Copyright isn't something I know a lot about, but taking a guess, I think reference to a song by its title is fair use. Like, "I was listening to 'Baby Got Back' on the radio today." But using the artistic creation of someone else to enhance your own-- titling a book or chapter "Baby Got Back", e.g.-- is different. It bleeds from the work that goes into artistic creation.

I have finished You are not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett for bookclub this month. I really enjoyed it and am glad that I chose to read a collection of short stories. We will probably never read another collection as a bookclub book (the last one was "Stranger Things Happen" by Kelly Link) since they are rather hard to discuss as a whole.

This collection deals a lot with loss of various types and peoples' reaction to it. The characters are easy to read, even if their circumstances are not. If that makes sense.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it. It is pretty short, I managed just about 1 story on each commute.

titling a book or chapter "Baby Got Back", e.g.-- is different. It bleeds from the work that goes into artistic creation.

Emma Bull's War of the Oaks uses famous rock song titles for every chapter name, and I duobt she paid royalties on each one of those. Kind of doubt she even got clearances. We could ask Scrappy!

But it's routine to title books from fragments of poetry -- somebody put up a very funny Web page awhile back that spelled out almost the entirety of Yeats's "The Second Coming" in book covers. Even though The Second Coming is still under copyright, people title books "The Widening Gyre" without any permission from the Yeats estate.

All I'm saying is that use of an artistic creation (or for that matter, trademark) and reference to it are different for infringement purposes. Fair use is only a defense whose success depends on the facts of each specific case. And often how infringing something is to a particular copyright holder may simply depend on how litigious he or she is. Yeats may be quite a bit more permissive than the Joyce estate, for instance.

Don't know how accurate this is, but "10 Big Myths about copyright explained". #5 is the one to see. On a related note, Rosa Parks is suing Outkast.

Rosa Parks is suing Outkast

This may be not-quite-flu talking, but I have to say, that by itself is one of the single oddest, and twisty-funniest, sentences I have ever seen.

It would be funny except that I find her lawsuit so misguided that the sentence loses its humor.

Yeah, I have to agree, Joe. It's pretty ridiculous, and I can't believe a judge didn't throw it out. There's no slander involved, and she is a public figure.

Oh, I haven't read the article yet - my brain is jello (damned flu) and I marked it for later reading.

Just, in terms of a headline? Right out of The Onion.