Music Publishers Force Lyrics API Offline; How Dare Anyone Make Lyrics Useful
from the lame dept
For many years, music publishers have always hated online lyrics sites. Rather than realizing that such sites help people connect better with songs, the publishers only thought in terms of “copyright infringement.” Over the years, they’ve forced a number of such sites to close down. Chris Takacs points us to the latest such move. At the very least, they’re not forcing an entire site offline, but they’ve forced the owner of a lyrics site to shut off its API. LyricWiki had a nice little API that would allow programmers to embed lyrics from the wiki within their programs… but the music publishers freaked out that people might actually read lyrics without paying for them and sent out the legal muscle. As the article above notes, in an era of digital music, where fewer and fewer people are buying CDs with lyrics in the liner notes, online lyrics sites make more sense than ever before. Why are music publishers so against them?
Filed Under: apis, copyright, lyrics, lyricwiki, music publishers
Comments on “Music Publishers Force Lyrics API Offline; How Dare Anyone Make Lyrics Useful”
“Why are music publishers so against them?”
Mike, you are the one that goes on and on about “RtB”. reason to buy? Get the lyric sheets. If the lyrics are widely and freely distributed, another reason to buy is removed.
The process is so obvious here.
Re: Re:
Except who buys lyrics sheets in this day and age? Who would?
It makes more sense (both common and financial) to just go to a lyrics site, copy-paste lyrics into Word, format them however you want, and print off a copy.
If I told you I wanted to purchase the ability to view lyrics, would you consider me an intelligent person or a fool?
Re: Re: Re:
“Except who buys lyrics sheets in this day and age? Who would?”
The thing is that they are considered part of sheet music, although only distributed as such to people who actually buy sheet music. Most fans just want to know what the hell Vork and Zaboo said in their rap break.
Er, point is that the distinction made a hundred odd years ago no longer holds up, oddly enough.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well, you can find out what Vork and Zaboo say straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were. 😉
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Thanks for that, although I’m upset to see that the notation for a “+5 Dexterity Vest” is apparently a lost art…
Re: Re:
ARTIFICIAL RESTRICTIONS ARE NOT NOW AND NEVER WILL BE A COMPELLING REASON TO BUY.
Get that through your thick skull.
Re: Re:
I think you are missing the point. People might pay for framed lyrics, handwritten lyrics, lyrics done up in fancy E-Ink, lyrics that come with a free Beanie Baby, or whatever other SCARCITY is made part of the product. But these people are paying for that attractive scarcity, NOT for the right to read some English words that they have already heard sung/spoken in a recording.
Re: Re:
The lyrics are not a scarcity, so they are not AT ALL what Mike has been talking about with “Reason to Buy”. All it takes is to LISTEN to the song, and TRANSCRIBE what is being said.
How is that a scarcity? Some people are just better at accurately hearing lyrics and transcribing them than others.
We’re not talking about lyric sheets (which may or may not be what is actually said in the song) or linear notes. We’re talking about lyric sites that transcribe a song, and make those fan transcriptions available to other people.
Re: Re: Transcription
The special audacity here is that many, if not all online lyric databases are user-submitted transcriptions. Listeners are not scanning and posting their cd jackets but writing what they hear as they listen to the song; I’ve seen many inaccurate transcriptions but at least the sites are trying to fulfill a consumer desire. I can’t see how the labels have any claim to the lyrical content; the order of words in a song seem like a fact.
Re: Re: Re: Transcription
This is exactly right. The transcriptions available on lyric sites are entirely submitted by consumers. It is not the right of the music companies to take control of the rights of these lyrics when it is simply the opinion of one person of what the song says.
Sites like LyricWiki, whose API has been disabled recently, are made up entirely of user-submitted posts (hence the “wiki”). Lyrics should be freely available to anyone who wants them. People can connect more with the music they own by learning the lyrics, which will result in more music sales. Furthermore, the lyrics are no good as simple text unless the person viewing them already owns the song. So the music industry really has no point in going after the lyric sites, because they just are a forum in which people share ideas which help them enjoy their music even more.
Re: fuck them
Re: Hmmm, let's talk it out.
Pearl Jam didn’t publish lyrics for their album “Ten”. alt.music.pearljam had lively discussions about what they’d heard, in addition to what they meant.
I don’t see the infringement at all. I never will. I heard it, he heard it, we compared notes, we agree it’s probably “somebody else’s sky”. Make the compelling argument that I can’t freely discuss this with someone else, or make the text available for anyone else to read and evaluate.
-C
Re: Re:
I have bought a ton of music, all over the world, and never heard of ‘lyric sheets’. Are these as easy to buy as the tune iteslf? Where does on buy these? Are they available at the library?
Dear Music Industry: My only reason for ever looking up lyrics is to find the name of a song heard on the radio SO I COULD BUY THE SONG. got it? No 007lyrics.com, no sale. got it?
My process has changed to ‘jot down lyrics and look up later’ to ‘try kazaa and if no hits, jot down lyrics and look up later’.
Re: Re: How I find music
That is EXACTLY how I find most of the music that I buy. I hear a song smoewhere and remember a few words of the lyrics.. just enough to Google to find the song.
no lyrics? less sales.
Re: Re:
Lyric sheets? I want lyrics embedded into my digital music files… I don’t need sheets. There is zero reason to buy lyric sheets (for me) already, and it has nothing to do with whether lyrics are available online and everything to do with MEETING MY NEEDS AS A CONSUMER. Lyric sheets are not relevant to this issue.
Re: Re:
Infinite good PLUS infinite good DOES NOT EQUAL finite good that you can sell.
Sad to see this go.
I was going to add a lyric widget (based on lyricwiki) to my wife’s blog where she talks (i.e. promotes) songs. Right now we fear posting lyrics because of this behavior.
It is very odd to talk about songs, but not mention their lyrics.
There's a bathroom on the right
Excuse me while I kiss this guy
I just bought a waterbed filled up with up with Elmer’s Glue
The girl with colitis goes by
Okay, the waterbed is a purposeful reimagination of the lyrics by serious fans, but the others are all commonly misheard. While AC almost has a point, the lyrics are half of what connects a band to its fans. The better they can sing along, especially when they know there’s a bad moon on the rise keeps them from feeling like an idiot for singing the wrong words at the top of their lungs.
Re: There's a bathroom on the right
“…. the lyrics are half of what connects a band to its fans. The better they can sing along…”
Frak yeah. That was driven home to me a year ago when I first saw mc chris in concert. He does a call-and-response for part of his show, and having the audience, even if they were new, conversant with the lyrics was a key part of it. Huge CwF moment.
Re: There's a bathroom on the right
That beat had some cararacts.
But sheep don’t like it.
Lock the Cashbox, lock the cashbox-
Wait…isn’t he saying stop the cat box?
Re: Re: There's a bathroom on the right
Annie eat your oat cakes,
eat your oat cakes,
Eat your oat cakes Annie….
Re: Re: Re: There's a bathroom on the right
Poor, some, shook up Ramen, in the name of love…
Re: Re: Re:2 There's a bathroom on the right
Wrapped up like a douche, another boner in the night…
Re: Re: Re:3 There's a bathroom on the right
Oh, Lou A, Lou I,
Oh, whoa, I said boll weevils glow,
They glow?
Yah yah yah yah yah yah,
I said, uh, Lou A, Lou I,
No, waiting, you know those boll weevils glows,
This light, above, it singes my hair,
Boll Weevil Louie, gave me a scare,
That’s why I’ll never, understand,
Why, Boll Weevil, mates with a hen,
Oh, Lou A, Lou I,
Oh, whoa, I said boll weevils glow,
They glow?
Yah yah yah yah yah yah,
I said, uh, Lou A, Lou I,
No, waiting, you know those boll weevils glows,
Keep it straight...
Let’s get everything ironed out now.
You can’t listen to music without paying… you can’t read, download, or in any way get the lyrics… you can’t read, download, or in any way get the sheet music… you can’t look sheet music online… you can’t look at lyrics online… you can’t read the titles of music without breaking some sort of copyright… you can’t air drum or air guitar or even sing the lyrics out loud in public places or any other place filled with animals… you can’t talk to the owners of the music… you can’t contest the owners of the music… you’re not allowed to suggest alternative models of releasing music… you’re not allowed to tell someone it’s a good idea to use an alternative model… you’re not allowed to release any music you create and sell to the music industries… you don’t own any music you sell to the music industries… you can’t get any money from the music industries you sold your music to… you can’t let a radio station play your music without the station paying the music industries royalties…
…
TechDirt ought to create a loooooong list of things a musician who signs up with the music industry can and can’t do with their own music. And at the very end of each comment, put a yes or no.
I can guarantee new and upcoming musicians will look at that and say “OMFG!!! Forget that! I’m releasing my own music!”
I’d love to see that extra long list.
Re: Keep it straight...
That’s a Great idea!
I want to add “You’re not able to criticize your industry.”
Re: Keep it straight...
I’ll second that motion.
Re: Keep it straight...
It does seem like the RIAA is looking to get paid 3-4 times for a song to be played:
1. Pay for the physical format that houses the song
2. Pay to play the song in front of people
3. Pay to listen to the song
4. Pay a flat fee for all the people that could have but didn’t listen to the song
5. Pay a huge fee because you left the disc laying around that someone could have walked by and copied while you weren’t looking (the going rate in the US is $980,000 per CD’s worth of music)
Rinse & Repeat
Re: Keep it straight...
You need to add the column: “get paid for it” or “give it away online for free forever”.
I suspect when they get to the bottom and realize that the only thing they can do for cash is be a busker, they will be more than happy to sign a record deal.
Well, the could sell t-shirts on a friday night.
Re: Re: Keep it straight...
Creativecommons.org allows you to give the music for free only for non – commercial use and require a license for those who want to pay it in a restaurant. The license is purchased, AFAIK, directly from the artist and no record label.
Re: Re: Re: Keep it straight...
sp/want to pay it in a restaurant/want to play it in a restaurant (or other commercial venue).
Re: Re: Re: Keep it straight...
Or, you know, just give it away period. They do have the Zero License, after all.
Re: Keep it straight...
Yes, let’s by all mean keep it straight.
You can’t listen to music without paying
Sure you can…on the radio.
you can’t read, download, or in any way get the lyrics
There are numerous sites where you can read lyrics on the web for free. This action doesn’t affect those sites or even reading the lyrics on LyricWiki. It may be technically illegal, but you can still do it and I’ve not heard of any suit for copyright infringement over lyrics online. When all those sites are shut down, I’ll agree with you on this.
you can’t read, download, or in any way get the sheet music
There are numerous sites where you can get sheet music for free. So far, they’ve not been shut down. It may be technically illegal, but you can still do it and I’ve not heard of any suit for copyright infringement over sheet music online. When these sites are shut down by legal action, I’ll agree with you on this.
you can’t look sheet music online
See above
you can’t look at lyrics online
See above
you can’t read the titles of music without breaking some sort of copyright
Incorrect. You can read titles all you want. You can even copy titles all you want. You can even use those titles as the titles of your own songs all you want (unless they’re trademarked). None of those are covered by copyright at all.
you can’t air drum or air guitar or even sing the lyrics out loud in public places or any other place filled with animals
You can air drum all you want to any music whatsoever. You can play air guitar all you want to any music whatsoever. There may be restrictions of singing lyrics in a public place, whether animals are present or not. You may sing in the shower all you want. You may sing to your cat, if your cat will allow it.
you can’t talk to the owners of the music
Sure you can. But you can’t force them to listen.
you can’t contest the owners of the music
What are you contesting? Their ownership of the copyright? Well, you probably could contest them over that, but you’ll lose. You can also challenge them to a cribbage contest; let me know if they accept.
you’re not allowed to suggest alternative models of releasing music
Sure you are. But, again, you can’t make them listen or use your alternative suggestion.
you’re not allowed to tell someone it’s a good idea to use an alternative model
Sure you are. It’s up to them to decide whether your idea is good or not.
you’re not allowed to release any music you create and sell to the music industries
That depends on the contract you sign with the music industry. Contracts with indie labels may very well allow this. How good a negotiator are you?
you don’t own any music you sell to the music industries
That depends on the contract you sign. If you sell your copyrights, then that’s your decision, and then you wouldn’t own the music. If you license the rights, you might still technically own the music but not control it. I’ll give you half a point here.
you can’t get any money from the music industries you sold your music to
If you don’t get any money when “selling” your music to the “music industry” you should fire your business manager instantly! This, too, depends on the contract you sign. If you don’t get a guaranteed, non-returnable advance up front, your business manager or lawyer is a moron.
you can’t let a radio station play your music without the station paying the music industries royalties
Sure you can. Actually terrestrial radio stations don’t pay royalties…not yet. The royalty agencies are pushing for this, but it’s unclear whether they have a chance of succeeding.
So, let’s recap. Of the 15 things you claim “you can’t” do, you can’t actually do one and a half. Two you can do, though it may be technically illegal, three depend on your negotiating skills with the music industry where no one is forcing you to accept their terms, and the rest your quite free to do, though whether you achieve your goals is questionable. Now, counting the half point…
You’re batting .066 (that’s just over 6% or 1 for 15).
Just keeping it straight.
Re: Re: Keep it straight...
“It may be technically illegal”
I think you’re ignoring the context. The context is that you can’t do it legally. People can sell illegal drugs just as well but they can’t do it legally and when people speak within the context of the law the context should be obvious.
Re: Re: Keep it straight...
^Swings at sarcasm and misses.
Re: Re: Keep it straight...
Are you done? Because that took forever to say nothing. Obviously a couple of the claims were exaggerated, but it made the point nicely – and you give way too much credit to the record industry here, because a lot of artists do get screwed.
Also you apparently didn’t here about the woman who had to get a public performance license to play music for the horses in her stable. I believe that was in the UK but it represents the mentality, and ASCAP will try the same thing sooner or later. Just think: charging you for singing to your cat might not be far down on their lists, either. Okay probably not, but you never know.
And as far as the whole challenging copyright thing goes, you can’t just brush that off. It’s a serious problem that it takes huge amounts of money to challenge copyrights held by big companies, and there are no penalties for falsely claiming copyright. Meaning anyone with money has every incentive to cling to a copyright long after a work should have become public domain.
Re: Re: Re: Keep it straight...
And as far as the whole challenging copyright thing goes, you can’t just brush that off. It’s a serious problem that it takes huge amounts of money to challenge copyrights held by big companies, and there are no penalties for falsely claiming copyright. Meaning anyone with money has every incentive to cling to a copyright long after a work should have become public domain.
I’m not sure how or why you’d “challenge copyright”. The only way to “challenge” copyright is to copy something and see if you’re sued. If you do your homework, it shouldn’t be a problem. Except in a few instances, what is public domain and what is copyright still isn’t that complex.
However, I suspect that’s not what you’re driving at, but rather instances where someone claims a copyright over content that is not covered by copyright. How serious a problem it is, I’m not sure, but I would definitely like to see copyright law reformed so there is a penalty for anyone who files a suit claiming copyright where there clearly is none or for content that is not copyrightable.
Are you done? Because that took forever to say nothing.
Actually, no. The point is that these are serious issues that call for at least fact-based discussion; the litany of “things you can’t do” was a bit light in the “fact” department.
77,000,000 hits
Type “Music Lyrics” into Google. You get about 77 million hits. Way to go music industry. Only 76,999,999 to go!
iPods support lyrics since the early 60s, but iTunes songs absent lyrics?
Yeah, for example, if you have an iPod, you’d notice that they had Lyrics support since iPod Video, possibly even iPod Photo!
I am sure there’s some dumb reason like royalties or the additional cost for lyrics would bump up the price of iTunes songs to $1.29 a piece. Wait a minute…!
Half of the CDs I buy don’t have any lyrics in the cover booklet anyway.
Re: Re:
Half of the CDs I buy don’t have any lyrics in the cover booklet anyway.
Yeah, no kidding. I looked through every single one of my Mozart and Beethoven CDs… no lyrics.
😀
Makes Sense
Big Music™ is simply enforcing their copyrights to limit competition, and prepare the market for their easy to find, easy to use, inexpensive lyrics, sheet music, and guitar tabs website that cheaply and easily gives the music customer what they want and compensates the artists fairly for their work. Should happen any day now.
Re: Makes Sense
Oh, and you’ll have to pay a monthly subscription fee that isn’t determined by market value, but by how much Big Music thinks they can wring out of people for the “privilege” of “compensating” the “artists”.
Cool another great Idea ,,,,
“Apple has engaged with EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music, and Universal Music Group to bundle interactive booklets with album downloads from the iTunes Store. Unlike the PDF digital booklets bundled with a few albums, these interactive booklets will be more broadly available and, along with lyrics, photos, and liner notes, include interactive elements (possibly playing albums outside the iTunes environment). Meanwhile, according to The Guardian, the record companies are at work on a competing standard called CMX, which will offer the same sort of capabilities.
“
270 note/entry) Add a clone of this to the business plan but make it an open set of standards.
Re: Cool another great Idea ,,,,
Agreed. I’ve already taken note.
Are you fucking serious?
/facepalm
why can't they do it themselves?
Publishers seem hell-bent on stopping any software that automatically adds lyrics to mp3s or shows lyrics as songs are playing simply because they can’t make money on it, yet they fail to offer software or service to do it that people would pay for. Lyrics should be part of every legal mp3 purchase.
They’re only contributing to piracy.
If the lyrics are wrong, do the publishers have a say?
At least half of all the lyrics I’ve seen on online lyrics repositories of any variety seem to be incorrect. This is often because the band never printed lyrics with their inserts, or the person typing up the lyrics just didn’t bother to look for them.
In either case – is it any business of the publisher to take down what is essentially a creative reinterpretation?
Re: If the lyrics are wrong, do the publishers have a say?
Don’t forget those ones where the person typing the lyrics, for whatever reason, cannot type English.
ESL student, translator software (which is NEVER correct), dude’s just plain stupid and/or high…the list goes on.
Just buy a dictionary and assemble the words into lyrics yourselves…
Words are still public domain, yes?
Re: Re:
Not if copyright lawyers have anything to say on the matter.
Re: Re: Re:
I have a copyright on the English language so everyone here must pay me royalties to use it.
Those who had to live under the Soviet State had a solution to this problem!
The following quoted from:
http://www.origenmusic.com/sacred-choir-music-2.html
“The CD is opened with unusual rendition of Rachmaninov vesper “To Thee We Sing” performed by the Kiev Chamber Choir. The words of the chant are omitted. This rendition is reminder about crazy times of communist Soviet Union. It was impossibly to sing or record religious music in the communist and atheistic country, but it was possible to perform music by Sergey Rachmaninov, ONLY without religious words.”
You can also hear all the music on this site for free.
Makes Sense
Strike two
Useful to identify artists
I frequently use lyrics websites to identify a piece of music. Just pick a reasonably unique phrase from the lyrics, put it in quotes and paste it, along with the word “lyric”, into Google, and you can usually find out the name of the song, at least, and very often also the artist. Without being able to find those out, it’s going to be difficult for me to buy the music…
Why are music publishers so against them?
Why not ask them, rather than stirring up a ruckus serving no useful purpose other than generating rants against those ever so evil music publishers?
Alot of song liners don’t even come with lyrics. I’d say that more didn’t than did, although it’s been at least 5 years since I’ve purchased a CD new and the used discs don’t usually come with the liner notes. 🙂
Ummm...
Well, for starters, Michael and LostSailor are pretty much correct in everything they’ve said. But some more things need to be pointed out.
You link to your past article talking about LyricFind trying to get licensing and that they were giving up. You might want to look again; LyricFind is alive and well and has in fact gotten a ton of licensing, and in fact, acts as that central licensing body for the music publishers that they didn’t have before. Another company, Gracenote, also provides the same service.
It also needs to repeated that there are a number of lyrics sites that have converted to legitimate, licensed sources, and there is still no charge to users. Some of those sites are Lyrics.com, MetroLyrics.com, and LyricsDir.com.
People shouldn’t complain about lyrics sites being shut down when the only difference to the end user is that they get more accurate lyrics, better meta data, and less popups/spam/adware. I don’t see the downside.
Making a list for future musicians
Since my last idea was wiped out, I wanted to repost an idea I suggested that some people thought was a good idea.
Create a list of all the things musicians signed up with major record labels can and cannot do with their own music. Like:
1) Musicians cannot share their own music that has been sold to the label.
2) Musicians cannot perform the song in the open for free.
3) Musicians cannot share those songs with friends, family, etc.
4) Musicians no longer have any control over songs they sell to the recording industry.
etc. etc. That way, future musicians would have an idea of exactly what they can and can’t do. Usually this is covered in the contracts they sign, but having a list of exactly what can and can’t be done is something that the contract owners would never allow people to see (as it does not hide the terminology in the ‘wording’).
Plus, the list can be added to as time goes on… So with this story, the next list item would be something like “Musicians cannot release their lyrics without prior permission” (if a website provides lyrics like this, and the industry sues them, it’s a good bet the artist couldn’t do it on their personal systems either).
Making a list for future musicians
Nevermind. That post can be deleted. For a second, I didn’t see any comments at all as they all looked like they were wiped out. This post was just a recap for my “Keep it straight…” post I did anonymously. This comment and the “Making a list for future musicians” comment above can be safely deleted.
Thanks.
the real reason
The real reason that they don’t want the lyrics posted, is that they likely realize how badly put-together and inane most lyrics for songs are these days considering so many are locked into a cookie-cutter sound-byte type song setup.
I fondly recall when songs in America would be 5+ minutes long. (Hotel California anyone?) And even carry a message.
And as to they lyric-sheets and such. I don’t recall even SEEING one in any music store in the last 10 years. If they’re not going to sell them, then how can they say that ‘making it free, means people won’t buy them’?
what if
…what would you do if you could build an API for your self (without permission of course)?