Argthtjtr

Spoilers for Green Book in the E.g. section

I listen to a lot of music and when I come up with stories I often use songs as a source of inspiration.

However what I was wondering is are songs and other artforms protected the same as writing and movies.

E.g. If I write a book about a racist white bloke driving around a black musician in the deep south and having a rethink about life that would probably get me sued. (Green Book for anyone who hasnt watched it)

However what would happen if I wrote a story about a woman who's child was stood about to jump from a building and when they jumped they actually flew away. (Save the Life of My Child - Simon and Garfunkel)

TL;DR : Do Songs and Paintings have the same rules and protections as Books and Film for copying (into written form).

(Feel free to edit the post to streamline it or make it easier to read)

Do Songs and Paintings have the same rules and protections as Books
and Film for copying (into written form).

Songs and paintings are protected under copyright laws, but it might be helpful to understand what copyright is meant to do.

Copyright is not intended to rob you of your creativity under the threat of lawyers. Copyright is intended to protect an author from being republished without their permission.

Plagiarism is a separate issue where you attempt to pass some else's work as your own without attribution.

In your case you are not attempting to republish someone else's work, you want to write an original story based on ideas suggested from another artist's work.

There are recognized exceptions, but your examples are very safe. Even the "Green Book" derivative, as long as there are key differences in the story and you are not ripping off character names and chapters wholesale, you are fine.

One of the big determining factors (you could call it a pillar) of copyright violation is the Market Effect your work has on the original. Would someone buy your book thinking they are buying "Green Book 2"? Are you deliberately trying to trick readers into believing your story is the "real" version, or a sanctioned sequel? Has the success of your book effected sales of the original?

In some situations a market effect isn't possible. Your novel cannot financially compete against a painting or song, they are not in the same market. This is sometimes called "transformative", a novel is not a painting is not a song and there is no possibility the buyer would be mistaken (however, they might mistakenly believe your version is "official" or sanctioned by the original artist, which might be a market effect).

You can quote song lyrics (with attribution), but you will need permission to republish the entire song as a text in your novel.

I am not a lawyer, and this is a legal question. Read This Recent Answer of mine.

The answer is (supported by a link to an attorney blog) the courts will look at the totality of your work. If they find the work is "substantially similar" then you infringe copyright.

Because of that, if your plot is beat for beat the same as Green Book, then you are probably infringing. For songs, which DO have copyright protection for both the notes and lyrics, you can still infringe with a novel. Perhaps the story told in Bohemian Rhapsody could be infringed upon by a movie or novel. I'd find it strange to consider anything in "I wanna hold your hand" (Beatles) infringible; but I am not a lawyer. Some songs do tell a story, and I think you could infringe, but likely not so for a single event like a child flying.

Some things are in so many movies and stories that no particular author can claim exclusive ownership, which is a prerequisite to copyright -- It must be original work and not covered under a previous copyright that is now expired.

One aspect is originality. When you describe a plot to someone, most are subconsciously mapping it to things they know. Its human nature. We like finding patterns and recognizing things..

From purely an originality point of view, it makes little sense to copy, clone or have similar events unfold.

On the other hand, life brings all kinds of situations and things can be similar and happen to others as they do to you. You dropped your keys, the lead character in that film drops their keys.. not a copyright able thing.

But we are all batteries for machines, is far less a day to day scenario and could subjectively be infringement.

There are many clone films, where a similar plot unfurls, but its usually a collection of things that pass the line to infringement and how unique the ideas are.

Lost love, breakups, having a fight over which movie to see, basically not copyrightable.
Finding an alien has landed in my pea soup and we can communicate via my teaspoon by tapping morse code, and he happens to be allergic to peas, may be a little more copyrightable as its more unique of an idea.

Shakespeare said there are only 5 (or is it 7?) different stories you can tell. Everything else is a variation of those.

Here is a quick non-attorney safe question: imagine you walk to either the publisher who printed Green Book or have read it. And this is a honest publisher. How would you answer the question "what makes your novel distinct from Green Book so it will have some shelf space of its own?" Replacing a Chevy Truck with a VW beetle probably will not suffice.