Lyrics site LiveUniverse slammed with $6.6 million copyright judgment

Songwriters hope more lyric sites will seek license after gaining this first judgment.

Ars Technica

by Joe Mullin – Oct 11 2012, 12:50pm CDT

Several years after music publishers began pursuing websites that published lyrics on the Web without permission, they may have their biggest payoff yet. A recent court judgment [PDF] against LiveUniverse makes it crystal clear: hosting an unauthorized lyrics site can get you in serious legal trouble.

LiveUniverse.com and its owner Brad Greenspan were slapped with a $6.6 million default judgment by a Los Angeles federal judge this week for running a lyrics site that didn’t pay for a license from music publishers. That’s $12,500 per song for the 528 songs whose lyrics he was accused of infringing.