Hello, I run a (relatively) large music website, which among other things offers music lyrics and tablatures. I knew this is by definition a copyright infringement, however until now I assumed no one would have a problem with this due to the large number of similar sites out there and the fact those lyrics basically do no harm to the artists. Now however I have been e-mailed by a publishing agency (www. xthprophet.de ) that represents several bands I publish lyrics of and was asked to take them down, otherwise they would take legal action, etc (the usual things). What I'd like to know now, would I be save (from them at least) if I just removed the lyrics and tabs of the bands they represent or could they demand me to delete all of them? What would you do in such a situation? Thanks, Thomas
Delete the ones they represent because obviously they can't do anything about the groups they dont represent and have no right to tell you to take off people's lyrics they dont represent.
IMO, for sure remove the material they've notified you about. As for other material, I guess you'll have to decide if you're willing to run the legal and financial risks involved with such an operation. Yes, there are other sites violating copyright laws, among others, but what if your site is the one that gets nailed? What is the worst that can happen and is that a price you're willing to pay?
You have to be realistic about this stuff though. No one is going to sue over lyrics online. Also, you wont acctually get sued even if they file a complaint without a warning first to remove the lyrics by the record label. Since different labels own rights to different artists it would take plenty to take down a whole lyrics website. Also in reality the big labels don't seem to care and thats where most of the artists are, why they dont care? because there is obvious depand for lyrics, credit is given in the lyrics and it's great for promotion. Most of the legal crap is all for scares, you have to understand that.
Ok, thank you two for the help. I'll for now just tell them that I will take down all the lyrics in question, as removing all lyrics and tabs from the site would mean a huge cut into the content of this site...
Having them ask you to remove all of your content is like me telling Amazon.com to not sell Stephen King books. While a lawsuit is unlikely, it can and does happen. They will probably do an assets search first. If you have no assets (cash, stocks, savings account, equity in a home/car, land, etc), your probability of appearing in court are reduced. Now, if the offended party is not represented by a lawyer (or chooses to go it alone), they can, rather inexpensively, take you to small claims court where you will be responsible to travel to the city they reside in and represent yourself.
I would email them back and pose it to them that you are giving free advertising for the bands and there songs. ask if there is a link or special credit you need to include with the lyrics so that you can continue to post them. State in the email you would prefer to keep them up, but if you still want them remove please reply back asking to do so and u will.... u got to try to hold onto your content... sometimes they are in it just to see what they can get out of it.
They can only take action against you for the artists they represent, however, I wouldn't be surprised if the shared information with others. If you are going to keep any of the lyrics up, you should at least set up some type of entity to protect you assets as you already know it is a copyright infringement. This type of infringement is pretty easy to discover because of the type of material. I'm sure you know that just because a lot of others are doing it, it doesn't make any difference. While the company that contacted you can't do anything about the others, it sets a precident that you knew you were doing something illegal and continued to do it (with other bands). It can actually be a criminal offense and people have gone to prison in extreme cases. No entity can protect you from that. I would pay a couple of hundred dollars to get a legal opinion from a intellectual property rights attorney - but I'm pretty sure they would advise removing all copyrighted material from your site.
IANAL, but I'd say you should take down the specific lyrics they mention, and nothing else. Another lyrics site, lyricswiki.org (I'm not associated with them), has notices up for some artists that mention how the artist requested the lyrics be taken down. They respected that, but the entire site wasn't taken down.