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A comment on NMPA Targets Unlicensed Lyric Sites, Rap Genius Among 50 Sent Take-Down Notices. Parent comment

Re:NMPA Targets Unlicensed Lyric Sites, Rap Genius Among 50 ... by anigbrowl on Monday November 11, 2013 @08:51PM (#6715351)
IMO Rap Genius falls squarely within the fair use safe harbor of copyright law, since it provides educational/critical analysis of lyrics rather than simply republishing them for profit.
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Re:NMPA Targets Unlicensed Lyric Sites, Rap Genius Among 50 ... by tedunangst on Monday November 11, 2013 @09:47PM (#6715548)
Whether it's a small portion or the entirety of the copied work is also a factor...
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Re:NMPA Targets Unlicensed Lyric Sites, Rap Genius Among 50 ... by selmnoo on Monday November 11, 2013 @10:04PM (#6715604)
Not to mention, the content is the center of all that is RapGenius. It is educational/critical analysis of lyrics, written by people.

Would we expect annotated versions of books to be free? No. Would we expect critiques of movies... with the movies themselves to be free? No. That argument just doesn't hold any water.

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Re:NMPA Targets Unlicensed Lyric Sites, Rap Genius Among 50 ... by anigbrowl on Monday November 11, 2013 @10:42PM (#6715724)
True, but lyrics are only a portion of a musical work, and in general they're a pretty small amount of text (compared to, say, the median news article). I think RG would respond by pointing out that the volume of commentary frequently dwarfs source material.
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Re:NMPA Targets Unlicensed Lyric Sites, Rap Genius Among 50 ... by tedunangst on Monday November 11, 2013 @11:41PM (#6715875)
The lyrics are copyright as a separate work. The lyrics are the entirety of that work. The recording, the music, etc. are all separate.
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