So I wanted to quote several lines from a Bob Dylan song in a story of mine that will see print this summer. I wrote the publishing company for permission and today they replied, saying the fee for the rights would be $150.00. $150.00 for twelve lines. Without a deep-pocketed publisher to pass this expense along to, I'm all I don't think so.

I'm not peeved about this. Why would I would deny any artist the right to protect their copyright and be compensated for any use of their work? It's fine by me; I checked out the rules and decided the game wasn't right for me.

Excising the lines will do absolutely no harm to the story. I acknowledge that they were superfluous to the story. But I sigh; it would have been neat to include them.

*UPDATE*

After mentioning to the publishing company that this was a small-press journal and that the amount of the permission fee was many multiples the amount I was being paid for the short story, they replied and said I could use the lyrics for free. What wonderful people indeed! I've decided to leave in my original post above, since I don't think I sound too grouchy; anyway, I'm quite happy about it all now.