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.

Comments

Proprietary for A WHILE. Then free to all!

[Cmdr Taco]

This is how copyright should>/I> work. Like patents it's intent is to encourage creativity by rewarding the author with limited exclusivity for a time, then improving society by making the creation free for all to use and build upon. Copyright was once 20 years (like patents), then 50 years, then author's life plus 50 years, then author's life plus 80 years, and now dead congressman Sonny Bony sponsored the last extension to author's life plus 100 years. A fscking century! You see no problem here? And *just* *by* *coincidence* ****ALL**** of these extensions happened just shortly before the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons were about to have their copyrights expire. Are Disney's interests == the public interests?

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?!

Re:Proprietary for A WHILE. Then free to all!

[K8Fan]

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?

Even more offensive is how they have liberally dipped into the Public Domain for virtually every one of their movies and animated films. Only a handful of Disney films paid any royalties to anyone other than themselves. If they had any morals, they'd be ashamed, but both "shame" and "morals" are not words that exist in the corporate lexicon.

Actually, the passage of the "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act" was even more insidious - it was passed by voice vote during the Monica Lewinsky nonsense. The Congress-critters who were bought off didn't even have to put their names on it!

How were they bought off? Well, one of the most important bits for re-election is the endorsement of the local paper and TV stations. Guess who owns a large chain of newspapers and TV stations? Why, the Mouse of course! You either support this bill Senator, or we endorse your opponent. In the corporate world thay call this "synergy".

Re:Americans need to learn something

[Roblimo]

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

Hypocrisy

[Stickerboy]

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.

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