There is a bunch of lyrics website around and I got interested in building a lyrics website. But isn't offering lyrics for free illegal? I think you are infringing copyright. no? If not from where do they get new lyrics?
Yes, they would be copyright. Hope you have a good reason to build a lyrics site. There's millions of them already. (Which suggests the copyright thing may not be such an issue).
actually I didn't describe what I would like to do very clearly. I don't won't to build a normal lyrics website because as you have said there are relatively millions of lyrics websites. I would like to study certain aspects about lyrics but I would like to know how do they get hold of all the lyrics and how they get updated with new lyrics. There must be a central thingy from to get lyrics no?
Publishing lyrics without obtaining permission is copyright infringement. Yes, there are thousands of sites operating illegally, but they are all taking the risk of legal action. The music industry has started filing suit against some of the larger sites and even stated they hope for jail time in some cases (copyright infringement can be criminal). Some of the largest sites have started to pay for the rights to print lyrics.
Something similar has happened with guitar tab sites - there have been threats of legal action and now some of them have taken down the tabs (guitar musical notation). Very frustrating when you go looking for a song by a band only to be told it's not there due to legal threats!