I was thinking about putting some song lyrics featured in some tv shows on my site. is that legal or illegal?
Illegal without permission. I realize there are hundreds of lyrics sites out there, but I'm pretty sure all of them are operating illegally. The recording industry generally does not go after them because they don't lose much money from the activity (in fact, it often helps promote a new artist) and it would cost too much to shut them all down, but they still could get them shut down if they wanted to.
illegal... but like stated by Dave, it is freee promotion for the artists so they let it go. I have thousands of lyrics on my music portal - not a lyrics only site - and still selling advertising to major record labels.
There have been some major lawsuits against some of the larger lyric websites and some are now paying a fee to be able to legally show lyrics. Many times the bands do not own the lyrics and the copyright holder is the one who is going to sue. Jail time has even been asked for by some of the larger companies (infringement can be a criminal offense). It's copyright infringement and just because there are a lot of sites operating illegally, you still assume the risk that you will be sued. They are targeting sites that monetize (run adsense, etc). Google has stated they will shut down publishers that are running ads next to copyrighted material if a complaint is filed. It may be a small risk for a small site, but it is something that should be considered.
Even sites that were not profitting from the lyrics have been issued takedown notices. This has also been the case with tab sites (tab is a form of writting music by using finer positioning rather than musical notation). Many of these sites thought they were operating under the fair use provision of copyright law. They even went so far as to put disclaimers to the effect "these are only to be used for review or educational purposes", but that doesn't hold up in the long run. The reason that these cases are coming up in the last couple of years has to do with two issues. First, the recording industry had bigger fish to fry (namely MP3 and P2P sites). Secondly, they were not sure that they would win in court. Then came the Grokster decision. That decision gave companies the ability to sue (and not have the case dismissed) service providers even if the content was user generated. That is even with the DMCA. The basis for being able to sue is: the system is has a high percentage of copyrighted works, the system operators are aware that much of the material is copyrighted, and the system does nothing to stop the infringement. Past cases may have lead the music industry that it was not worth their time to pursue in the past. Recent changes to copyright law (DMCA), recent court rulings, and the general direction of the current court to protect copyright holders above the rights of others (for example the possible legal ramifications, read jail time, of bypassing DRM even for strictly fair use, which is a legal right under US copyright law) have all been factors in why they are going after these sites now.
Every country have different law from US. A US firm must respect that country law.Even if they win in the US justice court is useless in many out-US cases. Have to exist a bilateral acord between the US and that country.Let say Tokelau, West Samoa, China. Also in general people hate US trying to impose the US law in their country , and when a us marine kill with a car a man, rape girls they escape, have magicaly diplomatic jobs .And judges from that countries are people.
Grey area. But generally considered copyright infringement in the US. I have never seen a lyric site be shut down.
I read another article that says another possible reason that takedown notices weren't issued further back was that there was no good legal alternative to get the lyrics. http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-6203085.html A number of lyric sites have been shut down over the years. LyricFind was shut down several years before this current round of takedown notices. They were allowed to come back after reaching a royalty agreement and changing how they displayed lyrics. Lyrics.ch was another site that was taken down. There have been hundreds either shut down or forced to remove content. The problem is that there are thousands of these sites.