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I'm trying to understand some issues on copyright.

I was wondering if I have a web application that allows "friends/peers" to share music lyrics, is it infringing on copyrights?

Basically I'm also curious how does bittorrent handles the "sharing" of copyrighted materials.

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1 Answer

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This is a fair question, because it's more tricky than you'd think.

Someone who copies copyrighted materials (for instance music lyrics, most are copyrighted), is committing copyright infringment and could be sued. You as the provider of such a service, may initially appear to be safe. But if it can be shown that the only use for your service is to copy illegal material, then you could be liable too.

BitTorrent doesn't have any protection either.

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Btw could you elaborate on the last paragraph, do you mean bittorrent is not safe? because it looks cool and most likely running strong into the future – Pacerier Oct 12 '11 at 21:47
There's actually a Wikipedia page on that exact issue, worth a read: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_with_BitTorrent – Alain Raynaud Oct 13 '11 at 7:25

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