Important! BOC Lyric Copyrights and the WWW, FTP

Andy Gilham AndyGilham at AOL.COM
Wed Feb 7 16:08:18 EST 1996


John wondered:

>In many of my e-mails to people, I have a signature file with the lyrics
>to the first verse of "Cities on Flame".  Many people have similar
>such signature files.  Are all of us violating copyrights by doing
>this?  And where does one draw the line?

There's a concept of "fair use" - I'm not sure *precisely* how it's defined -
that allows you to quote passages for review purposes.  Quoting for a .sig
almost certainly comes under that.  Arguably, Rob's magazine reviews that he
puts on his web pages come under it too.  (Whereas putting a whole issue of
_Billboard_ on your page - should anyone want to do such a thing - would
definitely be a violation.)

I bet it's ok to publish lyrics files if (a) they're your own interpretation
and (b) they're *wrong*... :)

- Andy

But I'm not thinking of that loss
But only of the fact of loss
And the distance between me
And the bed of the ruby sea
Thin White Rope, "The Ruby Sea"



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