch this stuff in future.

On the other hand, these are all assumptions based on what I know of British & Irish law. If they were to sue in a US court, who knows what could happen?

 Ginjitzu wrote:
Just to address a couple of words the OP used.

Rip-off: an inferior imitation of something.
Plagiarize: to pass another's work off as one's own.

Thing is, without correct attribution or credit, that's exactly what it is because unless you are a Rush fan and recognise the content, there is no way of knowing any differently so you would naturally have no reason to believe it was anything other than Graham's own work. That literally is the dictionary definition of plagiarism. According to another poster in this thread, he also used some King Crimson lyrics in the same novel. Not being familiar with their lyrical oeuvre, that missed me completely so without having been told, I would have quite happily assumed that to be Graham's own work. Now of course, we may argue intent and that's fine; after all, I don't think for one second that the lyrics were inserted as anything other than homage but that is beside the point - plagiarism does not imply intent - you can just as easily be guilty of 'accidental' plagiarism as you can of deliberate. As one poster above put it, it smacks of slightly clumsy self-indulgence and I agree with that entirely. However, we just don't know - you can't blithely state it's 'clearly' meant as one thing or another because we have absolutely no insight into the author's intent.

Apparently Graham has form for doing this though and it is something that should be of concern to BL as they have been burned by this before:

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/298440-strong-and-weak-points-of-bl-authors/#entry3845366

There was a big hoo-ha with an author called Henry Zou a couple of years ago to the extent where BL have pulled his books from sale and apparently dropped him as an author. Whether or not it ended up in court, I don't know. Probably not as we would have heard about it; maybe it was settled out of court but either way, it had repercussions for them. So if it is something Graham is known for and has done repeatedly in his novels to date, then they should be concerned because without crediting the source, they open themselves up to a lawsuit and as we well know, a lawsuit doesn't have to end up in court to be damaging to a company's reputation.

And in this thread, we learn that Fitbert doesn't understand what plagiarism is.

As soon as someone mixes up a Black Library novel for a Rush album, GW will have to start worrying about 'opening themselves up to a lawsuit.' Until then, no, it's not plagiarism and it's not an issue.

That link above to Henry Zhou's issues lays it out even more clearly why this isn't the same thing at all.

So, instead of being sniffily dismissive, perhaps you could explain why you think it isn’t?

Unless you are trying to claim that because they are different media types, plagiarism doesn’t apply?

 filbert wrote:
However, we just don't know - you can't blithely state it's 'clearly' meant as one thing or another because we have absolutely no insight into the author's intent.

Yes, it's completely unknowable why in his book titled the "The Crimson King", the guy would include a couple of lines from the song "The Court of The Crimson King" by the artists "King Crimson". But if only we could get some sort of insight into why he chose this song This shall forever be a mystery.

I was referring to the author’s intent - i.e. whether the plagiarism was intended or accidental not.

regarding using lines from a song uncredited in a work of prose, what would happen if say crimson king was given props for the writers "amazing use of poetry"?

I'm just pointing out where it could be a problem, I don't think a sentence or so is going to be a big deal. (hell for all we know the members of Rush are big 40k fans)

 filbert wrote:
So, instead of being sniffily dismissive, perhaps you could explain why you think it isn’t?

Unless you are trying to claim that because they are different media types, plagiarism doesn’t apply?

I mean, we're two pages in, and pretty much all the bases have already been covered, but sure.

That's one verse, from one song, about two dozen words total, in a how many tens of thousands of word novel? If a book, a movie, a comic, a song, or anything else has someone say, 'a long time ago in a galaxy far far away' or 'may the force be with you' are they plagiarizing Star Wars? It's like calling kids dressed up like the Justice League and trick or treating in a Marvel comic 'plagiarism.' Marvel did not plagarise DC, the artist is doing an homage to those other famous characters the readers probably all know. What you're trying to call plagiarism would mean that no pop culture references are allowed anywhere, ever.

And if you're going to try and argue plagiarism, all right, lay it out - what are Rush's damages? Look at actual cases of plagiarism, like Vanilla Ice yoinking the opening to Queen & David Bowie's 'Under Pressure.' Or that comic done by Gene Simmon's son, that turned out to be just him tracing art he stole from DeviantArt and other popular comics at the time (seriously, if you're going to trace artwork, maybe don't do it with something that has readership in the millions). You're taking someone else's work and presenting it as your own. Not only is the scope way to small in this case, but so is the context. You said it yourself, obviously Graham McNeil is a fan.

Now maybe Tom Young isn't, and sues to make them stop using those lines. That's fine, that's his prerogative and now we have collectible editions of The Crimson King that have the lyrics to High Water, because they were removed in later printings. You can piss & moan and hand wring about it all you want, but it's not plagiarism and never will be.

Well that’s certainly a hot take but you are wrong, quite frankly. It absolutely is plagiarism according to pretty much every definition you can give. It is slightly different to copying a line from a film because films are much longer bodies of work than a song or a poem and it could also be argued that the line from Star Wars is well within the public domain now and therefore falls under fair use. The blog that I linked to earlier, the one written by a lawyer, actually gave a specifc example of whether lyric use falls under fair use and doesn’t need to be credited:

https://www.janefriedman.com/the-fair-use-doctrine/

Let’s say you are writing a novel for commercial publication and you wish to reproduce the lyrics to the song “Little Red Corvette” by Prince in the book. You are not reproducing the sheet music, and you are not including a sound recording of the song with the book. You are merely causing the literal words of the lyric to appear as prose within your book. Here is the analysis:

Do you own the copyright to the work? No. The author and copyright claimant of these song lyrics are Prince Rogers Nelson (Prince’s real name).
Do you have Prince’s permission? No.
Is your use for “purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research”? No. You are writing a novel.
Is the purpose and character of the use commercial or noncommercial? Commercial.
What is the nature of the underlying work you are reproducing? Is it highly creative and subject to strong copyright protection, or is it less creative or perhaps even not subject to copyright protection at all? This is a highly creative work that is entitled to strong copyright protection.
Did you use the whole lyric or just a few words? You used the whole lyric.
Will your use of the lyric cause Prince to lose money, e.g., people will not download the song on iTunes anymore? No, your use will likely not cause Prince to lose money.
Of all the fair use factors, you would only perhaps win on one of them, the last one, so if Prince sued you, you would likely not be able to successfully invoke the fair use defense. Other defenses may be available, but probably not fair use.

In each case where you wish to use someone else’s work, and wish to invoke the fair use defense, you should ask those seven questions.

I don’t think you can get much clearer than that. Use of song lyrics in a novel like this should be properly credited. Rush don’t have to prove damages or anything like that; the law is quite clear - permission should be sought and granted before lyrical content can be used. The issue of damage done by use in a novel really only relates to the outcome should it go to court; in most cases, it would only result in a judgement to remove the content from future publishings, I imagine.

Now, we can argue intent forever; whether Graham simply forgot to credit the authors or whether he simply didn’t know he should or whether he thought no-one would catch the reference but it clearly is plagiarism, whatever the scope or context, as you put it. It has absolutely no bearing on it whatsoever. If we refer to the definiton of plagiarism as defined by Wikipedia, this falls into every point;

The definition by B. Gipp is an abridged version of Teddi Fishman's definition of plagiarism, which proposed five elements characteristic of plagiarism.[21] According to T. Fishman, plagiarism occurs when someone:

Uses words, ideas, or work products
Attributable to another identifiable person or source
Without attributing the work to the source from which it was obtained
In a situation in which there is a legitimate expectation of original authorship
In order to obtain some benefit, credit, or gain which need not be monetary[21]

Finally, the argument that the quoted lyrics are only a small amount of content simply doesn’t hold water:

An argument that the work you copied is not copyrightable subject matter because its total length is too short to merit copyright protection (10-15 total words or less) is just and only a defense you use after you’ve been sued.

Pretty much every blog and post I have read on this subject by both lawyers and writers all say if you are copying even just single line of a song lyric in a novel, you should credit the author properly and that should have happened in this case.

 Crimson wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:


You're the one making forum threads about it and asserting that a throwaway reference in a fiction novel is ethically equivalent to wholesale academic plagiarism, playing the detached "not bothered" person now is a bit rich.

Also, even if we take this claim that you're purely and solely about the attribution at face value - how do you justify being associated with GW at all? They haven't credit Frank Herbert anywhere. Or Moorcock. Or 2000AD. The whole of GW's IP's are built on what you would define as "plagiarism", so what are you doing supporting them financially by buying their books in the first place?

Regardless of what you think of the copyright law, directly using several lines from a copyrighted song without a permission is probably illegal, whilst vaguely taking inspiration from some aspects of copyrighted story generally is not.

True, there are some polish and russian sci fi books that sound oddly familiar to what w40k is about. And they can't be based on w40k as at least in the case of the polish writer, they were done in the 60s.