Free the Lyrics

In March 2006, the MPA issued a statement in which they explained their position on websites that distribute unauthorized sheet music and tablature.

http://www.mpa.org/news/show/5

Several points are made in the statement.

• MPA members invest a significant amount into arranging, engraving, editing, marketing and distributing sheet music products, and illegal tablature cuts into their sales.
• Sharing the tabs is bad enough, but even worse is when sites make money off the illegal tabs.
• Guitar tabs do not circumvent copyright laws just because they’re claimed to be personal interpretations.
• Viewing illegal tabs is equivalent to stealing sheet music from a store.
• The MPA isn’t targeting authorized websites, and will work with sites that want to build a legitimate business.

Brent D. Payne, CEO/Founder of Lyric Vault, posted February 2, 2006 to a newsgroup in response to a question about how lyrics sites usually populate their databases. In his explanation he also talked about the lyrics sites crackdown, and reminded people that even though the MPA had made threats, no one has been sued yet.

The part that interests me is where he says that he’s had some luck in communicating with music publishers.

The good news though is that the publishers are co-operative with any the smallest of web sites such as http://www.lyricvault.com and if you have the right attitude a call to most of the major publishers will gain you a great response.

Also of interest to me is where Payne wrote:

I recently had an article published by the press that got the attention of a lot of the music publishers

Is this the one he’s talking about? Don’t Sue Me, Just Pick Up The Phone by Jason Lee Miller, published 2005-12-22. It has quotes from Payne, so maybe that’s the one he meant.

SongMeanings.net, in their Copyright Issues page, excerpts U.S. copyright law to make the following claim:

This basically states, that if SongMeanings remains public, stays free, keeps displaying the copyright notice on every page, and doesn’t claim ownership to any of the copyrighted material, it may remain archiving and displaying copyright lyrics.

Found another petition. keep lyric and tab sites on the web!

I’m not sure what will be done with the petition once it reaches its goal of 5,000. Will it be sent to someone?

I have to comment about something in the petition writer’s myspace rant.

if these laws go into effect, then they will have to jail people whistling songs on the sidewalk, cover bands, garage bands, karoke singers, etc. this is outrageous.

Ah, the old “what’s next” argument. Often comprised of hyperbole (”whistling”) and actuality. In this case, the actuality isn’t that cover bands and karaoke singers are being arrested, but that the venues (e.g. bars) can get in trouble for not paying the royalties on the music. I previously mentioned an article about a Washington, D.C. bar taken to court for not paying fees to ASCAP. Or how about a Fresno bar being sued for not licensing songs that BMI represents.

Here are some resources around the web where you can read opinions and discussions about the lyric/tab site crackdown, and also some related general information.

Articles:
Song sites face legal crackdown - The BBC News article that started it all
Labels Target Lyrics Sites
Publisher Apologizes To Online Lyrics Tool

Sites:
TabAid - A grassroots effort to organize gigs to protest the tab site crackdown
subject: music.organization - A non-profit organization that will be started to address tablature and copyright
LyricFind, Inc. - A service that will allow lyrics sites to license content
MPA - Music Publishers’ Association of the United States
NMPA - National Music Publishers’ Association
HFA - Harry Fox Agency

Forums - specific sections or topics:
MPA and the Future of Tablature Sites [forum.powertabs.net]
Selling iLyric.net [geekvillage.com]
Crackdown on lyrics sites, guitar tabs and song scores [geekvillage.com]

Forums - general:
forum.powertabs.net
taboramaforum.com
musicianforums.com
forum.musictalk.com
ultimate-guitar.com/forum
geekvillage.com/forums

Some search terms for Google News, digg, and technorati
Lauren Keiser [Google] [digg] [technorati]
lyrics sites [Google] [digg] [technorati]
MPA [Google] [digg] [technorati] (careful with this one, because MPA stands for other things)
tabs [Google] [digg] [technorati]
tablature [Google] [digg] [technorati]

Lyrics sites still up
azlyrics.com
lyrics.astraweb.com
lyrics.com (directory, links to other sites with lyrics)
sing365.com
lyricsfreak.com
lyricsworld.com
lyricsdownload.com
lyricsplanet.com
letssingit.com
lyricsstyle.com
seeklyrics.com
ilyric.net
lyricswiki.org
getlyrics.com

Tabs still up
ultimate-guitar.com
guitartabs.cc
g-tab.com

Tabs taken down
mxtabs.net (redirects to sputnikmusic.com)
taborama.com
powertabs.net (see also Power Tab Community FAQ)
dylanchords.com
lennonchords.com

I think Darryl covered a lot of information in the Q&A he did for mredkj.com, yet there are still a lot of unanswered questions. He has joined in on a discussion at webmaster forum geek/talk: Crackdown on lyrics sites, guitar tabs and song scores (look for user Darryl)

His posts shed some light on just how complicated it is to license lyrics for the web, and how it’s going to cause some limitations at first. If the MPA follows through on their promise to crackdown on lyrics sites, the ones that survive are going to need to reorganize how they operate - diversify, new revenue streams, etc. - in order to cover the costs of licensing the lyrics.

As for tab sites, it’s Darryl’s opinion that they won’t be given as many opportunities to license content, because they’re seen as competition to sheet music sales. There is a fundamental difference between the fan tabs community and the official sheet music business, so I hope the music industry doesn’t just dismiss tab sites as being unimportant.

Darryl Ballantyne is president of LyricFind, Inc., which specializes in lyric search services. Mr. Ballantyne agreed to answer some of my questions, and to help explain what’s going on with the lyric site crackdown from his perspective.

I put up the interview at mredkj.com.
Interview with Darryl Ballantyne

The wikipedia entry for Music Publishers’ Association of the United States (MPA) could use a little work. Currently it only says, “The Music Publishers’ Association of the United States is the arm of the music industy (sic) responsible for the production and distribution of sheet music.”

Here are a few rough ideas of what the MPA entry needs.

• Link the term “sheet music” by using the wiki notation [[sheet music]]
• Founded in 1895 (source) - Try to find out more about its history
• In the current entry, the phrasing “responsible” is a little misleading. The MPA doesn’t itself produce and distribute sheet music, but rather facilitates communication between the copyrights holders, the publishers that produce it, the businesses that distribute it, and the users of the material.
• The MPA initiates PR campaigns to make people aware of current copyright laws. For example, their COPY-FREE ZONE program was started to curb the photocopying of sheet music in the music departments in schools around the country. (source)

Shortly after I wrote about tabaid.tk, I found out the TabAid effort has shifted focus over to TabAid.com.

So, to summarize again, the idea is to coordinate a series of gigs by bands around the world under the “TabAid�? logo. The purpose is to oppose the MPA’s recent threats against tablature sites.

From their Concerts page:

Show your support for TabAid by attending one of the concerts. These concerts are being run by musicians who use tablature everyday to learn new music.

The folks at Taborama Forum have come up with an idea to coordinate a series of gigs by unsigned bands all around the world under the “TabAid” logo. The purpose is to oppose the MPA’s recent threats against tablature sites. Details of this initiative can be found at tabaid.tk

According to the site, TabAid concerts will be held February 14th to February 24th.