User talk:Swampthings

Quoting copyrighted hymns

Do you by chance know the laws on quoting full copyrighted texts of hymns without permission? It seems it might be fine, since people seem to do it all the time, but I'm not sure. I know you need permission for the sheet music itself, though. Veramet 14:15, 12 April 2007 (MDT)

I don't. The way that wikipedia does that is that it has a policy page to make sure to get permission from people for stuff. We could do that, too, and then if people complain then remove their hymn until permission is obtained. You may look in the legal disclaimers of some of the popular song lyric repositories. I think that would have infomration that would be valuables. Please sign your talk posts with four tildes. Swampthings 14:14, 12 April 2007 (MDT)

THE LAWS REGARDING copyright vary by jurisdiction, so the most valuable response to Veramet's question is, "Where?". A safe, general principal is that it is an infringement of copyright to quote the full text without permission. There is some satisfaction to be had in the pleasure of researching to determine if a particular text (or tune, for that matter) is still in copyright, or in the public domain. User:Mjolnir 0746 GMT 17 May, 2007.

Thanks for the response. I've researched it quite a bit since my inquiry (my inquiry was with regards to copyright in the United States). I've found that one is not supposed to quote the full text if it is still under copyright, without permission (although people often do). I hear some are cracking down on websites that violate this more and more. Anyway, I've found a few things of interest, though, regarding improper or absent copyright notices for books published before a certain date . . . really, though, it seems like there's no real way to tell without knowing you have the first edition of the book. I've also found some foreign-language LDS hymnals I've been searching for that were published before 1922 - I just wish I had access to them. I was mainly asking this about the song entitled "Tooth Bugs". Well, the Spanish translation, at least, is still under copyright. The original, well, who knows? I'd have to find out which book it was published in first. Now, even though I seriously doubt that the owners of the copyright would sue anyone for putting the lyrics on this site (they might, though, seeing as IRI isn't exactly the LDS church) - but, I think it's by far the best decision to respect the copyright anyway. I think they'd probably give permission to post it if asked . . . Oh, just an off-topic note: if you put four tildes (i.e. ~~~~), it'll automatically put a stamp of your name and the time after you save the page. Veramet 02:17, 17 May 2007 (MDT)