# Is Wikilyrics gone? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 1, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-wikilyrics-gone/310714 "2005-07-01T16:20:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-wikilyrics-gone/310714/1 "2005-07-01T16:20:50Z")
Has the Wikilyrics website shut down? I’ve been trying to sign on all week and I keep getting error messages or similar. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2005, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-wikilyrics-gone/310714/2 "2005-07-01T19:46:58Z")
Never been to Wikilyrics, but IIRC lyrics are considered copyright material, and posting them on a site would bring the IP lawyers a-scurryin’, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2005, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-wikilyrics-gone/310714/3 "2005-07-01T23:59:00Z")
I thought so too, but the operator of the site said he had checked and what he was doing was legal. Obviously, he may have been ill advised. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2005, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-wikilyrics-gone/310714/4 "2005-07-03T03:06:25Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > I thought so too, but the operator of the site said he had checked and what he was doing was legal. Obviously, he may have been ill advised. Or a liar. Or just an idiot. He couldn’t actually have checked with any source with half a brain and heard that it was legal, because it so clearly is not. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2005, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-wikilyrics-gone/310714/5 "2005-07-03T17:25:46Z")
It’s like the chain letter saying, “This is all perfectly legal.” Yog’s rule #37: No legitimate business ever has to go out of its way to tell you what it’s doing is legal. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-wikilyrics-gone/310714/6 "2005-07-04T01:16:54Z")
I agree that the legality sounded shakey. But one thing I found was that there are at least a dozen other sites that are archiving song lyrics. I doubt very much that all these sites are making copyright payments. How do they stay up and running when Wikilyrics got shut down? ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-wikilyrics-gone/310714/7 "2005-07-04T01:17:31Z")
It got noticed and they didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-wikilyrics-gone/310714/8 "2005-07-04T06:52:56Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > It got noticed and they didn’t. I can’t imagine it’s as simple as this. Until I saw this Thread I didn’t even know that Wiki had ever had a lyrics section- and I use Wiki pretty often. However, as long as I’ve been familiar with the Internet I’ve often used it to look up song lyrics. I go to Google, type in some of the lyrics that I know in addition to to word “lyrics”, and the same sites always appear on the first page: [lyricsfreak](http://www.lyricsfreak.com) [lyricsondemand](http://www.lyricsondemand.com) [sing365](http://www.sing365.com) [stlyrics](http://www.stlyrics.com) All these sites sell ads, they’ve been in business for years, and are easily found on the first page of a simple Google search. That they are still in business has to be due to factors other than that they haven’t been noticed. That these prominent sites are still in business while much more obscure hard-to-find sites get shut down leads me to believe that they are legit and are meeting whatever licensing fees may apply. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-wikilyrics-gone/310714/9 "2005-07-04T14:11:37Z")
> [@](#): > > I can’t imagine it’s as simple as this. Until I saw this Thread I didn’t even know that Wiki had ever had a lyrics section- and I use Wiki pretty often. Wikilyrics was a seperate website started a few months back. It wasn’t part of Wikipedia.