Free the Lyrics

Sources were saying the crackdown would start in January, but now it’s looking like February.

Music Publishers Ready Major Push Against Online Copyright Violators [techweb.com]

The Music Publishers’ Association said Monday it plans to launch by early February its first major push to shut down Web sites that illegally offer copyrighted sheet music.

I had previously posted a list of likely web sites that the music industry may go after starting in 2006, but my list only included lyrics sites. After reading the TechWeb article, I get the feeling there will be some tablature sites in the mix.

I started searching around for candidates, but quickly realized that a lot of the top sites are already taking precautionary measures. In a previous post, I listed mxtabs.net, powertabs.net, and taborama.com as having taken down their content. Edit (2005-12-20) guitartabs.cc is still up, but when I first posted it returned a blank page.

And of the sites that are still up, many seem to be legit. As an example, let’s look at ultimate-guitar.com. In their about page it says:

Ultimate-Guitar.Com regularly pay royalties to an appropriate rightholders.

The site operates in Russia, and explains in their page how they’re operating within local laws. I’m no lawyer, let alone an expert on international law, so I’ll let the MPA figure out if they have a case against ultimate-guitar.com.

I just read the following over at Digg. I noticed a lot of comments in the Digg thread about how the RIAA will be cracking down on lyricsfly.com. First of all, it’s not the RIAA, but the MPA (as I mention in Clearing up some confusion). And second of all, lyricsfly.com doesn’t have any ads, so it’s low on the music industry’s list of priorities.

Very cool lyrics site with auto suggest artist, song or album as you type in the search box. No ads, no popups and no big graphics. Just plain search box. Looks very much like the front page of Google. It’s also quite fast. Almost every search I did was just over 1 sec. This one definitely goes on my bookmarks.

read more | digg story

A couple posts ago I mentioned this article, which says that the MPA plans on shutting down 5 or 6 large lyrics sites in 2006. So, who will be the first to go? I can only speculate.

For starters, I did a Google search for lyrics, and took a look at the Alexa ranking for each of the top results. It’s not completely accurate, but it’s a good estimate of how popular a site is. Here are the top 6 Alexa rankings of the top 10 Google results.

1,076 - azlyrics.com
1,469 - sing365.com
2,522 - lyrics.com
2,961 - letssingit.com
3,112 - lyricsfreak.com
4,567 - lyrics.astraweb.com

They all have advertisements, so they’re all making money, which makes them targets of the MPA.

However, not all the sites listed above are striking it rich. At lyrics.astraweb.com’s about page, the webmaster Alex laments about having more expenses than revenue maintaining the site.

In my previous post, I mentioned how music publisher Warner Chappell would like to come up with a lyric search tool that the industry will stand behind. You know what that implies to me? The MPA, NMPA, and music publishers don’t know what they’re doing if they haven’t thought about this until now. They want to take down illegitimate lyrics sites, and they have nothing to replace it with? Looks like my assumptions about their lack of business model are still holding true.

Lyrics Dustup Ends in Apology [wired.com]

Music publisher Warner Chappell is attempting at dampening the bad PR that resulted after criticism spread around the Web this past week.

pearLyrics’ author Walter Ritter willingly took down his application last week after pressure from Warner Chappell Music, but still felt his program wasn’t breaking any laws. Afterall, the lyrics are already out there on the net.

Warner Chappell reveals that their letter wasn’t an accusation, but rather an inquiry. They’re also now willing to work with Ritter to come up with ideas on how to create a pearLyrics-like application that is sanctioned by music publishers.

We’ll see how that pans out.

I’d also like to mention that at the end of the article, there’s a clarification on the MPA stance on shutting down lyrics sites.

Beginning in January, the Music Publishers Association, of which Warner Chappell is a member, will begin pursuing a campaign against 5 to 6 such companies, according to MPA CEO Lauren Keiser.
“Lost revenue for rights holders is in the millions,” said Keiser, “We’re not going after fan clubs, but websites that make money.”

Does this mean that all the small lyrics sites can go on operating as usual? I wouldn’t bet on that.

Wired article found via Slashdot: Warner Chappell Apology For PearLyrics

It’s been reported that tablature sites have been taking down their content, because of the recent lyric site crackdown.

mxtabs.net - Site is down.
powertabs.net - Took down content.
taborama.com - Took down content.

Is there any official news reports about these sites? Not that I know of. Here’s what seems to be going on. As far as I know, none of these sites have been issued a cease-and-desist letter. They are acting as a precaution.

mxtabs.net
Some comments at MusicianForums.com talk about mxtabs.net webmaster Jeremy Ferwerda intentionally taking down the site, and how he is supposedly “fixing the whole possible lawsuit problem.”

powertabs.net
The site itself offers an explanation.

[December 17th, 2005] Due to the recent actions of the MPA (see here), we had to change the available content temporarily. More information will be posted soon. Sorry for any inconveniences this change may cause. Thank you for your understanding and patience.

The site now has a forum dedicated to MPA and the Future of Tablature Sites

taborama.com
The main page doesn’t have any information, but if you navigate to a tab or lyrics page, you’ll find the following message.

This tab or lyric has been removed over possible copyright infringement.
We are currently looking into methods to display this tab or lyric that abide by copyright laws.

Google announced that they have new music search results.

One way of getting these results is by doing a normal search for an artist or album name. If there’s a “More music results” link, click on it for the special music results. To access the music results directly, include music: with your search, or you can simply go to the URL http://www.google.com/musicsearch and do your search there.

Lots of people have been playing with the service and have noted that it provides information such as “a page divided into ‘Artists,’ ‘Albums,’ and ‘Songs,’ including more images of album covers” and “a listing of albums, along with the online storefronts selling them.”

I’ve also noticed that it provides lyric snippets and links to lyrics sites if you search for a specific song. Since this is not too dissimilar from the functionality of pearLyrics, I wonder if Google is going to get some cease-and-desist letters from the music industry. (Nevermind the fact that one could find lyrics sites via Google all along)

IP attorney Fred von Lohmann at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has written an open letter to Jane Dyball of Warner/Chappell Music Group Ltd.

The letter discusses reasons why software such as pearLyrics is not legally infringing on copyrights. It focuses on U.S. law, and may or may not apply to pearLyrics author Walter Ritter, who resides in Austria.

This is a good move on the EFF’s part, not just to stand up for Walter Ritter, but to help deter similar cease-and-desist letters from going out to American software developers.

If you’ve read about the lyric site crackdown, then no doubt you’ve formed an opinion. I just wanted to go over a few misconceptions I’ve been seeing here and there.

It’s not the RIAA leading the war cry to take down lyric sites
In all reports I’ve read, the organizations mentioned so far are the MPA and NMPA, two American organizations that deal with all sorts of copyright and licensing issues for the music industry. Another group on the radar is one that was mentioned in the pearlLyrics story - publishing company Warner Chappell Music.

Putting up a notice does not get around copyright law
I am not a lawyer, but I will say that a lyrics web site does not become legitimate just by putting up a notice such as “All lyrics are property and copyright of their owners. All lyrics provided for educational purposes only” as is done at azlyrics.com

Music sheet sales and recording sales are two different sides of the industry
I’ve noticed people asking the question “Why are they concerned with lyrics as long as they’re selling music?” The MPA deals primarily with print music, so if something is affecting music sheet sales, it’s their concern. Another factor is that lyrics are bound to copyright just as the recorded songs are, so rights holders want to keep control of their property. But hey, even I’ve used the “long as they’re selling music” argument in the opening paragraphs of my mredkj.com commentary on lyric site legality.

The industry isn’t just starting to crack down on lyrics sites
The announcement that the MPA and NMPA want to shut down sites may come as a surprise, but various groups have taken action in the past. (Refer to the Long History of Cracking Down in my commentary.) The difference is this new initiative is supposed to be more comprehensive and coordinated.

As reported in Pared lyrics, the author of a downloadable widget that searches existing lyrics on the internet was issued a cease-and-desist letter from Warner Chappell Music.

Walter Ritter didn’t want to battle in court, so he decided to take down the program. Read his explanation.

Some say this is a foreshadowing of a larger, more prominent initiative from the music industry, which makes sense given all the rhetoric coming from music and publication organizations lately.