Putting song lyrics on a shirt you plan to sell requires a print license from the song’s music publisher; without that permission, it’s copyright infringement, and the damages run from $750 to $150,000 per song.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 504 – Remedies for Infringement: Damages and Profits That’s true whether you’re printing one shirt or a thousand, and true whether the song is a global hit or a forgotten album track. The performing artist you associate with the song usually isn’t the person who can give you permission. This article walks through who actually controls the rights, how licensing works, what happens if you skip it, and the narrow paths that let you make music-themed shirts without a license at all.
Why Printing Lyrics Without Permission Is Infringement
Song lyrics are copyrighted the moment they’re written down. The copyright gives the owner exclusive control over reproducing the words and distributing copies to the public,2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 106 – Exclusive Rights in Copyrighted Works and printing lyrics on a shirt you sell does both. Lyrics fall under the statute’s “literary works” category and get the same protection as a novel or a poem.
Duration matters here because it explains why you can’t just wait a few years or reach for an older favorite. Lyrics written after January 1, 1978 are protected for the author’s life plus 70 years. When the songwriter wrote under contract for a publisher, the term is 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever ends first.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 302 – Duration of Copyright: Works Created on or After January 1, 1978 Effectively every popular song from the past century is still under copyright.
One narrow carve-out: song titles, artist names, and short catchphrases aren’t eligible for copyright.4U.S. Copyright Office. What Does Copyright Protect? (FAQ) Printing just a title on a shirt doesn’t trigger a copyright claim on its own, though trademark law can still apply (more on that below). It’s the lyrics themselves — even a single memorable line — that put you at risk.
Fair Use Almost Never Works Here
Fair use lets people use copyrighted material without permission for things like commentary, criticism, and parody, and courts weigh four factors to decide whether a particular use qualifies.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 107 – Limitations on Exclusive Rights: Fair Use For lyrics on merchandise, nearly every factor lands against the seller. The use is commercial. The work is highly creative. Lyrics are short, so even a couple of lines can be a substantial portion of the whole. And publishers actually license lyrics for merchandise, so your unlicensed shirt competes with a real market.
Courts have consistently rejected fair use claims when copyrighted material appears on products sold for profit. Treating fair use as a viable strategy is a good way to lose a lawsuit. The reliable path is licensing.
Who You Actually Need Permission From
The performing artist you hear on the recording usually doesn’t control the lyrics. Copyright in the song’s composition — the words and music — belongs to the songwriter and their music publisher. A completely separate copyright covers the sound recording, and that one belongs to the record label. For a printed shirt, you need permission from the publisher who controls the composition, not from the singer and not from the label.
To find the publisher, search the databases run by the performance rights organizations. ASCAP and BMI jointly operate a tool called Songview that lets you search by title, performer, or songwriter and returns publisher information and ownership shares for most songs licensed in the United States.6BMI. BMI Songview Search SESAC has a separate online repertory for its catalog, and the Music Publishers Association points to these resources as well.7Music Publishers Association of the United States. Copyright Search
Once you’ve identified the publisher, contact their licensing or permissions department. Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, and Warner Chappell all have licensing portals on their websites. Smaller and independent publishers usually take requests by email. When you write, be specific: the exact lyrics you want to use, the type of product, the quantity you plan to produce, and where you plan to sell.
What a Print License Costs and Covers
The agreement you need is generally called a print license, sometimes a lyric reprint license or merchandise license. It grants permission to reproduce the lyrics on a physical product and pays a royalty back to the publisher and songwriter.
Terms are negotiated case by case. Common structures include a flat one-time fee, a per-unit royalty on each shirt sold, or a minimum guarantee credited against future royalties. Price depends heavily on the song’s popularity, how many units you plan to produce, and how widely you plan to distribute. A line from a global hit will cost far more than a line from an independent artist’s deep cut, and for small sellers the fee is often the hardest part.
Read the license carefully. It should identify the specific lyrics authorized, the product types they can appear on, the number of units, the geographic territory, and the term. Producing a product type or selling in a territory the license doesn’t cover is still infringement, even though you’re licensed for something else.
Band Names, Logos, and the Artist’s Image
Copyright isn’t the only issue when you design a shirt around a song. Band names, logos, and titles used across a series of works can be protected as trademarks, and many artists have registered marks specifically for merchandise categories like t-shirts.8USPTO. Rockin’ Your Trademark Print a trademarked band name or logo next to your lyrics and you’ve added a separate trademark claim on top of the copyright one.
Using an artist’s name or likeness on a product can also trigger a right of publicity claim under state law. The specifics vary, but the core rule is consistent: profiting from someone’s identity without their consent is actionable. A print license for the lyrics does not grant you the right to use the artist’s name or image — those rights may sit with entirely different parties.
What Happens If You Sell Without a License
Publishers actively police unauthorized use. A court can issue an injunction ordering you to stop making and selling the shirts immediately, which means pulling inventory, canceling orders, and potentially destroying what’s already printed.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 502 – Remedies for Infringement: Injunctions
On damages, the copyright holder can pursue either their actual losses plus your profits, or statutory damages. Statutory damages run from $750 to $30,000 per work infringed. If the court finds the infringement was willful — meaning you knew or should have known the lyrics were copyrighted — the ceiling rises to $150,000 per work.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 504 – Remedies for Infringement: Damages and Profits The copyright holder picks whichever number is higher.
Attorney’s fees are also on the table when the work was registered with the Copyright Office before the infringement began (or within three months of first publication).10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 412 – Registration as Prerequisite to Certain Remedies for Infringement Commercially valuable songs are almost always registered on time, so a losing defendant often ends up paying both sides’ legal bills, which routinely climb into tens of thousands of dollars.
Etsy, Redbubble, and Amazon Takedowns
Litigation isn’t the only risk. If you sell through Etsy, Redbubble, Amazon, or similar platforms, copyright holders can file DMCA takedown notices directly with the platform, and the platform must remove the listing promptly. Repeated takedowns typically lead to account suspension or permanent bans, wiping out your entire storefront rather than just the offending product. Takedowns often arrive with no warning, and contesting a legitimate lyric claim through a counter-notice is a losing proposition.
Legal Ways to Make Music-Themed Shirts
If a license is out of reach, there are still routes that keep you clear of infringement.
Public Domain Lyrics
When a copyright expires, the work enters the public domain and anyone can use it freely. As of January 1, 2026, works published in 1930 have entered the U.S. public domain, including the lyrics to songs like “Georgia on My Mind.”11Duke University School of Law: Center for the Study of the Public Domain. Public Domain Day 2026 Anything published before 1930 is already free to use, and each January 1 brings another year forward. Verify the publication date carefully, because a later arrangement or translation of an older song can carry its own separate copyright.
Titles, Themes, and Original Words
Since titles and short phrases aren’t copyrightable, you can build a design around a song’s title without reproducing any lyrics.4U.S. Copyright Office. What Does Copyright Protect? (FAQ) You can also work from a song’s mood or imagery without copying any protected text.
Another option is commissioning original lyrics or collaborating with an independent musician who wants the exposure. An emerging artist may welcome the chance to see their words on a shirt for a modest fee or revenue share, and you end up with content no competitor can copy.