Voice Clips?

[mattcej]

I am a musician, and I would like to use short voice clips at the beginning and end of my song. The voice clips would be Robin Williams from one of his recorded Stand-Up Specials. The quotes are as follows:

Beginning of the song: "You're only given a little spark of madness. and if you lose that.....you're nothing."

End of the song: "come back, I'll be here. (audience applauds)"

Will I run into any legal trouble if I use these voice clips in my song and then attempt to sell it on various websites such as bandcamp, and release it on Spotify, iTunes, etc.? Thanks in advance.

[mattcej]

Ok. It's extremely unfortunate that you think I may run into legal problems if I release my song in this way; since the whole song is centered around never losing your "spark of madness" and is in a way a tribute to Robin Williams himself, hence the voice clips. But alright, thank you for the input. I would love for anyone else to share their opinion about this as well

[mattcej]

Do you think that the act of using these vocal clips would be defensible under the Fair Use clause in any way?

[mattcej]

Thank you all for your input.

[MikeRobinson]

Personally, I would "err on the side of caution" if I intended to make commercial use of "anyone else's" material, "no matter how slight."

 

Find out who might possibly own the rights to that Robin Williams clip, and go on-record as having asked permission to use it. (As well as having "exercised due-diligence™" in seeking to discover who-to-ask.)

 

In this way, you show that you (a) "respected copyrights," and therefore (b) "covered your butt!"   You show that you recognized the legal possibility of infringement, and that you proactively sought to settle the matter to your satisfaction before proceeding.  Therefore, even if a Court of Law concludes that you were in error, you can in good faith plead "innocence."