The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #93008 Message #1784351
Posted By: GEST
15-Jul-06 - 01:29 PM
Thread Name: Bad News for Lyric Sites?
Subject: RE: Bad News for Lyric Sites?
Quoting fom the article cited:
[SNIP]
"What is the limit for fair use in song lyrics? In US law, song lyrics are indeed copyrighted, and copyright law offers four factors to determine if a fair use exemption applies:
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work;
amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;
and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
These four rules leave a lot of gray areas, but commercial song lyrics sites would violate rules one and three right off the bat. Whether or not the music publishing industry will extend their lawsuits to include nonprofit sites remains an unanswered question."
[/SNIP]
The key words here are "commercial song lyrics sites". In my opinion, anyone who makes money from somone else's copyrighted work deserves to be shut down at the least, and if possible, sued for any profits gained from their illegal and immoral activity.