Talk:The Elements (song)
From Academic Kids
"Fair use" warning
Is the we-aren't-violating-copyright statement of "(fair use quote from a copyrighted work)" necessary? How is such a quote unlike any other quotes that we use in the biographies? Do we need to all such quotes in WP?
It's visually unpleasant and distracting. --Menchi 12:04 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- I removed it. Evercat 12:26 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- I removed the copyrighted lyrics from the song. 66.68.32.224
- This is merely FYI: The names of the elements cannot be copyrighted. In fact, the only part of this song that would definately retain a copyright is the end about Harvard. (which we've retained) That said, I will also point out that while the names of the elements themselves cannot be copyrighted, the order and rhyme scheme can arguably be copyrighted. But since the rhyme scheme is dictated by "The Major General's Song," I don't think that this song has a very strong case for copyright. (Don't misunderstand, I am saying that it is copyrighted, but I think that there is a chance this copyright wouldn't stand in a court of law) - Skylark
Copyright infringement?
The above discussions are all quite old, and now the full text of the song is on this page again. Does this infringe copyright? Contrary to Skylark's argument above I would posit that both the idea of setting the elements to music and the actual lyrics are copyrightable, and now that Tom Lehrer has done it any other attempt would potentially be plagiarism. I would imagine that the process of writing this song was quite creative - Tom Lehrer probably worked out a verse metre that would support a rhyming scheme which fit all the elements in, and then cast around for a tune, rather than choosing the tune first. Whatever, I'm pretty certain that Wikipedia doesn't own the copyright of the lyrics of this song. (I'm not a lawyer. I'm also quite a new Wikipedian so be gentle with me.) --RobertG 16:47, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I think RobertG makes a good point. Maybe it would be better if we reproduced only four or five lines of the song. That should be enough to give the reader a good sense of it. This might be more defensable as "fair use", though I am also not a lawyer. Jonathunder 20:09, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)
