I read at the Copyrights page that
Lyrics on Lyricstranslate.com are licensed through Musixmatch.
I do see this line below most of the songs that I have submitted to this website
Copyright:
Writer(s): X, Y
Lyrics powered by www.musixmatch.com
But not all of them.
Here is a list of the songs that I have submitted so far which lack a link to Musixmatch:
- https://lyricstranslate.com/en/sakiler-yalani-birak-lyrics.html
- https://lyricstranslate.com/en/semicenk-yuzu-tanidik-degil-lyrics.html
- https://lyricstranslate.com/en/aziz-sen-kaldin-lyrics.html
- https://lyricstranslate.com/en/betul-demir-seninle-lyrics.html
- https://lyricstranslate.com/en/dicle-olcay-iki-kisilik-lyrics.html
- https://lyricstranslate.com/en/sefo-gitti-lyrics.html
- https://lyricstranslate.com/en/4-yuz-hadi-bakalim-lyrics.html
- https://lyricstranslate.com/en/derya-ulug-esmerin-adi-oya-lyrics.html
- https://lyricstranslate.com/en/ceylan-koynat-yalan-oldu-lyrics.html
- https://lyricstranslate.com/en/bengu-bayila-bayila-lyrics.html
- https://lyricstranslate.com/en/emre-kaya-asalet-lyrics.html
- https://lyricstranslate.com/en/onur-koc-elini-tutmasam-lyrics.html
- https://lyricstranslate.com/en/zeynep-bastik-bu-gece-lyrics.html
I think this means that LT has not paid any licensing fees for these lyrics, and therefore I have infringed the copyright laws. Is this true? If so, can I ask for their deletion? This is just a hypothetical question, and at the moment I don't intend to really ask for their deletion. I'm just trying to understand whether or not I have infringed the copyright laws.
So far I have only posted Turkish lyrics to this website and I don't know how serious copyright is taken at that country. I suppose it's not taken that seriously. Yet, I would like to get a response purely on the basis of law (i.e., International Copyright treaties such as the Berne Convention), not based on practical or ethical grounds.
Thanks
Hi Razq,
I will not have an answer for some of the parts you mentioned, I will only tell you the places I know about this subject. First of all, I don't know exactly what that license is, but I think of it more as "putting it's foot in the door". There is something like that, Musixmatch is one of the leaders in the lyrics industry, some singers add their own lyrics directly. Others (Sakiler, I guess it was) write themselves in the descriptions of YT videos and get users from there and add them to Musixmatch, add to Genius, etc. Imagine you have the lyrics (the copyrights are in your hands) and you publish them, then they take them and put them on Musixmatch and they say that the copyrights belong to Musixmatch. Sounds silly, right, I think so too. Artists use labels for this, the song copyrights are made by labels instead of artists, this is their purpose (It's called a label for rap but I guess its real name is music companies). There are types of copyrights, for example, if a video clip is copyrighted, you cannot publish it at all, it will be blocked (on YT). But if you get the copyright of a song, you can publish it but you can't make money on it, the income from it is paid to the artist, etc. As for the lyrics, I don't know the slightest about them, but I don't even think they are as valuable as the songs. In other words, if we publish them, we will pay the artist or something, it seems ridiculous to me. I don't think you need to worry too much, events we do not see in the background take care of everything for us. Of course, if a crazy person says, "I don't want the lyrics anywhere, remove it, copyrights belong to me", there is nothing that can be done to it :).
I hope I was able to explain, for TR, getting copyright from the lyrics means a new "meme" that will emerge, they will just make fun of it and laugh..
Saygılarımla,
𝐋𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐰 (𝘔𝘌𝘓𝘐𝘏)
Thanks for your response.
To be honest, I'm not worried at all especially since I currently live in a country which is not even a party to the Berne Convention and copyright is considered as a joke. Nevertheless, I don't want to do something which would be considered illegal if the situation changes in my country in the future. Furthermore, I can't predict the future. Maybe I'll change my residence place in the future (for example, going somewhere else to live temporarily or permanently).
As far as I understand, the copyright belongs to the artists (songwriters, or maybe the music companies). Musixmatch is probably just a rights manager here. LyricsTranslate pays to Musixmatch and Musixmatch pays to the artists or the music companies.
My question is about songs whose rights do not seem to be managed by Musixmatch. Maybe [@LT] itself can enlighten us.
LT was forced to pay for those licenses because we have been threatened in the past - some artists thought that we were profiting from showing their lyrics and sought legal action. Or we paid for those licenses or we would either have to remove the lyrics or close the website as all money Admins receive from LT go, afaik, to system maintenance and updates. As we depend from and rely on the info input there, if something is wrong in the license that shows here we cannot do anything.
I believe they are registered in music publishers, which are paid and in turn pass that money for the artists.
For lyrics that have not been registered anywhere I honestly don't know what can happen - unless we receive a notification asking us to remove the lyrics they will remain around.