Slashdot Mirror
Lyric Sites In Trouble With The MPA
Joe the Lesser writes "Apparently the Music Publishers Association is cracking down on sites, like LyricFind, that display song lyrics without permission. 'Just because there is no central licensing body it doesn't make it right to take lyrics and publish them without permission.' says Sarah Faulder of the MPA."
According to this "authority", you must get permission before you record (video or audio) a worship service.
Right.
If you already have these recordings in your (church/religious) library, you must destroy them.
Right.
I think they presume a bit too much.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I don't see how people posting lyrics online hurts the MPAA in anyway.
Quick point of clarification:
RIAA = Recording Industry Assholes of America
MPAA = Motion Picture Assholes of America
MPA = Music Publisher Assholes
The last group is who I think you meant to refer to.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
First of all, the MPA never sued us. In fact, we were never sued by anyone. We hardly even talked to the MPA, since when we did, their response was "You'll have to talk to the publishers directly." - so, not very useful.
Our negotiations were through the CMRRA (Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency), who did everything they could to help us - but in the end it turned into an administrative nightmare.
Secondly, this is really old news - I went through the copyright negotiation gauntlet over two years ago (and, of course, tried to get a slashdot story back then...). I'd hardly say that the MPA is "cracking down" on lyrics sites. Since the dawm of time there have only been four lyrics sites shut down - lyrics.ch (everyone knows the story there), lyricshq.com, LyricFind, and lyricsh.com. The final 3 were shut down only because we PROACTIVELY tried to get licensing - WE went to THEM (them, in our case, being the CMRRA), not because they were "cracking down" or anything.
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Darryl Ballantyne
http://www.darrylballantyne.com
There is no difference in their minds, and they are already doing this. Coffeshops, Clubs, Live Bands. All liable for performing copyrighted songs without permission for profit
bad sig...no donut.
Ummm... ASCAP and BMI already do this. Any venue that hosts regular performances of music, whether live, broadcast, or recorded, is probably sending money to ASCAP and/or BMI on a regular basis.
http://www.ascap.com/licensing/
No, that is not what I intended.
My intended meaning was that anyone should be able to give a live performance of any song.
A band in a club. Or a kid's birthday party singing "Happy Birthday".
You can - assuming you've paid the fee to ASCAP or BMI (depending on which PRO (Performance Rights Organization) covers the song). They're cheap, too - around $300/year for a blanket license, last I checked.
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Darryl Ballantyne
http://www.darrylballantyne.com
Look, it's very simple. Song lyrics, just like poety or newspaper articles or novels, are protected by copyright. It is a violation of copyright law to publish them without permission.
It DOESN'T MATTER if the sites publishing them don't make any money off of it.
It DOESN'T MATTER if free lyrics sites could have the effect of increasing album sales rather than decrease them. We're not talking about recordings. The RIAA is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
It DOESN'T MATTER if the lyrics are available for sale through legitimate channels.
It DOESN'T MATTER if you think the lyrics are inane and stupid. That doesn't make them any less worthy of copyright protection.
Unless you have permission from the copyright owner, you CANNOT PUBLISH the lyrics.
The MPA is entirely in the right on this one.
What's next? Is the RIAA going to send snitches out in public to rat on local bands for playing cover tunes?
Public performance of cover songs is not RIAA's jurisdiction but rather BMI's, and BMI does exactly that
Will I retire or break 10K?
Yet another reason why the length of time that a copyright is valid needs to be drastically reduced. Widespread, free availability is the way that the artist can ensure that their work will remain available for generations to come. Copying someone's song and passing it off as your own IMO is theft. Copying it and giving the proper references to the author is free advertising.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs