Music Should Be Heard But Not Understood 462
PaxTech writes "Warner/Chapell music has cease-and-desisted a small freeware developer who wrote a Mac OS X lyrics downoading application. pearLyrics in no way contributed to piracy or copyright infringement, it was merely a tool to search for lyrics on public websites and view or add them to mp3 metadata. This is part of a larger crackdown on websites distributing lyrics. Apparently, the labels would like to force us back to a world where Hendrix kisses guys."
Facilitators (Score:5, Interesting)
While I enjoy freely available and searchable lyrics, I must admit 9 out of 10 times I regretted having looked up the lyrics, it kinda ruins my feeling once I understand every single word and can sing-a-long. Am I the only one having this kind of 'empty-yet-lyric-filled' feeling?
Re:Facilitators (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Facilitators (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Facilitators (Score:4, Funny)
Be careful or your conservative christian wife will use the rhythm method against you!
Re:Facilitators (Score:3, Insightful)
"Anything too stupid to be said is sung."
-Voltaire
Re:Facilitators (Score:5, Informative)
If I can't look up lyrics, I'll buy less music. Pretty simple really.
MOD PARENT UP INSIGHTFUL (Score:2, Redundant)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Embarrassing (Score:5, Interesting)
The RIAA doesn't really help you in your musical career and they act like psychotic creeps. How long before people will stop want to be musicians because they don't want to have to be associated with these RIAA industry people.
Could music actually become uncool as a result of the RIAA's vulgar actions? (I sound like Carrie Bradshaw there) Or are the people who want to become rock stars so out of it anyway that they couldn't care less?
Re:Embarrassing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Facilitators (Score:5, Funny)
<burn karma, burn>Maybe you should listen to songs with less stupid lyrics?</burn karma, burn>
Kidding.
Re:Facilitators (Score:3, Funny)
(Ok, it still a great song, just try not to sing along...)
Re:Facilitators (Score:5, Funny)
I was really disappointed when I looked up this song's lyrics [lyrical.nl]...
Re:Facilitators (Score:5, Funny)
This, coming from someone who can't count to five...
Re:Facilitators (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Facilitators (Score:2)
I'd say this is yet another demonstration of how absurd the current incarnation of copyright law is.
Re:Facilitators (Score:5, Insightful)
I do. I'm an improv pianist and perform in a classical choir, and in fact saw (back in the days of Napster) someone downloading a recording of said choir from me. Did I think "Oh, someone deprived us of a $10 CD?" Of course not.
Re:Facilitators (Score:5, Funny)
But your actual losses were closer to $150,000.
Re:Facilitators (Score:3, Interesting)
Classical choral music makes up about 2/3 of my collection of several thousand CDs/tapes/records (yeah, I'm a dinosaur, but still). I have a pretty large circle of friends and family for whom it makes up a smaller, but still significant, percentage. We're all always on the look for well-done recordings of choral music, especially if the choir or the compositions on the recording are new or unusual in some way.
You need
Re:Facilitators (Score:5, Insightful)
Do it or not (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Do it or not (Score:2)
The other way is more useful (Score:2)
Of course, instrumentals and
Next.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Next.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Next.. (Score:2, Funny)
This is in response to a RIAA lawsuit where they sued a 12 year old girl for humming along to music in an elevator that unfortunatly was held under copywrite.
Re:Next.. (Score:3, Funny)
Wait a minute. I could use that sometimes.
The Onion (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Next..Next... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're arguing with your wife again. It seems she's missed her spending quota again this quarter. A proud patriot, you have no problem spending 85% and sometimes 90% of your income on consumer goods, yet she can't manage to spend even close to the 75% required by law. It's that foreign mentality, you suppose--that's what happens when you are educated overseas and without the benefit of a corporate sponsor. You have to remind her that if the Internal Consumer's Service (ICS) catches her, she'll be doing time in Philip Morris(TM) Prison like her uncle.
Oh well, hopefully a night at the town's AOL-Time-Warner-Clear-Channel-Blockbuster(TM) Authorized Media Distribution Center will smooth things over with her. That reminds you--you need to have your eye- and ear-implants inspected for this quarter again, otherwise you won't even be allowed in tonight.
You haven't attended church services for a while. Although your wife is a devout follower of God's Customers(TM) and shops in the Church Store at LEAST five tiems a quarter, you're not yet convinced that converting from Consumers For Jesus(TM) was that sound an investment.
Your son Rick has just graduated from the local McDonalds(TM) High School. You want him to go to Pepsi(TM) University like his sister, but he wants to go to Coke(TM) College. Not that it matters--the permits you get at either school are the same. Although he really wanted to attend Stanford(TM), his corporate sponsors rejected that proposal, based on what it might do to his credit rating.
Your youngest daughter just graduated Pepsi(TM) U. It was expensive, but she is all set now, having received a Creative Thought Permit and a Entrepreneurship License. On top of that she's accepted a job at Fortune 10 corporation. Of course almost everyone works for a Fortune 10 nowadays, there being only thirty-some corporations left. It's too bad she had to sign all those NDA's though--you'd really like to be allowed to know where she would be living and how to get in touch with her. Ahh well, it's the price you pay for our corporate security.
Your older daughter, after twenty quarters of employment, was finally permitted to tell you that she is working in middle-management at AT&T. Of course, every job in the United Corporations of America is middle-management. The cheaper--skilled--labor is all outsourced to Those Other Countries, whatever they are called. In ten more quarters, assuming her credit rating remains good and she has attained Shareholder status, she'll be allowed to talk face-to-face (no encrypted channel) with us again!
Apparently, her five year old daughter has been grounded again, this time for racking up a $6000 fine--singing "Happy Birthday(TM)" at a party without a Media Distribution License. She really needs to be taught a lesson--that as a patriotic Consumer of the UCA, she needs to respect the rights of Shareholders and property owners. What a dangerous thoughts she has! She thinks she should be allowed to say whatever she pleases, no matter what it does to someone else's portfolio! No one can get it through to her that terrorist ideas like that will land her in one of those "special" schools--and she'd be subjected to a lower quarterly limit on all her credit cards.
Fax from your wife--she'll be late tonight. Corporate HQ has re-instated fourteen-hour work days until the end of this quarter. It's too bad she's not allowed to quit her job--you could get her a pretty sweet management position any time in your department at Microsoft.
This document is hereby released to the public domain. You may (and are encouraged to) reproduce, republish, read, modify, and/or archive it without limitation.
Orignal story [slashdot.org] by Accord MT [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Jennifer Government? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Next..Next... (Score:4, Funny)
I'd be ecstatic if she spent anything less than 125%!
Spending at or below your income is so 1970s... it's, like, what old people do?
Overkill (Score:3, Insightful)
In any case I think the recording industry is definately overstepping its bounds here and should probably focus on winning the first losing battle it got it self into (the fight vs. p2p file sharing) before trying to start another one.
Re:Overkill (Score:5, Informative)
"Okay, I can kind of see the basis behind SOME of the recording industry's points (go ahead and mod me flamebait now) seeing as music is copyrighted property and whatnot."
That's fine. Today, we are talking about the music publishing industry. I know it's a "same difference" to a lot of Slashdotters, just as non-Slashdotter types might think that IT guys, MIS guys, coders and project managers all do the same thing.
"But aren't lyrics not copyrighted or are the hundreds of sites out there that give song lyrics away for free underground criminal enterprises?"
Lyrics are copyrighted, typically by the lyricist. The lyric sites get around this with those cryptic "only for individual private study" disclaimers -- I'd copy and paste the exact text but I don't feel like going to a lyric site right now and festooning my display with twelve pop-ups.
Anyway, the lyricist may transfer the publishing rights to a company that specializes in such things (similar to entrusting a real estate agent to sell your house or a CPA to do your taxes -- pay a little more and let an expert do it), or they might form a one-person publishing company. Lennon and McCartney created a two-person company, Northern Songs, Ltd.
As an aside, since many of these publishing companies are just the lyricist and/or the composer, and lyricists and composers are creative folks, you get some funny and clever company names. Look on your CDs -- you'll often see things like "Contents copyright (c) MegaBigRecord Company and Green Ardvaark Ltd." "Green Ardvaark" is probably the guy who wrote the words or the notes.
Warner/Chappell Music happens to be an exception -- it's a very large music publishing company that handles the publishing rights for lots and lots of musicians. They are a subsidiary of the Warner empire (as are their record, film, and book divisions) but they are not a record company, and they are not in the recording industry. They are in the music publishing industry.
"In any case I think the recording industry is definately overstepping its bounds here and should probably focus on winning the first losing battle it got it self into (the fight vs. p2p file sharing) before trying to start another one."
Different industries. This is the music publishing industry, that gets its revenues through radio airplay, jukeboxes, licensing to films and movies, etc. -- pretty much everything but record sales and other pursuits of the recording industry. Perhaps it would be accurate to say that Warner should not be doing this, but this very well might be a left hand/right hand thing.
Re:Overkill (Score:3, Informative)
Yes lyrics are subject to copyright [copyright.gov]. This particular quote is from US law, but I'm reasonably certain all countries that follow the Berne Convention (and most at least claims to) have similar rules.
Of course, Fair Use [stanford.edu] is a possibility as well -- but almost certainly not in the case of quoting the lyrics to a complete song.
--
The universe is a figment of its
Re:Overkill (Score:4, Insightful)
Fair use covers quoting small portions of a work, not "quoting" the whole thing. While you're correct that a product designed to search for lyrics probably isn't covered under Fair Use, that's only because it doesn't need to be -- it would only need to be covered under fair use if it copied at least some of the lyrics, and that doesn't seem to be the case here at all. Here, it seems to be purely a matter of helping people to find lyrics -- which they might then copy, and it might then be illegal; but they might not copy them, and even if they do, it might well be legal (e.g. on songs that no longer fall under copyright).
--
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
Re:Overkill (Score:4, Informative)
That is incorrect. Fair use permits any otherwise infringing act, so long as it is fair. While one of the four factors typically used to determine whether a use is fair or not has to do with "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" it is not determinative by itself. All the factors play a part, and the question is whether the use is ultimately fair or not. It is entirely possible to have a fair use that involves reproducing an entire work. For example, when time shifting or space shifting are fair uses, they involve reproducing the entire work.
While you're correct that a product designed to search for lyrics probably isn't covered under Fair Use, that's only because it doesn't need to be -- it would only need to be covered under fair use if it copied at least some of the lyrics, and that doesn't seem to be the case here at all. Here, it seems to be purely a matter of helping people to find lyrics -- which they might then copy, and it might then be illegal; but they might not copy them, and even if they do, it might well be legal (e.g. on songs that no longer fall under copyright).
Again, incorrect. There are several forms of third party liability under copyright law, where one party can be held responsible for the infringements of another, due to the former's involvement. This is how Napster, for example, was liable for infringement and shut down; because it was responsible for helping its users to infringe, even though Napster too essentially only produced some technology. You should read the Napster and Grokster cases for more on third party liability with regards to copyright.
what?!? he doesnt kiss guys... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Lyric Site Shutdowns (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Lyric Site Shutdowns (Score:5, Funny)
bum bum bum bummmm
BUM BUM BUM BUMMMM
Re: Lyric Site Shutdowns (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone knows it's:
Sax-a-ma-phone!
Sax--a--ma--phone!
Re: Lyric Site Shutdowns (Score:3, Funny)
Lalala-laa
Lalala-laa
lalalalalalalalalalalalalalala-
Re: Lyric Site Shutdowns (Score:2)
No body's home, no body's home, no body's home.
No body's home, no body's home, no body's home.
NO BODY'S HOME!
NO BODY'S HOME!
NO BODY'S HOME, HOME HOME!!
Re: Lyric Site Shutdowns (Score:2)
Re: Lyric Site Shutdowns (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Lyric Site Shutdowns (Score:2)
*wrong note heard from the horns section* "Wow, Bobby Corno really flubbed that note! He'll be lucky if they don't trade him to another orchestra next season!"
What's new (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like pointing a gun at someone, they "could" not get shot, but is it worth the risk when you could just give them your watch and be done with it?
Re:What's new (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny thing is, it's illegal to point a gun at someone and threaten them into doing something...
Re:What's new (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's new (Score:2)
It's kind of hard to appeal the decision a 9mm makes.
Re:What's new (Score:2)
Threatening with a gun is fairly cut & dried. Lawsuits are another thing altogether. By the time the lawyers do their 'Chewbacca Defense' dance & such, the final result can be, (and many times is), much different than what you or I would consider as 'Justice'.
What dirty deeds! (Score:4, Funny)
done with sheep, no less! (Score:2)
At least Bob Rivers isn't a buttmunch, he's got lyrics right there on the site. :-)
Re:What dirty deeds! (Score:2, Funny)
I must need to get my hearing aid adjusted. Damn whippersnappers and their weird lyrics.
Alternate programs. Plus, anyone got a mirror? (Score:3, Informative)
SingPod [tricheco.net]
Sing that iTune [apple.com]
Also a question, does anyone have a mirror for the pearLyrics program?
Mirror available here. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Alternate programs. Plus, anyone got a mirror? (Score:3, Informative)
Found a copy of it on RapidShare [rapidshare.de].
$.10 per song lyric (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$.10 per song lyric (Score:2)
As far as I can tell there's nothing about guitars and drums that gives singers a free pass to unintelligibility.
Forgetting one thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Since I don't want to be on the whole defensive of the RIAA, here's a link to the RIAA Radar [magnetbox.com] to balance things - boycott the RIAA!
Re:Forgetting one thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Forgetting one thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Their priority is to persuade everyone that there is no way to have one's songs sold without using the labels' service.
Re:Forgetting one thing (Score:5, Informative)
This app was a plugin for iTunes, so it's meant to fill in the gap for those who, legally, bought the song online.
Re:Forgetting one thing (Score:2)
Re:Forgetting one thing (Score:2)
Re:Forgetting one thing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Forgetting one thing (Score:2)
iTunes supplies a facility to enter the lyrics of a song you have purchased. Right click the song, select 'Get Info' and select the 'Lyrics' tab and enter them in the editable field. (At least on windows boxes) Conceivably, iTunes in the future could provide the lyrics of the song that you have purchased just like it supplies the artwork of the song at the moment.
None of the song
Re:Forgetting one thing (Score:2)
Surprised it took this long... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't really understand it. Unlike mp3s, I can't see lyrics downloads doing anything but boosting sales. Nevertheless, posting lyrics violates copyright and it is within their rights to try to get these places shut down.
Re:Surprised it took this long... (Score:2)
I think because it eats into sales of songbooks (music & lyrics). Go into any Guitar Center and you'll see racks and racks of songbooks.
I have a violinist friend and he constantly complains about having to buy sheets of music. In his opinion, the prices are a rip off, even for classical music and the sheets never last for more than a few month. Course, my friend is pretty messy so YMMV.
I don't kn
Re:Surprised it took this long... (Score:2)
cover bands (Score:2, Insightful)
yeah lets make it harder for cover bands to cover songs let alone regular people from understanding the message. Yhat way we can just string random words together with a crappy 4/4 beat and a repetative melody and mass sell crap you our consumers coz they will buy anything if we advertise it 24/7....see Brittany spears
yet another way to control and destroy culture....folk music was the evolvement of other tunes and melodies with new words....you can
More reasons to end copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
The web is ending our need to copyright, as enforcing it will soon be impossible. BitTorrent is getting replaced with third party proxies so information stores can;t be traced. Small bands that give away their music are seeing increased sales of show tickets and merchandise. Old Brick and mortar retailers can't compete with eBay and Amazon, and the used market always offers the same art for less.
Here's the basis for the end of copyright: the free market. The laws of supply and demand say anything for sale with an unlimited supply is worthless. Art is worthless -- the profit comes from how you package it (live versus CD) and what you offer as a value added incentive.
Re:More reasons to end copyright (Score:3, Insightful)
No. No, you're completely wrong here. Copyright is NOT, I repeat NOT, a form of property. Not "Intellectual Property", of property of any kind. Thi
WikiLyrics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WikiLyrics (Score:5, Informative)
There was (though it wasn't a Wiki). It was called lyrics.ch (which has since been domain-squatted by one songtext.net). It was compiled by avid music enthusiasts, and it contained the most complete and most accurate repository of song lyrics available...
Until it was destroyed by the Harry Fox Agency [harryfox.com]. The Harry Fox Agency is the sole licensor of song lyrics worldwide, and saw lyrics.ch as unlicensed competition. So they had it exterminated. (lyrics.ch's mistake, if it could be called one, was that they accepted paid banner advertising to defray hosting costs. Sadly, this got creatively misinterpreted by the courts as unlawfully profiting off lyric distribution, violating Harry Fox Agency's monopoly rights.)
So, yes, there was one, but it got destroyed. Don't expect a WikiLyrics site to show up in its place; it will get destroyed the same way.
Schwab
Adding to metadata... (Score:2)
If it adds them to some mp3 metadata, it has to copy them. That's copyright infringement if the lyrics are copyrighted.
Re:Adding to metadata... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Adding to metadata... (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if considered as part of the song, the lyrics are not a "small part".
There's a _chance_ it's fair use, but most likely not. Copying a whole poem or book this way is the same thing. The fact that they're lyrics doesn't change the issue.
And history repeats itself... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of the details of Vivarin's story are *very* interesting. The overall arc is similar to pearLyrics: a new search tool for lyrics is created, then eventually cease-and-desisted. But many of the details, and the early internet era in which they occured, make for a good read.
It's sad, even pathetic, that in all these years the RIAA and its member companies haven't gotten even the least bit of clue. These sorts of search services add enourmous value. Thousands of people were able to identify and purchase music based on Vivarin's services ("what is that song, I remember a few words..?"). Heck, Warner's laywers called to provide thanks as Vivarin had helped them to win a legal case.
I seriously hope that the RIAA's stranglehold doesn't let up before they realize that hold is around their collective neck.
Is it about sheet music sales? (Score:2)
For chords etc, that is definitely true. I wouldn't buy any if I could get the same thing online. For the texts I think it's much less valid, but it probably has some small effect.
Dang! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Dang! (Score:5, Funny)
(sorry couldn't resist
The RIAA doesn't want you to own it (Score:2, Insightful)
amaroK (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think there is an OS X native version, but it can be compiled with Fink. Other than the fact that you can't buy music I like it better than iTunes.
Re:amaroK (Score:3, Funny)
http://img217.imageshack.us/my.php?image=macgyver
Slap back (Score:2, Interesting)
The record labels may have the rights to the artist's sound recordings, but the actual music and lyrics to any given song is another matter. If i were the Pearlyric author (which, btw, is a great widget on Mac OS X Tiger and, thankfully, continues to work), I would ask whomever sent the C&D notice to p
Re:Slap back (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that, normally, the songwriter (or his/her publishing company) holds the copyrights to music and lyrics, how is that the record labels are putting themselves in a position to enforce lyric copyright?
It's not "the record labels," it's Warner/Chappell, a music publishing company. A company like Warner/Chappell pays money to the songwriters for the exclusive rights to control publishing and reprinting of songs and lyrics. Therefore, they are very much in the position to complain about copyright inf
Progress (Score:3, Insightful)
Their only hope is to come clean on pricing, availability, and a wide variety of interoperability features that consumers want. The longer they wait, the harder it's going to be. And meanwhile there are always artists with expiring contracts waiting to be swooped up by better labels, or self-publishing.
The only thing these labels actually own are:
- CD manufacturing and distribution: This is an antiquated technology that is well on its way out.
- A Stranglehold arrangement for concert venues: Well known bands can work around this. New bands might soon plan to sign 1 contract with an RIAA label, and then go it alone (roughly like Harvey Danger).
They no longer control marketing, or any of the new distribution options. Granted these "new distribution options" are all basically free downloads or illegal networks, but that's what they have to compete with. They could spend another ten years fighting those in court and be no better off. At some point someone will put together a better fee system, and begin to attract enough new and big name artists with expired contracts, and provide all of the features. If the labels want to survive, they had better be the ones to do it first. They still haven't even admitted they're to blame.
Weird Al Yankovic, for example (Score:5, Insightful)
Song lyrics are poems. They are written by professional lyricists. A person who writes song lyrics holds a copyright on what he's written, and he needs to protect that copyright in order to earn a living. Lyricists for pop songs don't get paid salaries. Their only chance is to earn royalties from sales.
Weird Al Yankovic is an example. All of his hits are somebody else's music with Weird Al's lyrics. Lyrics are all he writes--well, he writes very little original music. For years he's had a message on his Web site urging his fans not to post his lyrics on Web pages, and not to read Web pages with his lyrics on them, because they violate his copyrights and reduce his ability to collect royalties on his work. If you want Al's lyrics, Al wants you to buy the CD with the lyric booklet in it.
One of the main reasons people buy CDs is so they get the booklet inside that contains the lyrics. In previous generations, people bought sheet music or collections of lyrics in books called "broadsides" if they wanted to read the lyrics. This is how lyricists made income.
If lyrics to copyrighted songs are posted all over the Internet, that's piracy. The person putting up the Web page is a pirate, and the people that read, download or copy those lyrics are committing piracy also.
From the tenor of the posts I've read here, it seems that all of you recognize that a song, and a recording of the song, are things that the artists have a right to own and protect, but you seem to think that for some reason lyrics are exempt from that. They are not. You wouldn't tell Gilbert and Sullivan that Sullivan had the rights to earn royalties from the music, but Gilbert did not, because he wrote only lyrics and those are free. Same with Rodgers and Hammerstein. Both the music and the lyrics are intellectual property, and each hold their own copyright.
Re:Weird Al Yankovic, for example (Score:3, Insightful)
Umm, no. One of the main reasons people buy CDs is to listen to the music.
Re:Weird Al Yankovic, for example (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, over half of the songs on a Yankovic album are originals. Including all of my favorites. Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung, Good Enough for Now, and One More Minute come to mind.
Not an RIAA issue. It's an ASCAP/BMI issue. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sosueme (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wrapped up like a what? (Score:2)
Re:Wrapped up like a what? (Score:2)
Re:Wrapped up like a what? (Score:2)
I heard a live version of that tune where they actually changed the lyrics (can't remember to what) just so that it wouldn't be so easy to misinterpret.
Re:Damn.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Tin foil hat - OFF TOPIC (Score:2)
Note the instructions to avoid commercially produced tinfoil beanies!
Feeding the troll (Score:2, Informative)