Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...

Subject: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: maphew
Date: 19 Jan 99 - 06:08 PM

www.lyrics.ch has been closed! Apparently, people writing up lyrics to songs they hear, is an infringement of copyright. Sheesh. Better get down the high school and start arresting the kiddies eh?

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/01/cyber/articles/19lyrics.html

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From:
Date: 19 Jan 99 - 06:10 PM

We already had a thread on this. Apparently they were hiding in the bushes gathering evidence against the Girl Scouts.

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: noah body
Date: 19 Jan 99 - 06:11 PM

Mirrors are the only protection.

For any public database the only protection is too have the data mirrored in so many places it's too much work to try and close it down or control it.

Anybody know where a mirror for www.lyrics.ch could be started?

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: Art Thieme
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 10:22 AM

Mirrors are the ONLY way one can watch themselves posting lyics---unless you video tape you & your gal doing that---but then there's evidence.

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 02:09 PM

I still can't see what harm lyrics sites do. As far as I can see, they're free advertising for the songs that appear on the sites, and they encourage people to buy CD's and songbooks, and to go to concerts. I can't see how they cause songwriters and publishers to lose money - I think just the opposite would be true. Now if it's posting CD-quality recordings or actual sheet music, then that's another matter.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: SteveF (inactive)
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 04:17 PM

Joe -

It's not that simple. The law on patents, copyrights, and trademarks is pretty tricky. The holder of a licensed trademark is expected to vigorously protect his trademark, or he may lose all legal protection down the road.

That's why we see major corporations sometimes pick on the little guys. The McDonald's chain once leaned heavily on the independent McDonald's Restaurant in New Jersey, which had been owned by a McDonald family for decades. Cadillac, on the other hand, never really enforced their trademark, which is why Kal-Kan could get away with calling itself "the Cadillac of dog foods."

Free lyrics servers may be harmless enough to the music publishers; but if they don't assert themselves now, the publishers may lose their legal rights when they have to go after the profit-making pirates.

The publishing companies have my sympathies. They are doing what they have to do (sigh). However, the Internet being what it is, I expect that they will eventually have to throw in the towel. I predict Mudcat will survive unscathed.

--SteveF

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From:
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 10:18 PM

Are these sites really being closed down, or are they closing themselves down under threat--like OLGA did?

Murray

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: Ted from Australia
Date: 21 Jan 99 - 05:49 AM

http://www.saturnet.net/olga/
is an active Olga Mirror Regards Ted

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: SteveF (inactive)
Date: 21 Jan 99 - 01:00 PM

The site has really been closed down by the Swiss police. The gendarmes have seized and confiscated computers. Read all the gory details by clicking on the link in post #1 of this thread (by maphew-- a pseudonym for Matthew Mirapaul?).

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: JJ
Date: 21 Jan 99 - 02:26 PM

Let me ask an obvious question. Is posting TAB's something that you frown upon. Lyrics are great, but I want I really want is the tab.

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: Mudjack
Date: 21 Jan 99 - 03:43 PM

The Corporate money hungry lowlifes should be responsible for their own doings and leave the common folks to do what they do. We want to share information for sake of sharing the information and not turning a buck seems to be as acceptable as making conversation. If I copyright the alphabet and music notation, would that entitle me a financial share to ALL published material? I think not. They're just a bunch of greety bastards looking to preserve their financial exsistance.When some one sells or makes money off of someone elses art form (writing a song) then by all means one should share profits to the writer. I would support a boycot of buying any music products until they get off their high horse. Jack the mostly folk guy,

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Jan 99 - 03:43 PM

Hi, JJ, I don't think we Mudcatteers frown upon the posting here of just about anything that relates to folk music. The fact that we regularly participate in a forum like this seems to be an indication that we are in favor of a free exchange of ideas, copyrighted or not. I think that most of us believe that songwriters should be paid justly for their creations, but the system of payment should not restrict the very creativity it is supposed to reward.
We have given away far too much of our freedom to the lawyers and others who seek to control us with their rules, and this has destroyed much of the spontaneity and creativity of our life and culture. Those rules have made us fearful and dull. Many of us are governed by our televisions, since there are so few creative things we are allowed to do. It's a shame, isn't it?
SteveF, I understand what you're saying. I know what the laws say. I think the laws are detrimental to the very people they are meant to protect, and those laws need to be changed. There has to be a better way. A free society must have a free interchange of ideas.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: Ferrara
Date: 22 Jan 99 - 01:35 AM

I agree "there has to be a better way." Whether or not a better way evolves, though, the original point was that we too could have problems if some unpleasant entity decides we're violating their copyrights.

Dick G, can you clarify things? For the most part our music is "trad" and in the public domain. Are there any guidelines as to what music (lyrics, chords, tabs, midis or live performances by a little mudcatter hiding in the monitor) is legal to post here, and which is not?

How about the database?

We could say, "Do we care?" But the answer is we would care a lot, if Dick and/or Max was sued or if part or all of the site were closed down.

Dick has some experience and has researched this stuff. Where do we stand? Is there anything we really need to avoid doing? Do we have to be our own Copyright Police?

RUS also had problems with copyright in their first edition. My understanding is that they now only use copyrighted material by permission.

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: Big Cookie
Date: 22 Jan 99 - 02:10 AM

Lets face facts ASCAP, BMI, and The Buddy Fox agency would like to go undercover in schoolyards and collect nickels everytime a little kid sings "London Bridge". I wish these guys would give us all a break.

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: hank
Date: 22 Jan 99 - 08:41 AM

Copyrights are a sticky issue. It gets stickier when you realise that mudcat is international. When I start a thread about US copyright law it won't apply directly to many of us. Likewise other countries that have representation. The above case is swiss law, and we don't know what US law (or canadian or austrilian or irish or...) law will do about the same situation.

I mention the above because copyright law changes all the time. Currnetly copyrights are good for something like 100 years after the authors death, up (rectoactivly, which I think is on shaky constitutional grounds but I'm not sure) from 75 a couple years, up from 25 years, up from 50 years total (no after death clause). Now I agree that authoers need protection for their works. I'm concerned about those who think copyrights should be forever. The point is to watch congress, the longer copyrights last, the longer we have to wait before we can legally share the songs we love.

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: JP
Date: 22 Jan 99 - 02:08 PM

Since when did copyright cover traditional music? The whole concept is a nonsense. Look at what happened recently when the McPeakes of Belfast tried to prevent "their" song - "Will You Go, Lassie, Go" - being used in a T.V add by Rod Stewart. The only result was to establish that some one in their family had plagiarised the song originally written by an 18th Century Scotsman. They didn't pursue the matter !!! JP

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From:
Date: 23 Jan 99 - 10:04 AM

Anyone who is a Loreena McKennitt junkie will confirm that the only effect created by her allowing all of her beautiful songs to be on the net for anyone to print is this, we run right out and purchase her new cd as soon as possible. The burning question is, will we 'sneak' and sing her songs ourselves? Darned right we will, and that is exactly what she wants. Isn't it a pity that more in the music industry do not share her wisdom. As any great artist knows, the more you are exposed, the better.

Blessings Reta

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: gargoyle
Date: 24 Jan 99 - 12:35 AM

To "Tag" onto Joe's comment about "vigorously protect"....the Claymation Corporation (ie Gumby) sued against a father who had purchased the URL "pokey.com" as a gift for his son ($300.00 US at the time) because it was the little clay horse that was Gumby's friend.

The defense, by the father, was that the child's birth had been past his "due date" and the child was consistantly "late" to everything in life.....and he had been given the nomolcutur "Pokey;" and was referred to...and answered to that handle.

Archie Comic Books recently dropped a suit against a similar father who had secured the URL "veronica.com" for his daughter.

There is no-doubt that I have purchased at least 5 and perhaps 10 CD's (in a collection UNDER 70) because of first encountering them through internet/public connections. The enforcers are slitting the throats of the artists.

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: gargoyle
Date: 24 Jan 99 - 12:46 AM

for every "html" site that has been "on-line" .....there are just as many telnet and ftp sites "performing" in the "real world" of the "net."

Like "real-pirate-radio" they are almost impossible to shut down....they sprout and move-on like mushrooms under the oak trees.....ask any "audiophile-college-student."

QUESTION REALITY!!

Subject: RE: Watcher yerself! Posting Lyrics is illegal...
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Jan 99 - 01:02 AM

Yeah, I've done that...but then comes the part where reality questions me back and the whole thing gets too weird, making me agree that "Reality is Bad Enough,Why Should I Tell the Truth?"...Patrick Sky,circa 1965-6.

catspaw