Lyric Sites In Trouble With The MPA

Joe the Lesser writes "Apparently the Music Publishers Association is cracking down on sites, like LyricFind, that display song lyrics without permission. 'Just because there is no central licensing body it doesn't make it right to take lyrics and publish them without permission.' says Sarah Faulder of the MPA."

If they are making money out of it...

then yes there should be royalties paid to the copyright owners. Non-profit users shouldn't have to though.

Question:

If there is no central licensing body, who gave authority to the MPA to sue LyricFind on behalf of the copyright holders?

??

???

Some Clarification

First of all, the MPA never sued us. In fact, we were never sued by anyone. We hardly even talked to the MPA, since when we did, their response was "You'll have to talk to the publishers directly." - so, not very useful.

Our negotiations were through the CMRRA [cmrra.ca] (Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency), who did everything they could to help us - but in the end it turned into an administrative nightmare.

Secondly, this is really old news - I went through the copyright negotiation gauntlet over two years ago (and, of course, tried to get a slashdot story back then...). I'd hardly say that the MPA is "cracking down" on lyrics sites. Since the dawm of time there have only been four lyrics sites shut down - lyrics.ch (everyone knows the story there), lyricshq.com, LyricFind, and lyricsh.com. The final 3 were shut down only because we PROACTIVELY tried to get licensing - WE went to THEM (them, in our case, being the CMRRA), not because they were "cracking down" or anything.

Re:Uh...no

then it is still theft.

It is not theft whether it is paid for or not. It is copyright infringement. This idea that copyright infringement is theft was invented by copyright holders and those who profit from strong copyright protection. If you look at copyright law you will see that it is legally quite different from theft. (and rightly so IMO)

Re:Uh...no

The thing you have to realize, is that the entire music industry is exceptionally evil. Not plain run of the mill "kicking small children with steel toe boots" evil, no, a much more special and exceptional evil -- pitting artists against their own fans, and screwing both on a massive scale. This includes lawsuits brought against college students, state sanctioned cyberterrorism on a massive scale, hypocritical moral indignation, paying artists next to nothing for music that earns the companies millions of dollars net, and actions like this, which take a practice which wouldn't be illegal anywhere else(scrawl down the lyrics to your favourite song, and hand out a bunch of copies. No court in the country would touch the case with a 500ft pole) and call it something different because "it's digital", bribing(through the more ambiguous "softmoney contribution), and other evil things (though I'm sure they do get out their small child kicking boots once in a while for concerts).

In this case, evil on a massive scale is it's own justification.

Re:Uh...no

If the sites are taken down, then the copyright holders still aren't getting any money. Where are they losing out here?

Nobody will pay for the lyrics, apart from serious musicians who want to do a cover. If they don't want to pay, they'll just listen to the song, and copy the lyrics out.

Re:Uh...no

Either way you look at it, copyright holders are not getting the $$$ that they are legally entitled to.

That's right! Ever since I found out I could just find the lyrics to music on the internet, I stopped buying CD's entirely! You see, the only reason I bought CD's was so I could find out what song lyrics are. I've never really been interested in hearing the actual "songs". I assume most people feel the same way about this that I do, because otherwise the owners of the music wouldn't be losing any money and we'd both sound like idiots, right? It's a damn good thing someone is doing something about stopping people from having a convient way to find out what people are saying in songs! This "internet" problem has gone on long enough!!

Re:Uh...no

In the news:

RIAA and MPA have filed a joint suit against Microsoft. The suit claims that Microsoft provides a means through their conroversial web browser Internet Explorer, to download song lyrics and then play them back using a Windows feature called 'narrator'. RIAA spokesperson David Nuterballs was quoted: 'Not since Napster, have we seen such blatant use of technology to steal from our artists'. The suit, rumored to be in the trillions, pretrial will begin in July.

Re:Uh...no

Funnily enough, as it turns out I often hear songs on the radio for which I might want to have the cd. Unfortunately it is practically impossible to find out what song/artist is being played on the radio. It is trivial to get such information about downloaded MP3s. Likewise, I will often search lyric sites (or google) for lyrics I remember from a song in order to figure out what I was listening to, then I know what CD to buy.

These people are just as wacked as the people that think you should have to pay a dollar every time you dare to hum a song someone else wrote.

Re:Uh...no

Either way you look at it, copyright holders are not getting the $$$ that they are legally entitled to.

Something seems very wrong here.

Once you sing a song in public, the lyrics are now "out there".

This is getting more stupid by the day.

If you want to keep your lyrics a secret, then DON'T SING THEM and also DON'T PUBLISH THEM.

If you wrote a song, however trivial, and sing it publicly, then is someone "stealing" from you if they write down your lyrics? Put them on a web site? Yet, nothing has actually been "removed" from you?

I'm not arguing the legal aspect of the lyrics copyright status. I'm just saying that this is getting pretty downright ridiculous. Which will lead to a massive disrespect for copyright altogether. Which BTW seems to be happening as we speak.

Doesn't the MPA (not mpaa, and not riaa) have better things to do like busting down the door of kids birthday parties to arrest people for singing "Happy Birthday".

I will go so far as to say that I think one form of copyright simply should NOT exist. That is "performance rights". The very idea that nobody else can sing your song? Then keep it to yourself. (I can hear the second grade teacher saying.)


We need to form a SIG publisheres association so I can sue people who steal my sig. Would that be the SPA? Oh, wait.

Re:If they are making money out of it...

If they don't include the lyrics maybe the hearing impared should simply sue them back. There are lots of people who can enjoy music but whose hearing isnt good enough to pull the lyrics out of the music.

boy, is this short sighted

I heard an old Billy Joel ballad on the radio, a song from back in the days when I had hair. I just had a few lines, but the melody stuck with me.

I typed those lines into Google with his name, and the song popped up on a fan/lyric site. It was "And So It Goes." Never would have found it otherwise.

I did go out and buy the CD, though it wasn't easy to find. If this is their attitude, next time I'll just snag it off eDonkey. Fuck 'em. Lot's less hassle to just steal it.

Re:boy, is this short sighted

Thank you. I was waiting for someone to say this. I've found countless songs by looking for lyric snippets. I don't see how people posting lyrics online hurts the MPAA in anyway.

They're just a bunch of troublecausing greedy bastards. I don't think I'm ever going to buy a CD again.

Re:boy, is this short sighted

I don't see how people posting lyrics online hurts the MPAA in anyway.

Quick point of clarification:
RIAA = Recording Industry Assholes of America
MPAA = Motion Picture Assholes of America
MPA = Music Publisher Assholes

The last group is who I think you meant to refer to.

Words?

How is this wrong? If you simply listen to the lyrics, you can learn a whole song by heart, without permission. Are they going to crack down on people with good memories too?

Re:Words?

Its not for knowing the lyrics in a song , it is for republishing it.

Re:Words?

Well, gee. I can see how *that's* aweful. 'Cuz the last thing any song writer wants people to know is what his lyrics are! Think of what would happen if everyone knew the lyrics to their songs? Mass hysteria my friend, mass hysteria.

Seriously. They've got a copyright on something a guy stands in front of thousands of people at a time singing. I just don't get it. This doesn't hurt *anybody*.

Re:Words?

Ridiculous?

This is a problem with the monopolistic organization of the [R|M]*A groups. It seems the musicians want collective bargaining power at some point in the past, and now this beast is running around the neighborhood stomping on everyone.

Anywhere a "performance" is given of a copywritten song, or its content repeated outside the "fair use" guidelines, this group wants money. "Fair Use" is getting beaten into a corner; its the other beast everyone in the neighborhood forgets to feed. So, we end up with Girl Scouts who can't sing Happy Birthday around a campfire without paying someone. Such crap.

Let's recap:

- Buying a tee shirt/bumper sticker/button at a concert that's not "sanctioned" by the band. Just a screen of the band icon and such. BAD DOG

- Playing, singing or otherwise performing any copywritten song for a general audience that charges admission or participatory charges. This could include religious ceremonies, campfires, school plays, retreats, school trips on a bus, etc. BAD DOG

- Sampling over 1.5 seconds or repeating more than 4 bars of a prior song. Doesn't matter if the original is warped/manipulated beyond recognition. If it can be proven this was not your work, you are toast. God help us if this happened in literature or TV shows. BAD DOG.

If am SO fscking sick of the pompous attitude of these [R|M]*A groups. Musicians need to start over and draw a smaller line around the Fair Use boundary. They also need to streamline the radio play channels, publishing houses, and digitize their distribution.

We've all read these before:
- Unravel the radio play hits by simply exposing the accounting of their income from studios AND intermediates.
- Download by song.
- For the mortals, burn discs at the U-serve kiosk listening station in the mall.
- Mandate fixed percentages for artist royalties.
- Complete disclosure of marketing costs, without rollup these publishers and studios actually pay.

'scuse me
mug

Re:Words?

Whatever. There comes a certain point when ideas (misnamed intellectual property by these types) proliferate into culture that they should cease to be owned but rather should become public domain, as they are ingrained to the point of becoming common knowledge anyhow. That is the biggest failing of copyright law today.

Re:Words?

If you put a book on the net, and people download it or read it on a web site, publishers and authors lose money.

I think you're confusing the concept of "not getting money" with "losing money". (Incidently, this is the biggest difference between copyright violation and theft as well.)

In order to lose something, you must have it to begin with, and then have it taken from you. If your argument above were true, it would mean that when I go to a site with a posting of some book, and read it - somehow money that is in the publishers/authors bank account vanishes. This obviously isn't the case. (If it were, I'd like to see the money trail ;P )

What really happens is that I go to said site, and read said book, and there is no monetary transaction whatsoever. The publisher/author neither receives, nor loses money. Since they're not receiving money for their work - and most likely they would really like to receive money for it - they can then sue on the grounds of copyright infringement. They cannot, however, sue for theft - as no "loss" has occurred on their part.

If lyrics are on the net, who loses money? Do you know anyone who ever bought song lyrics?

I don't know - personally I think they're being a bit overzealous here. There's a lot of useful things a well-organized lyric archive can achieve.

If I buy a CD, and the liner notes don't include lyrics (some do, some don't), and I can't make out what the artist is saying - it's very useful to be able to look it up.

If I hear a song, and remember a lyric, but have no idea what the song is called, it's very useful to be able to look up the song title/artist/CD by the lyric fragment. Heck, it might lead to me purchasing the CD. No guarantee, but the possibility is there.

I don't think anyone would pay for this service, though -- especially in the first circumstance, where the CD has already been bought and paid for.

What I'm really concerned about, however, is what a lawsuit like this could mean for truly entertaining sites like http://www.kissthisguy.com/ [kissthisguy.com] (which is an archive of sometimes-hilarious misheard lyrics to various songs). I would think such things would fall under Fair Use and Parody - but we've all seen how much the *AAs respect those...

Can I sing them ?

Am I still allowed to sing (off key) to a song in the shower, without owning the original cd ?

Re:Can I sing them ?

Only if nobody hears you. If they hear you, then it's a performance and you have to pay royalties. You might be safe if people hear you and don't enjoy it, though...

lyrics for American Life by Madonna

la lala lala LA !, la la lala Luh !..

Re:lyrics for American Life by Madonna

Shouldn't that be

"What the fuck do you think you are doing".

That's the way mine goes.

Goblin

Lyrics

This seems asinine to me. Don't free lyrics serve to enhance the listening experience? It seems to me that they are most likely to increase music sales.

I mean isn't this fair use? I'll admit I'm still a bit hazy on the concept as it relates to this sort of non-commercial use, so would some kindly slashdotter explain how it would apply in this situation? Or are they talking about commercial lyrics sites? (I suppose such exist). I know I personally use a russian server for most of my lyric searches, and I'm aware Russian intelectual property law is or was rather spotty.

Re:Lyrics

I mean isn't this fair use?

It's only fair use if you're citing part of the lyric for a paper or an article. Copying the whole thing, for the sole purpose of having a copy of the whole thing, is simple infringement. Poetry is protected the same way, and you'll find that there are in fact several popular poets (or their estates) who aggressively protect their work from online reproduction.

Music is heard, but the words are still copy and are fairly copyrighted.

Re:Lyrics

It's only fair use if you're citing part of the lyric for a paper or an article. Copying the whole thing, for the sole purpose of having a copy of the whole thing, is simple infringement.

No, and no. I can make all the copies I like of all the books/lyrics/magazine articles/whatever and be perfectly within the bounds of the law. The part that makes it infringment is the redistribution part. Granted, that is being done in the case these discussions started with, but we have to make sure we keep the ground rules of the discussion in mind.

Sensible Lawsuits

This reminds me of Sony's attempt to have Aibo enthusiast sites shut down because they were doing things with the Aibo that Sony hadn't intended.

At some point, every manager and every CEO needs to stop and think "I can sue, but should I?" Lyric sites keep songs in the public eye, raise interest in their back catalog, and embed the product further into the cultural dialog. Is it a violation of copyright law? Yes, the same way that publishing screenshots of videogames is a violation of copyright law. But it makes no business sense for any videogame company to attack the publicity they recieve through the gaming news sites. And it makes no business sense to attack lyric sites which only serve to drum up interest in the music.

Question your lawyers.

Lyrics are copyrighted

Unless you're a top songwriter you basically get paid dirt.

Songwriters should be allowed to make money off the lyrics since they wrote them in the first place.

That being said, I think LyricFind and the MPA should sit down and work out a licensing agreement with each other to work out a deal that benefits all three parites involved (Songwriters, LyricFind and consumers).

That's really hurting the music industry.

RIAA is seriously making some good efforts in keeping everyone hating it's guts. Can anyone even speculate how lyrics sites hurt the industry? Dont bother saying "provides pirates with track titles", most official artist sites have lyricks and track listings. RIAA is slowly but surely shooting its own foot.

Ah, the iron fist.

You'd think by now these people would understand that if you can search a snippet of lyric and the complete lyrics show up, then you'll know who the artist is and can go out and buy the album that may have been unknown to you before.

Um, excuse me? Don't you want to sell more albums and get more royalties?

I guess not.

unfathomable

I can't count the number of times I've gone to a lyrics site to find a song name/title/artist based soley on a line of lyrics.

C'mon... everyone's had an old song running through their head from time to time, where they can remember only a line or two. Enter that line into any lyric site (or google with quotation marks around it), find the song, and mark it down on your "future purchases" list.

What the hell is the matter with these people? I suppose if they want to cut their own throats they're free to do so, but sheesh...

This has to be a hoax; no organization dedicated to making money can survive long with this level of stupidity.

Customer service? What for? That's the enemy.

It's no hoax. As someone else pointed out, this has happened before. lyrics.ch was fantastic but it got killed by this kind of action.

They required that the lyrics not be presented in text, so they had to devise a method that presented the lyrics in some kind of applet so end users couldn't grab 'em all wholesale.

The end result: if you didn't user Windows you couldn't use the site.

I stopped visiting, which, of course, was the point of their actions.

don't sing along -- you might be next

Why stop at banning reproduction of song lyrics?

What we really need to do is clamp down on people who actually _sing_ those songs, out loud, without paying a royalty. And I'm not talking just street musicians -- what about those immoral folks who sing in the shower? And the even more wicked ones -- since they try to conceal their crimes -- yes, people who hum along in their heads.

Let's face it. It's wrong. The original artist (via the record company) has complete control over how the music is to be experienced. Any performance not sanctioned by them is clearly illegal. And worse, all those folks who heard you sing would otherwise have bought the CD, so you're losing sales -- stealing from the artist.
Not only that, but someone could record you singing the song, even if the original CD was copy protected, which would clearly be a breach of the DMCA.

I know theft when I see it.

This is a surprise?

I don't know why anyone is surprised by this. Lyrics are basically poems, and no one would argue that poetry isn't covered by copyright. If I wanted to put up a page of poetry, I would have to contact the individual copyright holders and get their permission. Why is it people think music is somehow different from other forms of art and can be readily and freely stolen?

Re:This is a surprise?

Poetry is a text based artform. Musical lyrics (most of which can't even be called poetry) are not exactly rocket science - it's the music people pay for not the inane lyrics except in extremely rare cases.

I would like to see the business case for how lyrics damage record sales.

If lyrics are protected and cannot be published or read, where does fair use end? Can music reviewers still write reviews with lyric snippets?

Is posting the technical specifications of a product illegal once it has hit the market and ANYONE can get them for free, just like lyrics?

The only argument I see is that having the lyrics on a site generates traffic that can potentially generate profit for a site - so you are profitting from the artists work. But by that same logic, just having the name of the song listed on your site generates the same traffic. Are those now illegal to publish as well? Is it also illegal to place the singer's or group's name on the site, because that may also generate traffic? Are unofficial fan and gossip sites illegal because they generate profit for the creator?

The answer is yes. Remember all those lawsuits folks scoffed about when, for example, the Crayola corporation shut down multiple websites about their crayons, and *Ty (beanie babies) did the same? They even went so far as to serve legal papers to quake clans for using their names - and they could because they had the money to back up their legal departments insane claims.

Welcome to 1984.

Re:This is a surprise?

Lyrics are basically poems, and no one would argue that poetry isn't covered by copyright.

Poetry? Let's read an example of modern music and the "poetry" within.

Ahh, heat is up

So ladies, fellas, drop your cups
Body's hot from front to back
Now move your ass - ha, I like that
Tight hip huggers (low fo' sho')
Shake a little somethin' (on the floor)
I need that (uh) to get me off
Sweat until my clothes come off

Any law which makes it illegal to copy crap like that is OK by me.

Why is it people think music is somehow different from other forms of art and can be readily and freely stolen?

I like how you jump from "lyrics" to "music" without even changing gear. If I tried something like that I think I'd ruin the synchro.

Re:This is a surprise?

I don't know why anyone is surprised by this. Lyrics are basically poems, and no one would argue that poetry isn't covered by copyright. If I wanted to put up a page of poetry, I would have to contact the individual copyright holders and get their permission.

In this case I think you're... um... partly wrong. Whether that's the same as being partly pregnant (ie impossible) I have yet to determine for myself.

I can't necessarily say it's not equally wrong to reproduce someone's song lyrics as it is to do the same with published poetry. HOWEVER, the REASON behind copyright is to protect someone's... source of income, no? For a poet, this is the published word. For a lyricist, however, it's the song that his word goes into. You cannot argue that an artist would lose any revenue from the lyrics of his / her song being printed. Obviously if the song was reproduced without permission, there's an argument.

So yes, it is equally illegal. But is it equally wrong?

Why is it people think music is somehow different from other forms of art and can be readily and freely stolen?

Downloading the music that you should be paying for == stealing. Even most people who do it will admit to that. I just can't convince myself that putting the lyrics up on a website as a reference is the same thing. Or even close.

Attacking more customers...

I remember when the MPA tried to shut down the online guitar archive [olga.net] which is home to tons of ways to play popular music on a guitar - all interpretations, like someone showing you how they figured a song out from listening to the radio. The MPA used the lyric argument there, too. (this was in the pre-Napster time)
Then, P2P happened. All I gotta say is, you reap what you sow.

That is all.

Lyric sites are good!

Even if there sole purpose is to stop the muppet next to you with a walkman singing "Whats a glove got to do with it"

Lyric availability

I have personally bought loads of albums where there are no lyrics printed on the sleeve. For example, attempting to understand Moby shouting through his 'Animal Rights' album is particularly difficult without being able to follow exactly what he's saying, and websites where people have *translated* his shouting/singing have been beneficial and added to the experience. Besides, if the artist doesn't provide written lyrics on the sleeve, why should it be illegal for someone to write and post an approximation (because that's all its likely to be with a lot of heavy rock/punk albums) so listeners can sing along?

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me...

Somebody had to stop this form of intellectual theft - the music business has done everything within their power to prevent the derisory practice of unlicensed shower performances - nonsense rhymes by artists with poor articulation etc. Clearly something had to be done or risk the entire population embarking on a karaoke binge.

Next up for US lawmakers

After their pockets have been suitably lined for the trouble-

Without owning the CD, or the rights, you can't:

Sing it,
tell a friend,
write it down,
remember it,
listen to a friend's copy,
listen to it in someone else's car
hear someone sing it (excepting the band, provided you paid them in the first place)

am I missing anything?

This is assinine.

That's how I buy my music

I use those sites to find out the who and what for song. Typically I hear something on the radio but I don't know who is signing it. All I can remember is phrase from it. So I use those phrases to search the net and find the song title and band. All the music industry is doing to me is reducing the likelihood that I will buy another album.

RIAA lobby congress to impose tax on all paper

"We feel it is only fair to compensate our members for the loss of earnings caused by the illegitimate transcription of unlicensed lyrics"

What the hell

Everyone take a pledge and put up the lyrics of any one song in your personal web space. Suppose 100000 of these turn up overnight, what can they do about it? If they send you a C&D then take the page off; there will still be 99999 sites left.

Finding them will still be easy: if you know 2 or 3 words of a song, type those words + authorname + songtitle + the word lyrics into google and you're still going to find it just as easily.

Re:What the hell

I think that this was best said by the Talking Heads in their song I Zimbra

"GadJi Beri Bimba Clan Dridi
Lauli Lonni Cadori Gadjam
A Bim Beri Glassalal Glandride
E Glassala Tuffm I ZIMBRA

Bim Blassa Galassasa Zimbrabim
Blassa Galassasa Zimbrabim

A Bim Beri Glassala Grandrid
E Glassala Tuffm I ZIMBRA

GadJi Beri Bimba Clan Dridi
Lauli Lonni Cadori Gadjam
A Bim Beri Glassalal Glandride
E Glassala Tuffm I ZIMBRA"

-- The Talking Heads, "I Zimbra"

Stupid

This is just stupid.

"Hey! Did you buy the new Eminem CD?"

"No! I went to lyricfind.com and READ THE LYRICS for free!"

"Cool! Think I can read the new Britney Spears CD there?"

"Sure! Why not?"

"Great! Now we'll NEVER HAVE TO BUY CD's AGAIN!!!" :P

Good for them

This is great news. A few more crackdowns on these criminal sites (lyrics, guitar tablature, fan sites) and entire music catalogs will become illegal to listen to, even should you purchase the CD. At some point they may criminalize multiple listening sessions to a CD, instead requiring a license renewal for every session. Rewind and Play? Nah. Take out the credit, relicence, then play. Soon the companies will just legisltate themselves to death and we can get on enjoying music.

I'm definitely a lyrics person. I love clever lines even if the music verges on the pretentious ("sun so bright it leaves no shadows, only scars, carved into stone on fhe face of the earth", "like someone took a knife, edgy and dull, cut a six inch valley through the middle of my soul") It's not Shakespeare but it's about the only thing interesting in many songs. Take away my ability to view lyrics and I won't buy the music.

And I know at some point they'll go after the tab sites that put their own versions of songs.

This isn't new

This isn't a new trend. Remember what was the ultimate lyrics site, http://lyrics.ch - no adverts, no fancy web pages, just fast access to music lyrics. And what happened?

Here's some links

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,17499,00. html [wired.com]

http://slashdot.org/articles/99/01/23/1031244.shtm l [slashdot.org]

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/30/123324 6 [slashdot.org]

The music industry has been trying for years to stop os reading what their artists are singing.

Boycott

I have been against boycotting the recording industry as it will just give them more fuel to say how "piracy" is hurting them, BUT this is getting INSANE.

We need to slap some sense into the industry.

I'm starting to think an ORGANIZED boycott may be the only way to do it.

I think i know why they're trying to do this

They're just thinking about the future of pirating. See, first is starts with publishing lyrics. That's the easy part. Next people will start publishing melodies translated into text. Such as

"dun dun duh-dun dun dun-duh-dun/ping/bip-bip-bip bup-bup-bup bop-bop-bop-bing"

With the lyrics and the melody, a person can imagine what the song sounds like without ever hearing it. Oh the piracy that will ensue and lost revenue from songs imagined.

C'mon people use your imaginations!

Did anyone read the website?

According to this "authority", you must get permission before you record (video or audio) a worship service.

Right.

If you already have these recordings in your (church/religious) library, you must destroy them.

Right.

I think they presume a bit too much.

How far does this go?

Supposing I quote two lines of a lyric, is that allowed? What if I quote a verse? Where does something become a breach of copyright? Can I have a whole song with a couple of incorrect words or could it be a three word phrase that is recognisably from a given song?

This seems to be another excessive move from the recording industry. It seems to me that every time they take a step like this, the big record companies make themselves more obselete. Ultimately, artists won't want to be associated with their vile behaviour- there have been issues over artistic control of recordings for years and the more that viable alternatives arise, the more the creators of music will want to escape the machine.

Hopefully soon we will start to see the big kids of the music industry adding financial bancruptcy to their moral and creative bancruptcies.

Re:How far does this go?

I imagine next will be all the guitar tab sites - despite the fact that these are simply done by guitar-playing fans who can figure out the cords, individual notes, tuning and effects.

Afterall, they are "reverse-engineering" the music in order for you and I to be able to play the notes ourselves.

Assinine. All of this is simply assinine.

You call this entertainment??

Is anyone else just flat sick and tired of the "entertainment industry"? Isn't the purpose of "entertainment" to make life more enjoyable? Does anyone find being sued for ridiculous amounts of money entertaining?

We should refer to these people as the "litigation" industry to be more accurate. I hereby vow never to be entertained by the litigation industry again.

Yes, I realize that nobody likes the litigation industry, but I'm just sick of it, and needed a vent. If I ran across an "entertainment industry" scumbag dying in an alley, I would only stop to kick their teeth in.

bitching about lyrics?

Last time I checked, publishers and record labels didnt SELL lyrics. (note: lyrics != song)
So whats the beef? Posting lyrics isnt stealing anything unlike posting mp3 tracks taken from the latest album.

I work for a band(s)

They're f*cked.

As long as there is a searchable Usenet archive, and the web itself is searchable, they won't be able to stop the propagation of lyrics by shutting down any one centralized lyrics repository. And this is good.

This action is only one more reason I only buy CDs used, unless they are from non-RIAA labels.

Fuck 'Em

I run a Dave Matthews Band fan site, nancies.org [nancies.org] (a non-profit, non-stock corporation), and we provide both lyrics [nancies.org] and tablature [nancies.org]. These tabs are provided to us by site users, who interpret live and studio performances as best as they can. We have them for a variety of instruments, but mostly guitar. Anyhow, I got the following letter last week:

From: "David Hall"
To: "Waldo Jaquith"
Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 3:31:50 PM US/Eastern

Dear Waldo:

It has come to our attention that you have been engaging in the practice of posting illegal tab arrangements on your website. Unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted musical compositions constitutes infringement under the United States copyright law, and the law provides substantial remedies to rights owners. Whenever printed music is copied or distributed on the Internet without permission, you are stealing from composers, publishers and music retailers.

It is essential to the future of printed music that the copyright law be upheld by all. Composers, arrangers, publishers and dealers are losing a significant percentage of their income because of illegal photocopying. This loss of revenue ultimately means that less and less printed music is available for sale, short print runs mean higher prices for what is available, and dealers are no longer able to afford to carry large stocks of music.

As a webmaster, you hold a special responsibility to understand and uphold the laws regarding what can and cannot be posted to your website. We urge you to practice compliance with copyright law so that no further action is necessary on behalf of music rights owners. Such compliance will benefit all of us in the music community - students and educators, creators, publishers and retailers.

Sincerely,
David Hall
Sales Manager, eCommerce
www.halleonard.com

Never one to take this kind of nonsense sitting down, I replied immediately.

From: Waldo Jaquith
Date: Wed May 7, 2003 4:31:06 PM US/Eastern
To: David Hall

David,

Make me. I dare you. Just try it. Seriously. I'll own you.

I'll be very disappointed if I don't get a nastygram in the mail from you within a few weeks, because that will rob me of the opportunity to waste lots of your money by using up your attorney's time.

Don't let me down, Dave!

Kisses,
Waldo Jaquith

I've been checking my mail but, still, nothing. :) Sometimes, you've got to take these companies in hand.

-Waldo Jaquith

No, I'm Not

What's your goal here? To continue to run your Website? To not need to kneel down and kiss the MPA's boots? To make a stand and defend a sane interpretation of copyright law? All of them are admirable goals. In your shoes, I'd probably have the same ones.

How are you going about achieving your goal? By tweaking lawyers. By tweaking lawyers who have already implicitly threatened serious legal action. By tweaking lawyers who work for a massive and well-funded organization who have already implicitly threatened serious legal action.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE, WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?

I know what I'm doing. :) I've been involved in two high-profile ACLU-backed free speech cases (Schleiffer v. City of Charlottesville, Microsystems v. Scandanavia Online [slashdot.org] ), once as a plaintiff, once as a defendant, and I've certainly learned a great deal about freedom of speech. More relevantly, I've known Dave Matthews Band and their management for years, and they have no problem with anything on my website, tablature or otherwise.

While knowledge about point the first is amusing, point the second is the ace up my sleeve. :)

-Waldo Jaquith

Where can you buy the lyrics, then?

I would like to know where I can buy the lyrics to, say, an older REM song. Where can you get the lyrics for singers besides like Elton John? Good luck buying that at Tower records... not gonna happen.

MPA has the right to go after these guys

If these sites are so useful, then the sites shouldn't have any trouble paying for the license to publish material which isn't theirs. Just like books, music, movies, research papers, and all other copyrighted material, it is important to protect the copyright. If I find utility in publishing today's New York Times or the newest Harry Potter, it isn't my choice to put it on the internet, it is the copyright holders.

As many college students know, searching Lexus Nexus, and research abstracts are extremely useful. But they also require large fees from the University to pay the original copyright holders. Likewise, if some is going to publish someone else's lyrics, they should have to pay fees to the original copyright holder. And if that means, charging the end consumer, so be it. Record companies may find it in their interest to publish lyric catalogues at a loss in order to drive sales.

Anyone who argues in favor of copyright looters should spend some time in Basra and let me know how that feels. I, like everyone else, prefers free to paying, but until they figure out cold fusion, you can't get something for nothing.

Ungrateful Bastards

People look for lyrics because they enjoy a song and want to sing along or quote the song. To take away such services is to tell those who pay for the overpriced media, "Sorry, even though you bought it, you can enjoy it, but you can't enjoy it too much."

It's just silly. What are they selling - the words or the music? I feel I should be able to reproduce darn near anything I hear as long as I give credit where credit is due. How is hearing a song on the radio and then posting what you hear any different than video cameras in public places? What if the video camera captures something copy protected - do you need a license to reproduce it??

Finding Lyrics

Have you tried some of the artists websites? Most of the ones I've visited are geared towards selling the next album. They often don't list names of tracks on their albums (I have to hit amazon.com for that) nor the lyrics. At least not in an easy to find manor. If it were, then wouldn't it be at the top of google? Then there are the splashy flash only sites. What good does that do me?

most of you have no idea what you're talking about

Look, it's very simple. Song lyrics, just like poety or newspaper articles or novels, are protected by copyright. It is a violation of copyright law to publish them without permission.

It DOESN'T MATTER if the sites publishing them don't make any money off of it.

It DOESN'T MATTER if free lyrics sites could have the effect of increasing album sales rather than decrease them. We're not talking about recordings. The RIAA is completely irrelevant to this discussion.

It DOESN'T MATTER if the lyrics are available for sale through legitimate channels.

It DOESN'T MATTER if you think the lyrics are inane and stupid. That doesn't make them any less worthy of copyright protection.

Unless you have permission from the copyright owner, you CANNOT PUBLISH the lyrics.

The MPA is entirely in the right on this one.

Lyrics and Tabs

The RIAA is on fairly solid legal ground when they try to stop people from passing around MP3s of copyrighted songs when they represent the copyright holder. Lyrics and tabs are another story entirely.

95% of the time, lyrics aren't supplied with the original song, and instead someone takes the time to listen to the song and try to guess what was said. Sometimes it's just a guess. Take the famous "Scuse me while I kiss the sky / kiss this guy" lyric by Jimi Hendrix. I remember hearing an interview where somebody who knew him said he intentionally said it so that it could be interpreted both ways. Writing down lyrics or tabs based on listening to the song and trying to figure out what was said or what was played is essentially reverse-engineering the song. Having said that, it has to be the easiest reverse-engineering task there could ever be. The output you're attempting to duplicate is a 1:1 mapping of the process used to create it. In other words, to get the words you hear, all you have to do is recreate the words that the artist was singing.

Now if this exceedingly simple "reverse-engineering" is illegal when there is absolutely no form of encryption or copy-protection, then no form of reverse-engineering can be legal. The MPA might have a case if someone were releasing lyrics for unreleased songs, where the "copy protection" is the lock and key under which the unreleased songs are kept, but once something is played on the radio, how can they pretend it's not ok to try to transcribe the song?

So sure, go after the people who copy lyrics out of jacket liners. Go after the people who release lyrics for unreleased songs. But if a judge decides that it's ok to go after someone who just tries to transcribe a song he/she heard, it means the end of "trying to figure out how something works". Say that bed you bought at Ikea, the one you lost the instructions for. If you figure out how to put it together and put up the instructions on the Internet in case someone else loses their instructions... you'll get busted. If you figure out how the levers work in the Hungry Hungry Hippos [hasbropreschool.com] game and post an explanation, you're going to prison. If you figure out how the magician managed to saw his assistant in half by watching carefully, remember not to bend over in the prison shower.

I seem to remember...

An old adage. "Never bite the hand that feeds you." It seems like the music industry is embarking on a deliberate campaign to piss off their customers.

Cracking down on file traders... Ok, that probably only affects a subset of their customer base, but going after fan sites that post lyrics to songs? It's not like the person who wrote the lyrics is going to actually miss out on song royalties because someone could read their lyrics on the web instead of listening to them in the song. Also, I know of a lot of parents that use such sites to figure out what their kids really are listening to. These days it isn't always easy to tell what is being said in the songs just by listening.