Disclaimers

External Links

All the information on this website is published in good faith and for general information purpose only. Silk Road Hymns does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information. Any action you take upon the information you find on Silk Road Hymns, is strictly at your own risk. Silk Road Hymns will not be liable for any losses and/or damages in connection with the use of the website.

From this website, you can visit other websites by following hyperlinks and YouTube embeddings to such external sites. While Silk Road Hymns strives to provide only quality links to useful and ethical websites, there is no control over the content and nature of these sites. These links to other websites do not imply a recommendation for all the content found on these sites. Site owners and content may change without notice and may occur before there is an opportunity to remove a link which may have gone ‘bad’.

YouTube Embedding

Silk Road Hymns uses music videos from YouTube as references for the worship songs. All credits belong to the respective content creators. Silk Road Hymns will never download music videos and will never claim ownership of those contents. All music videos featured on Silk Road Hymns are directly streamed/played from the original source through the YouTube video player.

Under YouTube’s Terms of Service, embedding of videos using YouTube’s embeddable video player does not constitute an infringement of copyright:

“You also grant each other user of the Service a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to access your Content through the Service, and to use that Content, including to reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works, display, and perform it, only as enabled by a feature of the Service (such as video playback or embeds). For clarity, this license does not grant any rights or permissions for a user to make use of your Content independent of the Service.”

Copyright Laws

Silk Road Hymns is a non-commercial and non-profit website. The English translations and reinterpretations by Silk Road Hymns are results of recreational language learning, which is a form of research and/or review. Hence, the activities of Silk Road Hymns are within the boundaries of “exception”, “fair use” or “fair dealing” as stipulated by the copyright laws of the various countries.

Bangladesh

Under Chapter 15 (পঞ্চদশ অধ্যায়) – Section 70 (৭০) and Section 73 (৭৩) of the Copyright Act 2023, allowance is made for purposes such as research, criticism, review, translation. Non-profit educational and research tips the balance in the favor of non-infringement. This is applicable to Christian music produced in Bangladesh.

China

Under Section 24 of the Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China 2020, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as use of a published work of another for purposes of personal study, research, appreciation, translation, adaptation, compilation, or broadcasting. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit educational and research tips the balance in the favor of fair use. This is applicable to Christian music produced in China.

Egypt

Law No. 82 of 2002
on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights

Under Article 171 of Law No. 82 of 2002 on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights ( Reference 1 , Reference 2 ), once a work has been published, the author may not prevent others from making analytical studies, quotations, or extracts from the work for purposes of criticism, discussion, or information. This is applicable to the YouTube videos of Coptic Christian hymns published by YouTube channels based in Egypt, and also the lyrics of the hymns published by the various websites that curate the Coptic hymns. Silk Road Hymns provides English translations of Coptic hymns together with the original texts, and this activity can be considered analytical studies for purposes of information.

Greece

Law 2121/1993 Copyright,
Related Rights and Cultural Matters

Under Article 31: Special Commencement of the Duration of Law 2121/1993, for anonymous or pseudonymous works, the term of copyright lasts for 70 years computed from 1st January of the year after that in which the work is lawfully made available to the public. Greek Orthodox Byzantine hymns, which are in the original Koine Greek, are written mostly by anonymous or pseudonymous hymnographers from ancient times, and therefore can be considered public domain.

According to an article titled “Hyperlinking, making available and copyright infringement: lessons from European national courts” in Vol. 8 (2017) of the European Journal of Law and Technology (EJLT), YouTube embedding can be considered a form of hyperlink that contains an audiovisual file from a different website and integrates it into the page being viewed, giving the impression that the content belongs to the viewed page. This particular type of link is activated automatically by the browser, making the content visible on the viewed page without the user’s intervention.

Silk Road Hymn categorizes and indexes Greek Orthodox hymns, and include YouTube embeddings in the respective webpages for the individual hymns, according to various search criteria. Following the example of Magistrate’s Court of Kilkis Decision 965/2010 in Greece, Silk Road Hymn will not be liable for infringement of copyright law 2121/1993, as it only provides links that redirected to YouTube where the videos are stored and the visitors can choose the website of streaming. The collected data are public information, in the sense that internet users can find the YouTube videos directly if they are aware of the URLs without any intervention from Silk Road Hymns.

India

The Copyright Act, 1957

Under Chapter XI – Section 52 of the Copyright Act 1957, allowance is made for “fair dealing” for purposes such as research, criticism, review, reporting of current events and current affairs. Fair dealing is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit educational and research tips the balance in the favor of fair dealing. This is applicable to Christian music produced in India.

Lebanon

Law No. 75 of April 3, 1999,
on the Protection of Literary and Artistic Property

Under Chapter VI of Law No. 75 of April 3, 1999, on the Protection of Literary and Artistic Property ( Reference 1 , Reference 2 ), it is permitted, without the authorization of the author and without obligation to compensate, to use a limited part of any legally published work for purposes of criticism, argumentation or citation or for an educational purpose, provided that the part used does not exceed what is necessary and customary. However, the name of the author and the source shall always be indicated, if the name of the author is included in the work. This is applicable to the Arabic Christian songs produced in Lebanon.

Pakistan

Under Chapter XII – Section 57 of the Copyright Ordinance 1962, allowance is made for “fair dealing” for purposes such as research, criticism, review, reporting of current events. Fair dealing is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit educational and research tips the balance in the favor of fair dealing. This is applicable to Christian music produced in Pakistan.

United Kingdom (UK)

Under Section 30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, allowance is made for “fair dealing” for purposes such as criticism or review, provided that the work has been made available to the public by any means. Fair dealing is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. This is applicable to Christian music produced in the UK.

United States of America (USA)

Under Chapter 1: Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit educational and research tips the balance in the favor of fair use. This is applicable to Christian music produced in the US, and the use of YouTube videos in general as YouTube operates under US law.