Has anyone ever tried to sue CGR?

Guitarman121319 · 11-10-2009, 10:46 AM

I was just curious. If so, why?

**Rainer.** · 11-10-2009, 10:53 AM

Ever wonder why we don't have any lyrics on here?

...yep.

Kentl · 11-10-2009, 10:54 AM

song words

edited
wow we posted close together there

**tmlfan123** · 11-10-2009, 10:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KentI

Ever wonder why we don't have any lyrics on here?

...yep.

Why is it that sites like ultimate-guitar.com can have lyrics but we can't?

Kentl · 11-10-2009, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmlfan123

Why is it that sites like ultimate-guitar.com can have lyrics but we can't?

long story and the laws arint the best

**tmlfan123** · 11-10-2009, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kentl

long story and the laws arint the best

Anyone else?

Kentl · 11-10-2009, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmlfan123

Anyone else?

Okay long story short, they have not been caught, Or they have the permission

**SupaNova** · 11-10-2009, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmlfan123

Why is it that sites like ultimate-guitar.com can have lyrics but we can't?

I can't say for certain, but just because they put lyrics up doesn't necessarily mean they're allowed to do so.

Guitarman121319 · 11-10-2009, 11:39 AM

Oh, thats a wierd rule. *checks for cameras* But the people who inforce them are really cool, smart, handsome, and strong.

earlessdog · 11-10-2009, 11:41 AM

If you see Metallica lyrics on a website, then the website obviously has permission to use lyrics . . .

**thesteve** · 11-10-2009, 11:43 AM

Unless something has changed, Ultimate-guitar.com is not a US based website. I know it was at least founded as a Russian website.

**tmlfan123** · 11-10-2009, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thesteve

Unless something has changed, Ultimate-guitar.com is not a US based website. I know it was at least founded as a Russian website.

So as long as they aren't based in the US they can use lyrics? Interesting... sorry for the huge thread hijack by the way.

**thesteve** · 11-10-2009, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmlfan123

So as long as they aren't based in the US they can use lyrics? Interesting... sorry for the huge thread hijack by the way.

It depends on the copyright laws of the country where they are based, I believe.

**MtlMom** · 11-11-2009, 06:54 AM

This is an important topic, and there are so many new people on the site that I think it merits a recap. Nate is a very good historian/resource on this, so perhaps he'll help clarify. I'll talk to him.

Nate · 11-11-2009, 08:06 AM

As far as I can recall, CGR has never been sued.

I know that CGR, like almost any other guitar tab site in the early days of the dot-com boom, has been contacted periodically by Christian publishers to both stop us from posting lyrics and from posting chords.

CGR has historically complied with these requests.

For information on the early days of CGR vs copyright, there are a few threads from our first webmaster / administrator that you can read at your leisure: here and here, both from the old forums / old domain name.

Search UN: Mickey and "Brentwood" or "CGN" for more.

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As far as copyright is concerned, there are two issues:

1) It is illegal, in the United States and almost every other country in the developed world, to distribute [which is what we are doing when we post them along with the tabs] copies of lyrics, the property of publishers.

The only question is whether we are exempt under fair use.

2) It is costly to enforce and costly to defend copyright infringement in cases where the law is "gray" and the damages are not clear. This is both why CGR has never been sued and why we have always complied:

a) We do not have the money to be worth a publisher's time to actually sue. We do not cause enough financial loss for them to bother to do more than threaten us, which is all they have historically done and will ever do.

b) We do not have the money to defend ourselves against a lawsuit, even though it is easily arguable, and probably winnable given a good attorney, that the posting of lyrics with tabs is "fair use" / not copyright infringement.

For these two reasons, there's no point in any lawsuit arising.

3) There is approximately 0.0% chance that any guitar tab site you run across has obtained permission to post lyrics with chords. These are either sites that fly under the radar or have been threatened just as we were.

If they have tons of tabs, they probably have enough lyric-free ones to not get noticed or too many tabs to make it worth their time to comply with threats to take down lyrics [again, no publisher will sue any but the largest sites].

If they do comply, things will still slip through since the model for all guitar tab sites is user-submitted content, usually without heavy moderation or, often, with only user-driven moderation. There's no guarantee of future enforcement.

Once they reach a critical mass, the threats get stronger and they die.

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The reason other sites "can have lyrics" and we can't is that they believe they will continue to fly under the radar or else they don't care and simply haven't reached that critical mass to make it worth a publisher's time to sue... and we don't believe and do care.