Hopefully,
it comes as no surprise to anyone that song lyrics are protected by copyright
law. Song lyrics are protected whether
or not they are registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. They are protected whether they are used with
or without an accompanying melody.
Websites
offering song lyrics without permission are violating copyright laws and
exposing themselves to claims of copyright infringement. Of course, IF you’re displaying the lyrics in
a manner that qualifies as fair use, you’re not violating any copyright laws.
But, like most fair use questions, that’s a big, shaky, and potentially messy “IF”.
On
a growing world wide web where infringement is not uncommon, music publishers must
choose which battles to fight and may target only the largest violators; those
websites offering massive lyric databases. Smaller websites with less traffic
and offering only small snatches of lyrics may be able to operate under the
music publishers’ radar.
For
websites that want to display lyrics legally, services like LyricFind and
GraceNote offer an option worthy of consideration. These companies do not give
individual online users direct access to the lyrics. Instead, they license the use of searchable song
lyrics databases to businesses that integrate the databases into their own
websites. Those businesses can then offer their visitors to their websites the
option of searching and viewing lyrics.
Popular
websites that use these databases include Allmusic.com and Rhapsody Online
which use the LyricFind service and Yahoo!
Music which uses Gracenote. LyricFind has licensed song lyrics from over
1,700 music publishers and offers the lyrics to hundreds of thousands of songs
in its database. Gracenote, which began
offering lyrics display as a new service only this year, has about 400,000 songs
in its database.
And
if you’re a songwriter seeking greater exposure for your work, you can register
online for LyricFind and have the lyrics to your songs included in its
database.
(Thanks
to Miguel Harvey, J.D. Candidate 2009, Georgetown University Law Center, who provided research assistance for this posting.)
