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I tried to find copyright information about music lyrics, but it is too confusing, because it is related to the usage.
There are lots of websites providing lyrics, but it seems they are somehow illegal (though no complaint against them). Most of them put copyright notice that the copyright holder is the owner, and some indicate that the lyrics have been contributed by users (probably claiming that they have not been copied from the commercial CD).
However, the case of copyright for published materials like books is more serious. Consider a book about music, is it needed to obtain copyright permission for including a song lyric?
It is popular to translate the lyrics of a song to another language, and the final book contains the original lyrics and its translation.
Is copyright permission needed, or it is treated as referenced materials (no need for copyright permission as we are referring to/citing the original work). Moreover, the main part of a song is its music rather than lyrics.
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Music lyrics are "poems," and are therefore copyrightable independent of music.
That makes it invalid to say that "the main part of a song is its music rather than lyrics." There's little or no truth to that argument, and even if there was, it would not prevent lyrics from being copyrighted.
Others answered the key points. Let me address just one lesser issue.
"the main part of a song is its music rather than lyrics." Maybe true and maybe not. I recall Gilbert and Sullivan had something of a falling out over whether the lyrics (Gilbert) or the music (Sullivan) was more important. But even if true, the fact that a part of a copyrighted work is less important than some other part doesn't mean you can freely copy it. Like, if someone said that chapter 3 of a book is not a very important chapter and not really central to what the author was trying to say, therefore I'm going to copy the entire chapter into a book of my own without permission .... I can't imagine that a court would listen for a moment to an argument that this is okay because the chapter is "not the main part" of the book.
Yes, they are copyrighted. BUT, if you aren't quoting them in their entirety you don't necessarily need to obtain copyright permissions if your use is a fair one according to the rules of Fair Use. This includes uses for profit.
See my answer on this question for a breakdown of how to determine if your use is fair: Can you reprint screen shots of a game application or program without permission?
An original translation is a difficult area. If you translated it, you would be fine using that translation. But using the entire original lyric alongside it would be less likely to be considered fair.
Also, as my note in the above link indicates: you should see how your publisher handles it. Many will attempt to get permissions even when they don't really need to (such as in the Stephen King example cited in an answer here, assuming it was a part of the song's lyric rather than the whole thing.
The only "problem" with simply always asking permission is that a copyright holder can say no even if your right is fair. You are not then required to abide by their decision, if you think your use is fair, but it makes things needlessly more difficult. There's a poet whose son says no to EVERY proposed use even, in his words, a single word from any of his father's poems. This is an extreme example, but it's not uncommon at all to ask and be refused or asked to provide compensation that you don't actually have to.
Yes. The lyrics are covered by copyright and you need permission to reproduce them. I think at least some of the "lyrics search engines" on the web pay their dues to the copyright holders (Wikipedia says: Lyrics licenses could be obtained in North America through one of the two aggregators; Gracenote Inc. and LyricFind.)
Translations are also covered by copyright. If you are the one translating, yours.
It's worth remembering that copyright exists even if you don't register it with the Copyright Office.
Yes you require permission from the copyright holder of the lyrics in question to reproduce them in a book. It is not treated as referenced materials.
Whether you intend to profit from the book or wherever you intend to reproduce the lyrics is entirely irrelevant.
The copyright holder holds the rights to those lyrics and he/she/they can stop you from reproducing them without his/her/their permission.
If the lyrics are demonstrably in the public domain you can reproduce them without permission, but not copyrighted ones.
While I am not a lawyer, if you purchase a physical CD (bit of a rarity these days, I know) and look at the booklet which has the liner notes, you should see copyright notices for each song. If lyrics have been provided, the notice will be at the end of each set of lyrics. (KISS used to copyright theirs under an entity called "Opporknockity Tunes," which always made me laugh.)
And yes, you would need permission to quote a song lyric in a book. Look at the frontspiece for Stephen King's novel The Stand, and you'll see the copyright and permissions notes for all the songs he references.
As far as "the main part of a song is its music rather than lyrics," I don't think that's true — you can copyright an a cappella song, which uses no musical instruments beyond the human voice.
I don't know about translations.
As a general rule, if you are referencing or using someone else's work in yours, and yours is for profit in any capacity, then you should make an effort to get permission first.
Websites just listing lyrics are more of a gray area, since the only "profit" is from the ads, but if the person on the page is using an ad blocker, then even that source of revenue is eliminated.
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