Cinema Law: Using a Song Title as Your Movie Title

by Gregory Gabriel | Published September 15, 2009

Welcome to “Cinema Law,” MovieMaker.com’s all-new blog where you ask the questions of our resident team of legal experts and, each week, they’ll provide the answers to your production queries. Have a burning question yourself? E-mail it to and your question may just be on next week’s blog! Cinema Law is presented as general information only and is not meant to take the place of professional legal advice.

Q: I have a conflict with the title of my movie and the title of a famous song; let’s just say it’s “Free Fallin.’” Neither the movie’s content/storyline, nor the title of the movie itself have a reference or connection to the song lyrics at all, besides the fact that the title is the same. The title is a common phrase that is used, but I’m afraid that if I name my movie as I want to, that I will get into trouble as far as copyrights. Can you tell me how likely I am to be sued for copyright infringement if I use a title that coincidentally is also the name of a famous song?

A: The good news is that song titles are not copyrightable. The Code of Federal Regulations provides that: “[w]ords and short phrases such as names, titles, and slogans” are “not subject to copyright and applications for registration of such works cannot be entertained.” 37 C.F.R. § 202.1(a). Case law confirms this, although at least one case suggests that a title that is completely fanciful and arbitrary, such as “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” might be entitled to copyright protection. However, that does not seem to be an issue here because you have suggested the title is a common phrase. Moreover, because the title is a common phrase, it would not be entitled to copyright protection even if song titles could be copyrighted because in order to obtain a copyright, the work must be original. Therefore, you should not be held liable for copyright infringement for using a song title as the title of your movie. The bad news is your movie title will not be copyrightable either.

Gregory Gabriel, an attorney at Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert, a high-profile, L.A.-based entertainment litigation firm, focuses primarily on music, entertainment and intellectual property litigation with extensive experience in copyright, trademark, right of publicity issues and contract issues. His intimate understanding of the law in this area has resulted in efficient victories for our clients. Gabriel recently assisted in the defense of Sanctuary Records against a multitude of claims by Mike Love from the Beach Boys in two separate lawsuits. Love’s complaints included claims for conspiracy, right of publicity violations as well as trademark and copyright infringement, among other things. Gabriel helped obtain a dismissal of every one of Mr. Love’s claims by motion, which resulted in a published opinion: Mike Love v. The Mail on Sunday, 473 F.Supp.2d 1052 (C.D.Cal. 2007). In addition, Gabriel helped obtain an attorneys’ fee award in favor of Sanctuary in both cases.

The answers to legal questions provided by the lawyers of Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert, LLP ("KWIKA") are for general education and information purposes only, and are not legal advice or legal opinions. The information provided in the articles is not intended to create a lawyer-client relationship between KWIKA and you. The opinions expressed in the postings are the opinions of the authors and do not reflect the opinions of KWIKA, its employees or agents.

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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT

Comment by Massage Therapy Education on 12/06/09 at 5:07 pm: Hey judith. To answer your question copyright is a form of intellectual property that gives the author of an original work exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation, after which time the work is said to enter the public domain.
Comment by Teevan on 12/18/09 at 11:12 am: Some countries uses the title of the soundtrack as the movie title too. So I think there is really no problem if you are going to use it too. ReputationManagers.com
Comment by Used Bus for Sale on 12/22/09 at 5:16 pm: An additional answer to judith’s question, there’s a U.S Copyright Office. There you will find information about our online registration option and other news about reengineering; all our key publications including informational circulars; application forms for copyright registration; links to the copyright law and to the homepages of other copyright-related organizations
Comment by Safety Training on 12/29/09 at 2:15 pm: I’ve read somewhere that you can’t place a copyright on a song title so I’m sure it would be okay to use it as a title for a movie.
Comment by civil rights attorney on 1/04/10 at 8:37 am: No. Song titles are not protected under copyright law. Anyone and everyone is free to write and publish a song with the title “Yesterday” or “Imagine” or “My Way” for example. There are many thousands of different songs that share exactly the same titles. It follows that your movie can have the same title with a song.
Comment by Mark@School Grants on 1/10/10 at 2:01 pm: I don’t see any conflict at all. I’ve seen so many movies who uses similar titles of the songs with their movie titles. Until now, I’ve never heard any issues related to this at all.
Comment by Tulle on 1/27/10 at 1:46 pm: Really now, I don’t really see any problem with this being the issue. I mean, it just does not count.
Comment by Bus Sales on 2/07/10 at 8:02 am: Really, could you imagine the chaos if song titles with common phrases were copywritable? I still don’t understand how using the phrase “super bowl party” is an infringement.
Comment by Ignacio Perez de Vargas on 2/25/10 at 5:35 am: Most of the time, artists and moviemakers and people like that don’t pay attention to their surroundings but more so are paying attention to their own work, you know? The Devil Wears Prada is a book and a movie, but it’s also a screamo band.
Comment by Special Event Entertainment on 4/19/10 at 4:11 pm: I don’t know about you, but I really can’t see any logic to this issue.
Comment by Mesa Bankruptcy Attorney on 7/24/10 at 12:19 am: So song title aren’t copyrightable, how about book titles?
Comment by Nancy Smith - Austin Massage Therapy on 7/27/10 at 10:33 am: Good article, I also agree. I think movies are much more memorable to me at least, from the songs they have. I can hear a certain song and can relate it to a good movie usually. I also think there’s way too much unnecessary litigation in the world, but the musician who writes the music and lyrics, that person and his/her creations should be protected under copywright.
Comment by golf blog on 7/28/10 at 5:47 am: It would be outrageous if people could copyright song titles. Out of the millions of songs out there you would never find a title for your film!
Comment by Pink Ring on 9/29/10 at 3:10 pm: Makes sense. Can’t have a bunch of people copyrighting every little turn of phrase or expression.
Comment by Alex on 10/07/10 at 12:23 pm: I agree with Pink Ring. Nowadays people would copyright everything. I hate stealing ideas, I’ve had some stolen and it hurt, but I also don’t like it when some have a great idea and can’t put it into practice because a small part of it is copyrighted.
Thank you for the explanation!
Comment by Tami Carroll on 2/21/11 at 11:40 am: You need to ask permission from the Song owner in case you decided to use it as part of your movie. There’s nothing wrong in doing that I guess :)
Comment by safety training videos on 6/28/11 at 2:30 pm: @bus sales. Agreed. If song titles were copyrightable, we would have a serious issue. We would have to start making up new words. Haha.
Comment by DavieAlvin on 7/15/11 at 10:01 am: I was thinking of opening a guitar store Jacksonville Fl and I wanted to name it after a famous 90’s hit song but I was afraid that I’d fall under the incidence of the copyright law. Thanks for clearing out this issue for me. Most of the work is already done and I hope to be able to open it by August 1st.
Comment by Allie P on 7/27/11 at 8:55 am: I have a weird question regarding cinema law. If a movie is offensive to a particular ethnic group, can that group win in court against the movie producers? I made an appointment with a New Orleans injury lawyer and I would like to ask him if staining the image of a group can be considered as injury. Any advice will be greatly appreciated!
Comment by WebsiteInfo on 5/16/12 at 8:25 am: In recent days, I am trying to understand it, and searched a lot from the internet.but I still can not find a reasonable one. This article gives a good description about it,and help me understand the issue which confused me a lot.Thanks for your sharing! WebsiteInfo