Hello, form3hide:
This is a very interesting question, and I have done some research on
it, at first, what you get is a lot of pages about the Title 17 of the
copyright law of the United States:
"The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code)
governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of
copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law,
libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other
reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy
or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private
study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or
later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of
"fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This
institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if,
it its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of
copyright law."
This can be read as the lyrics on your site are copyright protected
and may be used for private study, scolarship or academic research
only. Commercial use is prohibited.
This could be enough for you because you are not selling the lyrics,
you place them on the web, advise your visitors are copyright
protected and the way they can use them. You are not infringing any
kind of copyright law, because you are not selling anything copied.
But in any case, we must be sure before close this question, it's an
important matter. I found another page about a real case:
"The International Lyrics Server, a popular Web site containing the
words to more than 100,000 songs, was closed last week after music
publishers accused the site's Switzerland-based operators of copyright
violations and police officers seized their computers, the site's
founder said. Karl Aschminn, the prosecutor in charge of the case for
the Swiss canton of Basel, confirmed that a criminal investigation was
underway, but he declined to respond to additional questions. Pascal
de Vries, a network consultant in Basel who founded the site in
February 1997, said that when the Lyrics Server was active, it
received an average of a million hits per day from 100,000 visitors
seeking the words to chart-topping songs by bands like the Rolling
Stones and Aerosmith, as well as to show tunes and obscure ditties.
The database could by searched by song title, artist name or key
phrase."
Copyright & Public Domain Issues Reprints
http://www.mindymac.com/copyissues1.html
Copyright Issues or The Gr$$n-eyed Monster?
http://80music.about.com/library/weekly/aa012899.htm?terms=Music+Lyrics+Copyrights
At the end of this article is something interesting:
"On October 27th, 1998, a new law called The Digital Millenium
Copyright Act was signed (Public Law 105-298).This law helps bring the
U.S. into uniformity with the World Intellectual Property Organization
(WIPO) treaty. While a lengthy law, its main orientation is towards
"stored copyrighted materials" and supports the right for libraries
and archives to contain copyrighted materials for non-commercial
purposes. There is a procedure outlined by which a publisher may ask
that material be removed from an archive, but there are no liabilities
on the part of the archive site for the storage of copyrighted
materials. There is a requirement which every archive site should meet
(including the owners of list servers) to provide contact information
to the U.S. Copyright Office of a "designated agent" -- a person whom
a copyright holder can contact. It is our opinion that it is extremely
unlikely that a copyright holder will ever contact an archive site's
designated agent when language, as we use, is provided to indicate the
"fair use" aspect of its dissemination and storage."
Digital Millenium Copyright Act
http://www.educause.edu/issues/dmca.html
Article about Digital Millenium Copyright Act
http://ittimes.ucdavis.edu/v8n1oct99/dmca.html
Copyright Website
http://www.copyrightwebsite.com/home/search/search.asp
Music Copyright
http://www.serve.com/marbeth/music_copyright.html
(read the advice at the top of the page)
Copyright on the web
http://html.about.com/library/weekly/aa081700a.htm
The conclusion in this research is you can put lyrics on a web if you
put somewhere visible a copyright notice about the intended use of the
lyrics and you don't sell any lyric and your page doesn't make the
copyright owners loose money.
I hope this could help you.
Regards.
Search Terms:
lyrics copyright court case lawyers
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"The Digital Millenium Copyright Act" Lyrics
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song Lyrics copyright violation
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