peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (08/19/83)
With respect to books and magazine articles, my understanding is that small excerpts are allowed for purposes of review. So one couldn't be sued for quoting a line of a song, or a couple of paragraphs of a book. But the point of this article is not legal, but ethical. I think a lot of us will agree that wholesale copying of lyrics deprives the creator of those lyrics of income due to them and is thus theft. For that reason, I also vote against net.music.lyrics. Let's keep quotations of lyrics to "Here's a great line from the song by XXXX: ..." or "Where can I buy the lyrics to X's song that starts with the line ....", and such quotes do not need their own newsgroup. (P.S. This consideration also applies to other "whole works", usually wire-service articles, posted to the net, but the problem is worse with lyrics due to the relatively small size of the whole work.) p. rowley, University of Toronto, utzoo!utcsrgv!peterr