Answering Reader Questions Since 2008

• Baby (Has Finally) Come Home!
  Listen to Bessie SmithDear Rich: I'm trying to determine if a recording of a song from 1923 is in the public domain for use as background music in a film scene. The song is 'Baby Won't You Please Come Home' by Bessie Smith. It was recorded on April 11, 1923, and written by Clarence Williams. […]
• Upcycling: From Feedbag to Tote Bag
  This dress was made by Mrs. G. R. (Dorothy) Overall of Caldwell, Kansas, in 1959 for the Cotton Bag Sewing Contest Dear Rich: Would it be a violation of trademark or copyright law to take an empty livestock feed bag (with the name and/or logo of the company that produced the feed on it, along with […]
• We're Off to Sue the Wizard
  Dear Rich: I want to use a small portion of lyrics from a copyrighted song (We're Off To See The Wizard," by  E.Y. Harburg and Harold Arlen) in a first novel currently being written. Songview, the search service made available at the BMI website says the song is 50% controlled by the writer and 50% […]
• Fair Use: Yes or No?
  Trick photograph of man with two heads (1901) Dear Rich: I have a new, unique book soon to be published about judging the quality of art. Every image in the book, from ancient to contemporary art,   is aesthetically critiqued, often with diagrams. There are no variables. It is consistent throughout. From everything I've researched, all […]
• The Enchanted Copyright History of Nature Boy
  Frank Sinatra with eden ahbez (ahbez did not capitalize his name believing that "only God and infinity deserved capitalization.") Dear Rich: I wrote a poem using the entire song "Nature Boy" with the lyrics interspersed between my words, sort of a running narrative. Do I need permission to publish it in a book or other written form, or a […]