Is it legal to use a few seconds of of Christmas songs (commercially)?

Asked by Russter (242

) November 1st, 2012

I’m wondering if it’s legal to use Christmas songs (just the classics, like Jingle Bells, O Christmas Tree, etc) in my commercial project (software). I would be producing the music myself but didn’t know if copyright protection would allow me to do this. I just need to make a little jingle from the song, just a few lines, maybe about 10 seconds worth. Thanks

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2 Answers

It would depend. For example the music and words to jingle bells are not copyrighted (the copyright expired, at least in the UK, 70 years after the death of the composer) so if you use the words and tune by recording it or playing it yourself you would be OK but if you were to use a modern recording of it by someone else the artist who performed that recording would have copyright.

Lightlyseared (34863

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