Generally, no. The only works that are subject to blanket ASCAP, BMI and SESAC performance licenses are musical works (that is, musical compositions). To the extent that you want to include other sorts of copyrighted works in your programs (including books [either read by you or in a book-on-tape format], poems, excerpts from films or television programs, comedy routines, etc.), you must either own all rights in such works or obtain explicit permission from the owner of rights in such works.

Of course, if any such works are no longer copyrighted (such as works of Shakespeare, Dickens, etc.), you may be able to include them in your program. Because copyrights are of limited duration, you need to know when a work was written, and possibly when the author died, to know whether it is still copyrighted. Although it may be difficult to determine with certainty whether a work is still in its life of copyright because of the complexity of the law in this area, we have drawn up a chart to provide some further information about the life of copyright.

You may be able to incorporate short excerpts from books, poems, films, televisions programs and other non-musical materials for purposes of commentary or criticism (such as reviews). However, you should not rely on this exception to the general rule to attempt to include lengthy excerpts with only brief commentary.

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