Is Rap Genius’s approach to song lyrics fair use? [NPR’s Planet Money]

Rap Genius doesn’t just post song lyrics, they also annotate them. In that way, the company believes, their use of lyrics falls under fair use. They are creating something new. So the Rap Genius team doesn’t think they should have to pay song writers.

But, the company is paying music publishers now, it turns out. This is all spelled out in a recent episode of the Planet Money podcast, when Zoe Chace visits their Williamsburg headquarters and talks about what makes their lyrics site different from others and the present battle lines around the business of posting lyrics online:

If you thought Daft Punk was saying something about a Mexican monkey when they were actually singing “up all night to get lucky” — you’re not alone. There are more than five million searches for lyrics on Google every day.*

And there is a big fight going on over who should make money off those searches: is it the websites who put the lyrics up? Or the songwriters, who put the words together?

[Planet Money]