Song Sites Face Legal Crackdown 537
CaptainPotato writes "According to the BBC, the Music Publishers' Association is stepping up to launch the next phase in the music industry's battle against online music. The MPA is demanding jail time for the maintainers of websites offering unlicensed song scores and lyrics. The MPA President has stated that closing websites and imposing fines is not enough, stating that by 'throw [ing]in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective' in its crusade." We just recently reported on the pearLyrics cease-and-desist order as well.
SSSSH!! (Score:1, Informative)
SSSH!! There aren't very many of us and we would like to keep it that way. If you are in the know, good. But don't spread it. kthnx.
BTW, good point about the popups and stuff on music sites. Whoever modded parent troll needs to rethink his groupthink.
Re:Will this pertain to TAB sites too? (Score:5, Informative)
So if you ever get a tab sheet were you get the first word of a line and a sequence of dots instead of the lyrics, now you know why.
Indeed! (Score:5, Informative)
*not an actual award, but the buzz on them has been pretty stout
Re:Scores? (Score:2, Informative)
Musical score != Rating.
Musical score == the actual music source code.
Re:Lyrics needed for Beach Boys "Goodbye Raisins" (Score:3, Informative)
Check it out. I think I saw the link here before, in fact. It is a great site, if a little difficult to navigate.
This site (obviously, perhaps) falls under fair use, but I wonder if the RIAA will put this on its list. I mean, the site has money generating ads and unlicensed excerpts of the real lyrics. I am sure the RIAA will ignore that 1) the bandwidth, hosting, et al needs to be paid for and 2) the RIAA is receiving FREE promotion of its wares.
How about this: lyrics sites respond by sending the RIAA invoices for promotional fees.
Re:Maybe I listen to too much rap but... (Score:2, Informative)
dude, you can copyright SILENCE [findlaw.com]..
Re:I will note... (Score:5, Informative)
Aren't they already doing this; except the venue pays the royalties for the songs?
Re:I will note... (Score:2, Informative)
this:
---0--0-------
---0--2-------
---1--2-------
---2--2-------
---2--0-------
---0----------
is E followed by A. next would likely be E and then B A E and then you're playing the blues. Provided of course, you got da' blues.
Sorry, couldn't ignore it.
Can blue men sing the whites? (Score:3, Informative)
There used to be a fantastic web site about the Bonzo Dog Band. It had an annotated copy of the lyrics, explaining all the 60s pop culture references and in-jokes.
Some wankers from EMI threatened copyright litigation, and the entire thing was yanked. Even though the information was not available from EMI.
Re:That makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is this REALLY illegal? (Score:3, Informative)
Nope! That's a common misunderstanding, but actually derivitive works are still copyright of the original copyright holder; there's not really a difference between your two examples, for this purpose.
Derivitives do add one complication, which is that the changes may be copyright of the person who made the changes -- in addition to the original copyright. In such cases, neither the original copyright holder, nor the derivitive copyright holder, can do anything at all with the derivitive work unless both parties agree.
That doesn't come up that often, comparatively. Example: If you translate Bohemian Rhapsody into Latin in a creative way, the copyright holder of Bohemian Rhapsody can indeed forbid you from making any copies of your translation; they don't lose any rights.
On the other hand, they cannot make copies of your translation into Latin, either, without your permission.
It doesn't come up all that often, because why would they want to do anything with your Latin translation? Usually they don't, usually they just want to enforce their own original rights.
P.S. the above assumes that the derivitive work required creativity to create. If it was e.g. a very mechanical translation that required no creativity, then the original copyright holder may have rights to that non-creative derivitive as well. Phone books, for instance, are not creative works.
The MPA welcomes your questions and comments. (Score:1, Informative)
mpa-admin@mpa.org
Re:This does not make sense at all... (Score:3, Informative)