It's apparently illegal to post lyrics on the Internet, and I think some lyrics sites have been sued or shut down because of this. Some guitar tab sites (notably olga.net, the Online Guitar Archive), were also forced to shut down in the past, partly because of the lyrics (but also because of the uncertain legality of the tabs themselves, but that's another story...in any case now they can only include a few words of lyrics).
From: "Kent Wang" kwang@kwang.org Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiLyrics Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 13:16:02 -0600
I was browsing through OHHLA.com (Online Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive) and realized that a lyrics archive would be an excellent application of Wiki technology. Although OHHLA is the most comprehensive website in its genre, there are still many less popular artists that are not covered, and most of the pages I've seen contain at least a mistake or two.
So I think a great new WikiMedia project would be a "WikiLyrics" that would cover music lyrics for all genres.
Hip-hop lyrics are particularly in need for a wiki because they are full of slang words and in-references that can be Wikified to articles explaining them. Hip-hop albums also rarely come with lyrics sheets though ironically, are probably most in need of them.
I've already Googled for "lyrics wiki" and found no significant hits.
I'm very enthusiastic about this idea but a major problem that will need to be resolved is that almost all lyrics are not open content and the GFDL will most certainly be incompatible. Though the RIAA is definitely tort-happy, I don't believe there have been any attempts to shut down online lyrics websites, especially since they should not undermine record sales.
I eagerly await your comments on this idea.
Kent Wang
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