Slashdot Mirror
New Russian Site Carries Unlicensed Song Lyrics
Anonymous Coward sent a link to lyrics.mguk.ru/, operating under the name LyricsDot, which looks a lot like the old non-profit www.lyrics.ch database did before it signed an agreement with the (U.S. based) National Music Publishers Association and went commercial. The trick with this new lyrics server is that it's in Russia, where U.S. law (and copyright law in general) seems to mean little or nothing. Is this the wave of the future? Will other sites containing data that violates copyrights or otherwise irritates large U.S. companies move to Russia or other countries where local authorities are unlikely to cooperate with American law enforcers? It's going to be interesting to see where this all goes.
Lyrics? You are worried about some freaking lyrics? Oh, wow. :)
Let me tell you something. You can go to Russia or China or India or South America, anywhere and you can get the entire Adobe Photoshop for 2USD. You can get ANY game for less than 3USD, you can get any Windows, any Unix, AIX anything for less than 5USD. And you are worried about some lyrics
You can't handle the truth.
whois lyrics.mguk.ru ...
Query: lyrics.mguk.ru
Registry: whois.ripn.net
Results:
domain: MGUK.RU
type: CORPORATE
descr: Corporate domain for Moscow State Univercity of Commerce
Also, does any of us feel guilt at listening to classical music knowing that no royalties are going to the estate or descendants of the creators? And I'm not just talking about the really ancient centuries old stuff where "rightful heirs" are today unknown. Even some artists who wrote songs in the 20th century like Scott Joplin, who would be protected by current law if their copyrights hadn't already expired, get nothing from the use of their work. Do you feel bad for this?
How can anyone support Disney keeping sole control over Mickey Mouse and yet have a clean conscious incorporating 'the entertainer' into their copyrighted movie of slot machine or game program?
BTW, the copyright on pkzip won't expire until the year 2101!!!!!! Is this in any way reasonable?!
No offense taken - I agree with you. Remember, many Americans are as unhappy with the U.S. government as you are, but as long as a majority of our fellow citizens doesn't even bother to vote, and corporate dollars control our electoral politics, things are not likely to change.
It's gotten to the point where it looks like the best we can do is find "workarounds" for some of the dumber laws.
I don't support copyright or patent violations per se, but some of the things we are allowing to be copyrighted and patented, and the way some of the copyright and patent holders act (making threats that cause large legal bills even if they are not valid), we might as well all get used to being outlaws. This country once tried to ban alcoholic beverages -- and created a large group of outlaws by doing so. Then the U.S. government decide to go to "war" against some popular recreational drugs -- and created a whole new class of drug outlaws. Now we seem bent on creating intellectual property outlaws.
In the end, what happens is that U.S. citizens lose respect for *all* laws, and stop caring about whether they follow them or not. And citizens of other countries lose respect for the U.S. in general.
- Robin
The Soviet Union acceded to the Universal Copyright Convention in 1973, and the Russian Federation inherited those treaty responsibilities. In addition, Russia on its own signed the Berne Convention in 1995.
The Berne Convention is as close as anything comes to a world copyright, with 144 countries signed on [Word97 doc, sorry]. These 144 countries represent well over 85% of the world's population; the only countries remaining to sign are mainly disorganized ones like Somalia or rogue states like Afghanistan. The Berne Convention permits the same people who sued the Lyrics Database before to file suit in Russia.
Now, it may be true that there is a certain degree of corruption or even lawlessness in Russia, but from a legal standpoint, it is not true that US law means "nothing" there. A copyright filed in the US must be recognized by the other signatories, including Russia.
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Either there's some mass hypocrisy going on, or a good majority of Slashdotters are simply too immature to think things through. Recall:
Situation 1
Jon Katz et al. publish a book on the Hellmouth series of discussions and articles on Slashdot. Whether or not it actually accomplished anything is irrelevant; a mass outcry goes up from Slashdot posters whose material was used. Reasons ranged from not getting a slice of the pie to feeling intellectually raped to wanting a say where and when "their" material is used.
Situation 2
A site goes up in Russia purporting to use and abuse copyrighted material that the owners of which obviously don't want to be folded, spindled and mutilated in that way. Slashdotters cheer the advent of "free information".
I won't even the parallels this draws to people who take "liberties" with the GPL and other related copyright licenses. I mean, hey, they should be free to do what they want with it, right?
Marie Antoinette tried to have her cake and eat it too. She ended up missing her head, an irrelevant footnote to history. I fear this community will just end up an irrelevant footnote.
telnet://bbs.ufies.org
Trade Wars Lives
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
" This web page is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this page, or any portion of it, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties, and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law. Any files you have downloaded here are only for your own purposes. Any uploads prohibited. Our team does not bear the responsibility for your surfing this page."
Imagine that. Invoking copyright law to protect the content what violates copyright law.
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