Sorry if this is a dumb question: Q About CITR

[Lucky]

they could call it "china in the rye...."

[pilferk]

Yeah. he is supposedly working on that. But I highly doubt he is successfull getting rights for this one. Only small chance he has is if Salinger is a GNR forum post whore and loves this song. He has swore to never let CITR be used, and he stuck to that all these years.

Billy Joel.."We Didn't Start the Fire".

"And the Catcher in the Rye!"

There's some precedent with musicians using the title, at least.

Given the way Axl uses it, I'm not sure Sallinger could/would object.

[pilferk]

In some cases, these things may be protected as trademarks.

There's the answer.

"Catcher in the Rye" is not trademarked.  It's not eligible for one, either.

[pilferk]

As I stated earlier in the thread, copyright laws were slightly different years ago. IF Salinger copyrighted the title itself, that copyright could not be taken away because of laws put into place after the copyright laws were later changed. If it werent protected, it would have been used by now. Either as a movie title, title of a play, by an amateur author looking for attention, a song title,etc. Many decades since its release, it has not been used yet. There is a reason for that. Obvious to me, but apparently not to you guys. Tomorrow morning after my doctor's appointment I will do a little research on Salinger, and see if I can find stuff related to this.

Go for it.? The posters above are correct....

It's not eligible for copyright and it's not eligible for trademark.

The law is pretty specific..

[GilesLavery]

'Catcher in the rye ' has been used as a song title by  numerous artists in the past,
As a post above stated, Billy Joel used it in a lyric and so did the Uk rock band magnum in their song 'sleepwalking',
these artists used the song as a song title:
Bloodhound Gang
Five Thirty
Pop Lolita
Sammy Walker
and too many others to mention , just look on www.cddb.com and do a music search by song title.

[1badapple]

you absolutely CANNOT copyright a song title. You can't copyright an album title either. The Offspring could've called "splinter" "chinese democracy" if they had really wanted to and there really wouldn't have been jack shit axl and his lawyers could've done about it. Just like there won't be jack shit Salinger can do about Axl calling that song "Catcher In The Rye". It's also not the first song with that title.

[jameslofton29]

yeah, let's hope there's a Tsunami, or a hurricane or a terrorist attack.

What a dumbass. You know damn well that isn't what I meant when I said that.

'Catcher in the rye ' has been used as a song title by numerous artists in the past,
As a post above stated, Billy Joel used it in a lyric and so did the Uk rock band magnum in their song 'sleepwalking',
these artists used the song as a song title:
Bloodhound Gang
Five Thirty
Pop Lolita
Sammy Walker
and too many others to mention , just look on www.cddb.com and do a music search by song title.

Then I guess I was wrong, although those are some pretty obscure bands using the title. Will the people here that squealed to Merck about the song leaks go squeal to Salinger? Seriously though, I'll do a little digging on Salinger, and see if I can find any mention of Copyright. I know I heard about that somewhere.

[Shoeboy]

The case of Salinger vs. Rose.   That would make some headlines.

Salinger is reputed to have a fleet of lawyers at his disposal to protect his work.  There really are a lot of parallels between J.D. Salinger and Axl Rose.  People have been waiting for "Hapworth, 1814" even longer than Chinese Democracy. 

[//JK75]

...Or "leaked song #4"

 

[Layne Staley's Sunglasses]

Or if a problem arises Axl can give Salinger the royalties from the song.  But at this point, I think its a non-issue.