Talk:Fuck tha Police

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It's not copyright violation: see Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive:[1]. They have the lyrics to this song printed on a webpage, which I will link. 007 03:01, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

song lyrics are all over the internet, but that doesn't necessarily give wiki permission to reprint. I'm looking around EMI's site (they're the label that I think now owns NWA catalog material) to see if there's a clear copyright policy. Wikipedia is going to be included in a linux software drop in the future, so there's a concerted effort to make sure everything is as 'clean' as possible.. copyvios, formatting, etc. Feco 03:03, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but OHHLA (Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive)has been doing it for years, and no one has raised objections. It is an established site. See: Fuck Tha Police Compete Lyrics. It's legit. 007 03:06, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

refer to [2]. Note that they're careful not to use the magic word copyright. If individual lyrics were un-copyrightable, the site could claim copyright of the entire corpus as a compilation. This suggests that someone, somewhere owns copyright on the songs. Using "well, that other website got away with it" isn't the best argument to defend a copyvio.Feco 03:24, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Also, please leave the copyvio notice in place while the article is looked at by better judges of copyright. Feco 03:24, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Alright, let's wait and see then. Then you should note that NWA song lyrics are quoted in other Wikipedia articles, such as Straight Outta Compton. Those may also be copyvio... 007 03:37, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

See: [3] for press coverage. 007 03:55, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I believe that this lyric is copyrighted and that publishing part of it is covered either by copyright or by fair use. I looked at fair use (which doesn't provide legal advice, of course) and didn't understand precisely what counts as fair use, but Fair Use in a Nutshell says that "Only a court can determine with authority whether a particular use is a fair use." Wikipedia:Fair use mentions quotes, but seems to be mostly about images. If we decide to quote a few lines to illustrate a point, I would be surprised if that was a copyright violation. I'm not sure that anything beyond that is necessary for an encyclopedia article. If we decide that Wikipedia might be prohibited from reproducing a whole stanza here, then at least we can link to OHHLA. OHHLA had legal trouble once. I think that it had to take down its audio samples, but not its lyrics. I'm not an American or a lawyer, so you might like to take this with a pinch of salt. Tim Ivorson 17:07, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

One of the fair-use tests can be described as a relative proportion test... WHAT percentage of the copyrighted work ended up on your use, and WHAT percentage of your use consists of the copyrighted work? In this case, 100% of the original lyrics were on our site, which would almost certainly exceed fair-use rules (courts have never put a firm threshold number on the relative proportion test). Feco 17:15, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That depends on what you take as the copyrighted work. Reproduced here was the whole of the written form of that stanza, nearly one third of the written form of that lyric (it included three stanzas and Judge Dre's adjudication) and some smaller proportion of the audio version (my copy doesn't consist of only words, but also of voices and other sounds) or the album. I downloaded a 30 second sample of Public Enemy's Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos from Wikipedia. I think that that is a larger proportion of that copyrighted work because it contains the original audio. For what it's worth, my view is that even if the quotation is exempt from copyright (possible) and even if Wikipedia is brave enough to take advantage of any exemption (slightly less likely), this article would not benefit from such a long quote. Tim Ivorson 17:51, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Okay, here is the deal: I was planning on probably quoting the complete lyrics in the article, my view being that as long as someone started the article, it wouldn't be a stretch if the entire song was typed up: that's not necessary; but I would like to include at least the first four lines of Ice Cube's verse. And by the way, as Tim pointed out, less than one-third of the words to the song were reproduced: only Ice Cube's verse (there are two more verses, one by M.C. Ren, and one by Eazy E), plus a final line by Dr. Dre. 007 19:17, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The first four lines are a very good choice. I've thought more about linking to OHHLA here. The OHHLA FAQ says:

Do not place direct hyperlinks to any lyrics on this site.

I don't think that that request is legally enforceable, but it would be polite of Wikipedia to follow it. Unfortunately, the OHHLA page linking directly to the lyrics isn't very helpful. Tim Ivorson 11:46, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Doing some research on the net has left me with the impression that it's generally ok to quote song lyrics, but it's best to ask first - do you think this necessitates an e-mail to the record label checking up on the legality of the entry?--PolPotPie 19:59, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If we need permission, then that might be a problem. Any permission must be compatible with the GFDL. Tim Ivorson 13:22, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Anybody see Ice Cube at a movie promo being serenaded by two real cops singing "Fuck the Police"? I saw it recently. He looked really confused and not happy about it.

[edit] Request a fair use examination of this article with lyrics.

See discussion above and the article please. Ronbo76 05:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

wikipedia is not selling or claiming ownership, any one who disagrees must be a lawyer out for blood, or some facist corporation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.25.105.6 (talk) 19:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC).