WEIRD ASS COPYRIGHT QUESTION (MUSIC)

No, not anything regarding in game music or using music, but rather, names/intellectual property/that sort of thing.

So basically, I'm a huge music fan, and as a little nod, a lot of sidequests in my game (Chronology) are named after music tracks from popular artists, both contemporary and legendary. The name of the sidequest is obviously in relation to the nature of the quest.

It should be noted that my game is fictional, in a fictional world, in a medieval/steampunkish setting, so none of the tracks have any direct correlation to the artist that produced them or even the lyrics or the song, instead, they're "cleverly" related to quest at hand, for example, a quest called 'The Trial' (Pink Floyd) might be about helping a wandering swordsman who's been framed in a crime, or a quest called "The Birds Pt. 2" (The Weeknd) might be the second half of a sidequest putting down a band of rampaging griffons.

With that being said, how 'safe' am I doing this? It should be noted that I feel careful about this because I'm 99% certain that Chronology is going to be a commercial product, so I can't hide behind "well I ain't makin' money off it". But to what extent are song titles protected under copyright? I'm not trying to get sued by Prince's estate or some shit here.

Am I safe naming sidequests in a fantasy game after popular songs? I know Yasumi Matsuno, for example, is a HUGE fan of the band Queen, to the point where all (or almost all) of the Tactics Ogre games have a subtitle from a Queen song. Obviously, Yasumi Matsuno nor Square Enix have ever been sued for this, so I'm thinking...yes? I feel like this is a pretty common thing to do (even though I can't think of any other examples of the top of my head), especially for quest names.

Also, while all input is welcome, I'm looking for something a little more specific/informed than "nah don't do it just to be safe/i dunno but go ahead and do it"

author=Sailerius
Probably not a good idea. Song title references are something that's almost always censored out of American releases because of how powerful the copyright laws are here.

That's directly at odds with what ankylo posted. Is the censoring something that's based on actual printed litigation or just overly careful localization? Remember the Queen example above.

And also Sal I appreciate your input (sincerely) but I feel fair pointing out that there is a fair amount of bias in your input since you have a passionate hard-on concerning copyright stuff.

Whatever I go with I want it to be backed up with actual legal print and precedent instead of sentiment.