Slashdot Mirror
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."
then yes there should be royalties paid to the copyright owners. Non-profit users shouldn't have to though.
Am I still allowed to sing (off key) to a song in the shower, without owning the original cd ?
la lala lala LA !, la la lala Luh !..
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
In other words: "If something is not explicitly allowed by the law, it must be illegal".
That's nice reasoning.
BOO! TERRO
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.
http://www.santacruzbynight.com/index.shtml Santa Cruz By Night Vampire Larp
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).
Last time I checked, redistributing copyrighted material is illegal.
What she means is that "just because nobody is there to sell them the right to redistribute lyrics doesn't give them the right to just do it anyway".
If there is no central licensing body, who gave authority to the MPA to sue LyricFind on behalf of the copyright holders?
??
???
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
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.
This sig was cut off by the sla
Information wants to be free!
RIAA and its minions roaming the streets with brainwave scanners to see if you are thinking about licensed songs ? :S
... doot doot doot !!!
That's just crazy. You mean I can't download the lyrics to sing to my favorite songs anymore? What I now have to paid for the lyrics? What's next, I have to paid to sing my favorite songs. This is getting more ridiculous by the day!
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.
Jory
Tell me how the artist is loosing money or it's IP with such sites?
Yes, as stated before me, it enchances the listening experience.
And all the credits are there. I know that I'm looking to the lyrics of NIN, not Celine Dion. And NIN is not loosing any money. I did not violate anything.
Neither that I will print out the lyrics and ask 5$/CD on the street...
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.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
Would it be all right to publis lyrics if they were changed in any way? I'll refrase that, would it be ok to publish lyrics in ALL CAPS and call that the BIFF version? (And putting it in the Public Domain?)
... hu hu ... don't know why ..."
Reproducing lyrics in text could be considred an art form (for sure there will be differences).
How about a search-only lyric site? Where you can google for that song that goes: "... hu hu hu what ever you mean
Why in the hell would anyone object to the reproduction of lyrics?
-- (:> jms cs.vu.nl (_) --"---
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?
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Then, P2P happened. All I gotta say is, you reap what you sow.
That is all.
That's how the FCC finally shut down the micro-broadcasting of Free Radio Berkeley.
The FCC won on a technicality that since FRB never applied for a non-existent micro-broadcast license, they were in violation of FCC rules.
Jory
On my favorite lyrics site, Darklyrics.com, the Norwegian black metal band Gorgoroth demanded their lyrics removed from the site.
Most metal bands provide their lyrics on their homepages, as well as tablatures.
AFAIK, this is the only case on darklyrics, where the band has gotten the lyrics removed, even though most bands know about this site.
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"
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
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?
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.
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
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.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
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.
Sorry to reply to myself, but it does seem that the site wasn't _cracked_, as I understood from the post. Forget about it. :)
Errare humanu est.
I demand the Cone of Silence!
"We feel it is only fair to compensate our members for the loss of earnings caused by the illegitimate transcription of unlicensed lyrics"
If someone was publishing sheet music. Clearly, there is a great deal of creativity involved there. But do we really need to protect gems like "Na Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na Na?"
If you really have a problem with what the MPA (not the RIAA) is doing, you can Let them know
oh yeah im suckin it
-Keza
Therefore, in theory, I think it's ethic for them to go after people who publish lyrics that came printed with the original album. On the other hand, if the album didn't come with the lyrics, to prosecute people who listen to the music and publish what they heard is ridiculous, those people are contributing to increase sales.
If a site distributes copied cd's for _free_ (eg: mp3 files or an iso image) and they are not making any money out of it, then it is still theft. This is no different.
Intellectual property of music is more than just the recording of it. There's the sheetmusic/score/tab as well as lyrics and recordings.
... if they had a replacement in place before they took donw the illegal sites. There is obviously a lot of interest in getting the lyrics to the songs and not everybody prints them on the CD sleeve (added value guys!) but if you're going to ban these sites, replace them with soemthing for your customers!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
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.
It's by the Velvet Underground, it's called "The Gift".
1. Prevent people from finding which track the lyrics they remember are from.
2. People can't find out which CD to buy.
3. Watch sales plummet even further.
4. Blame file sharing for lost revenue.
5. ???
6. Profit!
I believe it. It's tough to find a store that sells CDs for less than $18 each nowadays. I refuse to buy a CD for more than $13.
It's just like the theatre company I used to work for. They charged around $38 for the cheapest seats and up to around $75 for the best. They didn't often sell out shows, but had a loyal subscriber base. The question I always wondered, though, is whether it is better to sell out at a slightly lower price that more people can afford or hope you'll sell out at the higher price?
Less CDs are selling because more of them suck. Yet, the prices are going up while the production costs are NOT.
Jory
This brings up an interesting question in my mind:
What about those of you who are purchasing MP3's, AAC's, and whatnot on the web for $0.99/song. Are you not entitled to the lyrics sheet just because you didn't pay for packaging?
Jory
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.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
What she means is that "just because nobody is there to sell them the right to redistribute lyrics doesn't give them the right to just do it anyway".
What they're saying by their actions is: We don't have the resources to offer you a license to reproduce the lyrics in a web database that serves our members in a positive manner. Instead, we have plenty of resources to have lawyers to send out threatening letters for not having a license we won't provide to you.
Does this make ANY sense to anyone other than the lawyers who are getting paid, while the artists are not?
Jory
they take away everything (i remember when you could find lyrics on the CD sleeves of some artists, those whose music you canactualy understand... i'm not paing $20 for 12 songs and getting no more than those songs, add the frelling lyrics to the sleeves and make money off the lyrics of those who buy em, it's expensive enough as is. it's difficult to find lyrics to a lot of songs, and frankly this thing has me even more annoyed, it's hard enough nw, let alone than they late it down.
Logistical Chaos Officer http://www.slagg.org - LAN Gaming in Sarasota FL,USA
A key part of the song is the title. A memorable title is a work of art and clearly deserves copyright protection. Sites that list the titles of songs on albums without paying royalties (amazon?) should also be shut down. After all, they are aiding and abetting P2P users as well as infringing on the writers' rights.
VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
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.
Jory
I can't believe this. Has the whole world gone mad. How petty have we become. Does the MPA think we are going to pay to read lyrics. Besides when we pay for music doesn't that give us the right to read the lyrics. I mean we can here them. It makes me so angry.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
People won't buy CDs unless there's something that you don't get with a copy, or they think copying is wrong. CDs have liner notes with lyrics etc. If you get rid of the lyric sites, then this could be something you can't have with a copy. Plus, lyric sites are easy to google :)
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
"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!
-Look lively. LOOK LIVELY!!! --Mr. Shmallow
FoodLuvr writes: According to the GPA (Grocery Partner Association) increased swapping of illegal loosly knit communities of people calling themselves "grandmas" have hurt grocery sales in recent years. "These grandmas," says Richard Head, the president of the GPA, "swap recipes constantly, with no thought given to the impact on either the grocery industry or even the restaurant industry. Just because you enjoy a meal prepared by a grandma, doesn't mean the original source was hers, or that she owns the license to reproduce it. It could be stolen. Something has to be done about this, millions of people all over the world are currently enjoying stolen food." With that said, lawyers for the GPA are submitting cease and decist letters to major geriatric homes and senior citizens centers all across the country.
FLR
Gee, maybe if the @#)$&@#ing artists would actually publish the damn lyrics in the CDs that I payed for, maybe I wouldn't go looking on the internet for them!
I suppose they will start including lyrics in the "special edition" CDs... or maybe the fact that I cant tell what the hell they are saying makes it Art.
Meh, I give up, I'm listening to techno from now on... DJ Tiesto doesn't sing much
This is quite different, the CD's are sold, thus they have a monetary value... When was the last time you saw the lyrics for [insert song here] for sale in [Sam Goody's/Best Buy/Wal Mart/your favorite store]? I would love to see how they determine actual damages if one of these cases goes to court... IAMDNAL (I am most definitely not a lawyer)
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.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Had they to pull a MPA out of their asses, too?
...after bad music will suffer digital death from "copy protections" even the bad lyrics will go down the toilet. If this trend goes on the world might be a better place soon :)
I personally can't see what all the fuss is about.
If a site is showing pictures of cover art, liners and gif's of lyrics without permission, then wrong and they should stop.
If the site is based on user contribution to come up with song lyrics (and I have found more than one site with wrong lyrics) just slap a "We're not responsible for content" disclaimer and they're all set. Works for software companies, motion picture studios, et al. Why can't it be used here? Hell I even remember slashdot winning a few battles based on this.
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering.
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
Because someone might overhear you!
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
Take a look at misheard lyrics, it is quite fun:
http://www.kissthisguy.com/
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.
Ah, does anyone else miss that wonderful lyrics site?
I used to hear a song on the radio, remember the chorus, look up the title/artist at lyrics.ch, and then buy the CD (downloading at 28.8 sucked!).
Of course the RIAA/Harry Fox took down the site, and in protest I haven't bought a CD since.
The songwriter/lyricist writes the song, that is possibly their entire work.
That is why they get royalties for the performance, even broadcast, where the performing artist does not.
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.
What they're saying by their actions is: We don't have the resources to offer you a license to reproduce the lyrics in a web database that serves our members in a positive manner. Instead, we have plenty of resources to have lawyers to send out threatening letters for not having a license we won't provide to you.
Could you point out the place in the article that says the MPA is bringing out the lawyers to send C&D letters. Maybe Sarah made a polite phone call to Darryl explaining the situation?
Just a question but where did you get the idea that an association should allow unlimited redistribution of material copyrighted by its members while everything is worked out?
You're entirely right about lyrics increasing sales. This is a very blatant bit of copyright violation (ie. the lyrics are copyrighted, and verbatim copying and redistribution is definitely NOT covered by fair use), however in this case it seems that allowing redistribution would be in the best interests of the musicians and the publishers.
On the other hand, I'm not thinking, "I'm Bob Dylan or Neil Young and I write my own lyrics, thank you very much." I'm thinking, "I'm some corporate author writing for Britney Spears." They would get a lot more on redistribution of lyrics, because they wrote that and would get a much bigger slice of the lyrics pie than they do of the album pie. In that case the author is getting the very short end of the stick. Although to me, having to write, "Baby, Baby," or whatever seems a pretty sharp stick to be poking into yourself already.
If I'm allowed to quote someone when I post a comment on my web site or if I'm allowed to refer to a line from a movie as long as I note its source, then why shouldn't I be able to post lyrics from a song? I'm not being a smart alec, I just don't get it...
"The lyrics today are stupid! My hip hurts! My penis wont get hard anymore!"
Congratulations, nobody cares about your individual opinion.
"Except in extremely rare cases", nice how you're just plain wrong.
Have you considered just dying off? I hear it helps your mobility, except in extremely rare cases.
--Rest of post read but ignored--
you are an idiot.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Um, excuse me? Don't you want to sell more albums and get more royalties?
This sounds like the artists/songwriters are behind this. I think the MPA (music publishers association) are cleary not out to get the best for the artists but for the publishers.
However it seems silly that they are really ruining their own market. No wonder the music business is going down hill, they are throwing in their own windows (no pun intended).
In my opinion artists make lyrics/songs to be heard and listened to, these rules seem to be in contradiction with them. And let's be honest, how can you earn money with lyrics only?
Dre
Next I will find that my farts are copyright, and I can no longer fart.
Kill all the lawyers.
It is the only way this will stop.
L.C.Data
Personally though I don't see what the big deal about posting lyrics online is.
I was speaking broadly, not in specific about this particular case. I am not claiming that the MPA sicced lawyers on the site. Sorry it appeared that way.
And, I'm not saying there should be unlimited redistribution while things are worked out. But how long does it take to work out licensing like this? As has been pointed out by someone else, lyrics.ch went through this same crap some years ago.
Jory
Glad that my life has been so busy that i dont have time to sample new music. i even have a distaste for the mainstream stuff knowing the industry is just trying to suck on my wallet-teet anyway. no thanks i'll just go listen to those garage bands or those playing in clubs.
Shut the net down! That will teach all of them, no internet tax, no SPAM, no virtual stores, adios Amazon, the net needs to go back to the days before 1993, when there was no commercial endeavors allowed in it.Greedy asswipes have destroyed the net. Shut the damned thing down! A 3 week boycott of the net by ISP's would get their attention! But, no, gutless money hungry asswipes run the net. That will never happen.
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.
100000 personal websites online, 100000 personal websites with lyrics! if one of them would happen to be sued, 99999 personal websites remain.
99999 personal websites online, 99999 personal websites with lyrics! if one of them should get sued, 99998 personal websites remain.
99998...
You got it close, but this is better.
}
while(majority_population != smart_to_this_crap)
{
rights --;
prices ++;
sales --;
blame_on_piracy ++;
sue_college_students(infinity_times_2_dollars);
I am that much more enlightened and proportionally disillusioned
I often dial surf on long drives, and I hate listening to DJ's... so unless I am fortunate enough to catch the name of a song I hear and happen to like after immediately after it's conclusion (seems to happen about 10% of the time), these lyric sites are the only way I can figure out what CD to buy (I just google a key phrase from the song...) .
The writers do get some portion of the proceeds from the recording, right? I know, that it is probably a shit percentage after some minimum of profit and all that, but it is still their means of compensation, right?
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
I think we need to ask, what we can do to help these type of sites out? Would a fund for legal aid be useful, something to help negate the all consuming legal power of the large corps.
Figure, there's nothing expressly illegal about publishing lyrics, its not even remotely close to theft.
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
Sheet music has the dots included with it so you can perform the songs.
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
website gets sued for publishing copyrighted material.
aoeu
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)
the history of the world
talk about songs, songwriters, artist, lyrics without written permission, musn't sing the songs in the public or with open bedroom doors/windows, musn't ...
why the hell are they publishing their songs?
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.
And yet, if you were a real "pirate", you could get a screengrab, and feed it through your favourite OCR program. Alternativly, if the "pirate" has 4 brain cells connected, they could type it in. Sounds effective to me...
lyrics.ch was gone after by the NMPA. The people going after LyricFind are the MPA.
To ensure that the right lyrics are posted, allow multiple entries for the same song, but have users (who have registered, probably for free) vote on which one they think is most real. Only one vote per song (example- if there's 5 different sets of lyrics posted)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I remember them doing this about 5 years ago to lyrics.ch - it comes as no surprise that they'd do it again.
I was thinking the same thing. The only issue I can see is if the site is making money by displaying lyrics. In this case, they really should compensate whoever owns the rights to the lyrics.
Only $19.95 buys you access to the unintelligible lyrics of your favorite artists... Since we don't print them in the CD Liner Notes anymore just to make you insane.
Who did what now?
A rep from the RIAA is going:
"Consumers? What do they have to do with music?"
Read Errant Story.
If we can't sample music, listen to music, and now we can't know anything about the music - how am I supposed to know what to buy?
i guess it really hurt those artists from the 80s that i remembered half a line of lyrics, used google to find the title of the song and then bought the cds. so here we go:
dear MPA,
i'm terribly sorry for spending money on these cds - i'll make sure it never happens again in the future.
yours sincerely
heby
It seems to me that publishing lyrics is like quoting somebody. People here on slashdot, quote others all the time.
This is all getting way out of hand.... and they wonder why the industry is falling apart, its morons like this that is killing it.
There is no shortage of good talent ( non main stream ) or willing customers..
But if they keep attacking both.... morons.
Wait until the book people start this crap up...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If you're as hopeless with names and/or often listen to one of those radio stations who insist on telling you the artist before the song, these sorts of sites are often the only way to find out the artist of a song to buy the CD!
Shooting themselves and us in the foot, as usual.
I just don't believe this! This has got to be the dumbest, stupidest, most retarded thing I have ever seen! Lyrics have been on the web since 1995 and now they have a problem with it? Give me a break.
Out of kindness, I won't rant on about Intellectual policy. The world does not need another flame war.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
I'm a jazz singer and I google for lyrics all the time. The songs I'm looking for aren't exactly 'top 10 hitz', so they're not easy to find in the real world. I find most of them on people's personal websites.
Yes, I agree that song lyrics are the same as poetry, but I also feel that smart lyric writers shouldn't be too concerned. Making the lyrics more freely available just encourages the song to be performed/recorded. In a perfect world the more popular a song is, the more $$$ the lyricist makes.
I think a worse problem is the outdated method in which songwriters get paid. Performance royalties are paid to an organization which doles out the checks according to an obscure formula. In other words, no one keeps track of which songs are played in clubs. They estimate the popularity of songs and pay the songwriter accordingly. [sarcasm]Of course, they do this without any outside influence and without a taint of corruption, after all, this is the music business![/sarcasm]
Let's say, for some reason, the Gillespie/Coots songs "You Go To My Head" gets very popular in jazz clubs in 2003. Well, unless the organization figures this out, the estates of Gillespie and Coots will get no additional money for this song.
Not to worry, though, Gillespie and Coots also wrote "Santa Clause is Coming to Town". So these cats will get big checks for the next 70 years, er, 90 years, er, indefintely...
(Notice that the last link is a page at a public school. Isn't that funny in light of the MPA's "Is your school a Copy-free zone?")
But I digress... The problem with MPA, RIAA, and MPAA's drives is they go against 'common sense'. See, posting a song lyric or two on the internet doesn't feel like stealing to Joe Sixpack, therefore it shouldn't be illegal (but it is). Conversely, Unsolicited Commercial E-mail feels illegal, even though it's currently not (fraudulents spams excepted).
My father is a blogger.
I agree with you mate, but the /. crowd assumes that copyright infrigement is not valid when the offended party has no monetary losses.
/. crowd = looting crowd.
You will soon realise that "if you don't lose any money while I don't respect your IP rights then I'm right and you're wrong -you have priviledged me with exclusive access on your IP rights".
It's one of my pet peeves. Those car stereos that are so loud you can hear them from four blocks away, even in your home.
Now, I guess, I have to pay the "artists" a royalty every time I hear that (c)rap.
The music industry seems to be really good at pissing off their customers. I see this as just another reason to continue to not buy music.
this is the most important sig ever! In your face 446154!
In the cases where the lyrics are printed on the cd, I find that the text is so small and the blurry as to be next to unusable. Never had this trouble with LPs due to size of the format.
I think this is getting very petty and ridiculous! I would think it would be legitimate if they were just clamping down on the people downloading lots of songs and burning CD's to give or sell to people.
But clamping down on the casual downloader and seeming to even wanting to stop people from making a mix of their own CD's was bad enough. Now this?!?!
Use to get how to play a song also of a site called Dansm's. Usually just basic cords and the lyrics or part of the lyrics that people figured out. The media people stopped him and others like it.
It is just one thing after another. The singing in the shower bit above was funny, but makes you wonder if a cop see's you singing in your car if your going to get a ticket for copyright infringement in the future.
Well, there is one way to hurt them. Boycott. Just stop buying tapes, CD's,... Also to make it legit, stop downloading from sites so they can't say that is where the buyers have gone. Just quit for a year. Let them see that you hold their purse strings or continue to be their patsy.
This reminds me of the Dixie Chicks and their comments in England. Hate us, say what you want, it's your right, just don't stop buying our music. Make us rich!
You fools. I have BOUGHT CD's because I would hear a song, didn't know who wrote it or what the title was, but was able to search for the lyrics I heard!
Perhaps they have a point if the site in question is purchasing sheet music, and then publishing it, and perhaps charging money for it. People submitting lyrics, however, what is the problem?
*sigh*
This action is only one more reason I only buy CDs used, unless they are from non-RIAA labels.
what the retards are "singing" about??
I've heard that crap my son listens to and there is no way a normal human being can understand it.
I heard a song on the radio and I SWEAR they were saying "mother f*cker" over and over, I could hear it clearly, or so I thought. I was pissed!
Well, Mrs. MPA, I am not going to go buy the sorry-assed CD just to read the included lyrics. I went to the net and found them. Turns out the song was saying something else but they intentionally played tricks to make you *THINK* they were saying "mother f*cker"..
Some more of that MTV mentality..
For PARENTS that NEED to know what sort of FILTH they are pumping into the heads of our children, the lyrics sites serve a great need. As parents, there is no way we are going to buy those CD's just to read the lyrics, that is if they even include them anymore.
What'samatta Mrs. MPA? Afraid we'll find out something? Trying to hide something from the parents are ya??
We know your game and the game is up.
The legitimate need for parents to find out what our kids are listening to far outweighs your greedy little needs to hide those lyrics from the parents.
Shame on you. I think that there should be a central, universal, and FREE lyrics database of ALL "music" (if you can call it that) so that parents can look them up. No ads, totally commercial free. No pop-ups, no pop-unders, no cookies, no sneaky crap. Just the facts.
Make it a federal law, the song does not hit the air unless the lyrics are published in a place and manner accessible to anyone for public scrutiny and examination.
Don't want to publish your lyrics? No airplay for you.
No CD's at Wallyworld or Worstbuy..
Oh yeah, that brings to mind, remember the recent flap over the Charles Manson (the Tate/LaBianca murders) (also soulmate of Marilyn Manson, another sick bastard and waste of oxygen) CD?
Kids were buying "music" recorded by this sick bastard from his prison cell. Seems you can buy it not only at Amazon.com
but it's for sale at most stores where kids can walk in and buy it off the shelves.
I don't know about you, but, NOT IN MY HOUSE!!
Some parents care about their kids.
Having copyright to be the lifespan of the original artist/author/director etc 70 in the EU, or 75 in the US IIRC, makes it blatant this is to protect companies, not individuals. I mean, if they'd had that rule previously, Edward Elgar's works would just be coming out of copyright in the UK next year. That would mean that until then, the English couldn't sing 'Land of Hope and Glory', and US schools wouldn't be able to play their traditional graduation music without coughing up a fee until 2009!
One exception - I'm quite happy with Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital having perpetual UK copyright of Peter Pan.
Never one to take this kind of nonsense sitting down, I replied immediately.I've been checking my mail but, still, nothing.
-Waldo Jaquith
Is there someplace practical one could host a site like LyricFind and be safe from the MPA et al. BTW, since LyricFind is in Canada do they really have anything to fear?
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
..and it was at first forced to pay royalties to AEPI (the Greek company for protection of copyrights) for the display of lyrics and guitar tablatures. For 2002 the amount was approximately 1100 euros (link is in Greek). However, AEPI decided this year to raise the amount payed for each song to an insane figure, making it impossible to display full lyrics legally. As such, kithara.gr is now displaying only parts of the lyrics, to comply with Law 2121/93, taking advantage of its Article 19.
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.
stuff |
Most of those sites sport a large amount of banners, popups, unders, required free-ish logins (spam email lists anyone?).. Using interesting 'sorta-copyrighted data' to lure people into your spider web of other *cough* services can generate revenue. Although I don't think most sites can make an actual profit from this I can understand the rationale a little. What if (say) Lycos suddenly sports a ga-huge lyrics database? People will applaud them for that great service...
Yeah, I agree. How could posting song lyrics online hurt the Motion Picture Association of America? Let's stick it too 'em and stop buying their damn CDs!!
Welcome to the Wonderful World of Business!!
The RIAA is the "Recording Industry Association of America" (interesting sideline: note the TLD of the RIAA is com, implying a commercial entity, rather than a non-profit organization). The important words here are "Recording Industry". The organization represents companies that make money from selling copies of recordings (tapes, CDs, DVDs, etc). So they have a vested interest in making sure that no-one who is not a member of their organization can do what they do (i.e. duplicate media) unless they get some money in the process (why should you buy a CD from Sony when you can download the contents and make your own CD for free?).
Similarly, the MPA is the "Music Publishers Association", which represents companies that make money by copying (printing) music, lyrics, song books, and so on. So they have a vested interest in making sure that no-one who is not a member of their organization can do what they do (i.e. duplicate printed music) unless they get some money in the process (why should you buy a set of printed lyrics when you can download and print them yourself for free?).
In both cases the effort they are expending on these lawsuits, C+Ds, nasty letters, etc, is to stop people doing what they do---duplicating something---because it eats into their members profits.
So stop thinking about the artists, as these organizations are only concerned with the interests of their profit-driven members.
Then again, perhaps it is time that we started thinking about the artists, and not these organisations! Ideally, if at all possible, go direct to source (the artists themselves), and circumvent these leeches:
The last couple of CDs I bought came from Synth Music Direct, small labels, small volume production, and better supporting the artists concerned.
Sadly, the giant dinosaurs of the recording age are thrashing around in their death-throes, and hurting a lot of innocent bystanders in the process. So stand aside, skirt round them, and enjoy real music!
Thank you for reading.
--
This message has been brought to you by the Slashdot Writers Association Guild "SWAG". Any unauthorized copying, duplication, publishing, reading, memorizing, quoting, or even discussing in hushed voices in private, in whole or in part, will be deemed a violation of our revenue stream (which funds our Hawaiian holidays, coke habits and the endless stream of blonde babes) and which we will vigorously defend (especially if you are poor and unable to afford decent legal representation), even if it is not in the best interests of the original author, whose soul we own.
The History Teachers Association (HTA) has sued The Quotations Page for posting quotes of famous people. A representative of the HTA said "Even though there was no central authority we felt that this [stealing] couldn't be tolerated any more. We just had to ... hey, are you quoting me.... stop that.... no seriously, I'll sue!"
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Not even then, storing the lyrics on carbon-based storage media is still infringement. I've been laying low, just in case the RIAA finds out and sends me the C&D for remembering old Pink Floyd lyrics or from Lucasfilm for not getting rid of all those forbidden Star Wars quotes I can still remember without constant perusal of the source material.
At least with the CDs v. MP3 debate we had SOME outlet to obtain the product we desire. It can be hard to find publised lyrics to some music especially if you don't want guitar/piano/etc music along with it (and the costs it incurrs). I seriously doubt signifigant royalties can be made off of lyric sales and obtaining the lyrics for a song only serves to bolster that songs popularity. It's free advertising. This is another shining example of an industry's near-sightedness. Next they'll go after OLGA.... again.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
I also strongly support discussing and displaying lyrics online, but I would like to point out that many of these are erroneous, and many sites seem to copy each others' mistakes. For example, I have been trying to figure out the lyrics to Endless Enigma from ELP's Trilogy album. Many sites quote "I'm tired of liver with freaks", which I strongly doubt is correct. Some claim the words are "I'm tired of hypocrite freaks" but I swear it sounds like "I'm tired of living with freaks". It would be nice to find a reliable source of information on what the real words are.
-- Me
"There's a bathroom on the right!"
-- Creedence Clearwater Revival
Or the people with "lyricosis", the disease which causes sufferers to have difficulty understanding song lyrics:
right: acting funny, and I don't know why / 'scuse me, while I kiss this guy
wrong: acting funny, and I don't know why / 'scuse me, while I kiss the sky
Unfortunately, both of those fit lyrically and logically; i.e. both are "funny" behavior, and they have identical meter and rhyme. I was one of the people afflicted with "lyricosis" for this song until I started to learning to play it.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
I own a site for lyrics with guitar chords and tabs: chordie.com.
It looks like most sites for guitar chord/lyrics sites, but it functions like a traditional search engine. It does not host any songs. Just links.
This can not be any more illegal than running a site like Google or AltaVista. Most of the songs indexed at Chordie, can even be found on Google.
I would really like to get some comments on this. Ive discussed it with a copyright lawyer, and even if he was not hundred percent sure, he did not advice me to close the site.
Another point is that very few artists (if any) see this as a problem. That young artists learn to play their songs, and play them to family or friends, isnt a problem. It is he best advertising you can ask for! If they should end up releasing a cover verion, they get their share anyway.
pere
The claim that downloading mp3s causes sales to increase can be debated, but I KNOW. I KNOW for a fact that I often hear a song on the radio that I like but have no idea who sings it. I memorize a part of the lyrics and look it up.
I find music pretty often that way. If they shut down those sites, they'll definately loose business.
Go get some Concert Speakers, you know, the BIG ones... 15 Feet Tall... tow them on a trailer, and when you find someone blasting music, drown them out with something like Dvorak, or Ludwig Van...
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
Who the hell are the MPA to say what is right and wrong? We should be hearing this from the ARTISTS if they are concerned with the distribution of thier lyrics.
I'm in england and I have 1 thing to say to the MPA, RIAA and MPAA:
'Who the hell are you communists! Get off my doorstep. I listen to the ARTISTS not communists like you!'
This is a solution that might make everyone happy (well, its pretty damn hard to please the RIAA without giving up your house, cars, and life savings... but ya know)..
Since there's no regulating body, how about the lyrics sites just put up a message saying "if you are the intellectual property owner of these lyrics, click here if you would like these removed from public access"
Sort of like how whenever you sign up for an account on a webpage the default 'YES i want email from you jerks!" is checked.
Rather than ask permission to put the lyrics UP, make it request-based for taking them DOWN.
Also, I must point out like everyone else that knowing lyrics ENHANCES the musical experience, and I can only see it supporting sales.
And finally, support the EFF and other organizations, so we all might have a chance in our voices being heard against these idiots.
no comment
http://www.mpa.org/xpac.html
This is most definitly not new, and is not related to all the RIAA P2P crap.
I have met the person who setup lyricfind.com initially.
He set it up back in 2000 when I was in college.
It was shortly after that that he was contacted about legal issues and had to withdraw the results from the search.
Take from local newspaper: RIAA issue injunction against 7 year old boy The RIAA today issued a court injuction against a 7 year old child who had bought a legal original music CD from a national reputable music store. The RIAA have been quoted as saying "We did not think it right that he *name withheld* should be able to 'buy' a CD from a shop without getting written consent from the Copyright holder, record label, distributors and their mothers first then getting additional permission for him to acutally listen to it". RIAA are hoping for damages in the region of 23 Billion dollars which would garnished from the boys allowance.
C&D's are worse than lawyers. They allow large companies with political and monetary clout to bully around smaller companies at the low, low price of not a lawsuit, not a subpoena, but you guessed it: a piece of paper and a 29 cent stamp!
--- What
"The History Teachers Association (HTA) has sued The Quotations Page for posting quotes of famous people."
Please tell me this isn't true!! I hope this is just a bad joke... NO ONE owns history, no one can copyright history or control the disemination of public knowledge.
Yes, let's kill all the lawyers. It's for the good of the world.
More often than not, if a few different lyric searches turn up the same band, I'll buy the album - that's how I picked up Coldplay, in fact.
Remove lyric sites, kill fan sites, and you kill album sales. The PENNIES that the songwriter loses out on by not getting royalties from the fan sites will be nothing compared to the thousands or millions of albums not sold because people don't know who the bloody artist is.
-T
i got fined the other day by the MPA for singing the words to a song that were on my Ipod. I guess doing it in public was the real problem.
This is just idiotic. Radio stations (on the rare occasion they play something good, which is a whole different discussion) RARELY tell you what song/artist you just heard. Not to mention songs in TV commercials, shows, etc. I cannot begin to count the times I have heard a song in one of those places, wanted to buy the CD, and been unable to because it's not credited anywhere! With lyric sites, all you have to do is put in a few words and there it is. Without them, I buy less music. If the industry was intelligent, they would encourage lyrics side-by-side with sales. Imagine using Amazon to go search for a line in a song and be able to buy the CD then and there. Another case of the music industry shooting itself in the foot.
LordBodak's journal.
...putting out a book called "Lyrics of " and either selling it or passing it out for free?
Making lyrics available online (and conceivably making a profit from fscking popups or banners) isn't really all that different, is it?
Perhaps the solution is to have bands/record companies publish the lyrics online themselves, in a preemptive move, and encourage linking.
Unless, of course, they are embarrassed by banality.
if a site is making money off publishing the lyrics then I think they should pay up or get permission. If they are doing it free of charge I do not see any harm in it whatsoever, unless the artist is looking to put out a book of his or her lyrics(which is a very stupid idea and I dont think anyone is interested in such a thing) I have lost all respect for the music industry now...what a buncha sad greedy assholes.
"At first, we thought it was just another snake cult."
Yeah, I can see how publishing the lyrics to songs will cut into the artists profits (not to mention our beloved record companies).
With the cost of CD burners coming down we can now record our own copy of a music note for note. With the cost of high-quality printing coming down we can also reproduce the cover art of our favorite CDs. With the lyrics available online we can also sing all the words to our favorite songs, without the need of the original artist.
Hell this could destroy music as we know it, everyone will be listening to their own version of works that they recorded with their own musical backing tracks. Consumers won't even need musicians anymore, they will have become the musicians. This must be stopped.
I propose that from know on popular artists should stop producing music with words, or at least only perform their music with words encrypted at the mouth so that no one can decipher them and transcribe them. That will show 'em.
Sorry, I haven't had my coffee yet.
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.
The ______ Agenda
As others have pointed out, distributing free cds is copyright infringement, not theft. Theft is when someone loses possession of actual (not potential) wealth due to the activities of others. If we redefine theft as the deprivation of potential wealth, then suddenly we have a world where you are a thief if you choose to walk down a road other than the one where a hotdog vendor is waiting for customers.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Things I don't like in my music include:
1. too much profanity. profanity doesn't bother me at all, but profanity used in such a way as to not be expressive is just annoying. lots of rap, and lots of metal is like this.
2. simple lyrics. i hate music where the writer couldn't even think about something to write and instead talks about her/himself. 90% of all rap...
3. politicking. i hate self-righteous musicians who espouse all kinds of political opinions, especially when they're big-name artists who have never lived in the real world. and why should i listen to someone's politics if i find it morally repugnant. i should be able to decide before i pay money to listen to something.
4. CDs that don't have the friggin lyrics, or have them in a handwritten type that i can't read. wtf? i'm supposed to pay money for something that i don't even know what it's about?
In short, lyrics are important to me in my music purchasing decisions. If I don't get to see the lyrics, I will buy even less CDs than I do now that I have a hard time listening to stuff before buying it...
Bleh, what a fucked industry...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
There used to be a great site at http://www.lyrics.ch that had pretty much any song lyric you wanted. Eventually, they got sued and went offline for a while. When they came back, they brought back the lyrics but they were only available within an applet that spread the words over a few pages and made it difficult to copy.
At the time, that seemed like an acceptable solution to all. So what's changed?
Their job is to sell recorded music. Repeat: recorded music is their commodity. Lyrics databases are frequented by working musicians all around the country (and world) who play shows at clubs, restaurants, parties, bars, pubs, street corners and elsewhere. The listeners at a lot of these places prefer to dine or drink while listening to music they recognize, and they get easily bored. Thus, the proliferation of reproduced lyrics and karaoke recordings is seen to be hurting the copyright holders. They can't be in every bar in the country demanding royalties on a public performance, so they have to try to control the content. But let me just say again what I said at the beginning of the post, this time with emphasis. These people SELL MUSIC. IMO, music is culture. They sell culture. Wherever this happens, naturally one should expect a clash.
I don't listen to much popular music, but once in a while I'd be in the car or at a restaurant where they had the radio on or something like that, and I'd hear a snippet of something I really liked. Used to be, I'd do an AltaVista search (this is a few years ago) and find out the name of the song and the artist and the album, and go buy it. (And I bought some clunkers that way, 'cause often the song I heard was the only one on the album I liked, but at least I had that song, and legally.)
I basically assumed at the time that while the lyrics were copyrighted, no sane music publisher would object to having them redistributed, since that was basically free advertising.
Then the music industry started going after lyric sites. I know some of them are still out there, but (1) they're a bit harder to find/search, and (2) I'd feel weird about participating in something that was technically illegal for no better reason than just to be able to give my money to a stupid industry that's trying to deprive me of my constitutional right to free expression [and not just by self-destructively vigorous enforcement of copyright, but that's a different diatribe]. So now when I hear a little snippet of a song on the radio that I like (unless it's NPR, in which case they usually make it easy for me to find all the information I need and often make it easy for me to hear the whole program again on the web), I just say "oh, well" and go download something (legally) from BeSonic.com or some other musician-supported site. I still buy CDs, but I spend less on them than I used to, and they're much more classical and folk (the sort of thing I hear about on NPR) and much less pop and rock (the sort of thing I'd hear in businesses or randomly spinning the dial in the car) than they used to be.
Oh, well, I guess the music publishers don't want my business, since they're making it harder for me to buy their product.
Not to be catch singing or whistling(sp?) any MPAA protected music.
I heard it's a U$20.000,00 fine, and 4 months in jail.]
-><- no
So stop it.
I'm serious on this one..
Would putting quotation marks around the lyrics and giving credit to the songwriters make it okay to publish the lyrics? It would be just like quoting a source.
I guess we all should start listening to some jazz (non-vocal of course).
100% Insightful
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
-- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 (letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
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.
That was TROLL, not FLAMEBAIT, you fucking morons.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Should the songwriters crack down on lyric sites? Maybe not. Can they? Absolutely. It's their work and they're free to flush it down the toilet if they want. They don't like the idea of other people profitting off of the fruits of the songwriters' labor, even if it doesn't mean increased income for them, and you can't really argue against their right to lay the crack down.
Yes. Read the subject line again. You. Are. An. Idiot.
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?
Immature and juvenile responses have a quick, immediate feel-good reaction, sure, I can understand that. But it doesn't keep them from being immature and juvenile and unwise.
Please, please, please, consider the following to be free legal advice:
When lawyers are threatening you with lawsuits, the proper response is not to write a snarky letter. The proper response is to get your own damn lawyer and let him write a snarky letter.
Why? Because he knows how to fight these chumps.
You don't.
And no, saying "well, I read the Constitution a few times and I read Slashdot" doesn't count for crap in a legal-education sense.
Get yourself a lawyer. Now. Stop reading Slashdot and call a lawyer.
ObWarning: I am not a lawyer and I am not licensed to practice law. I am the son of a judge. And I have seen, firsthand, what happens to people who think they can take on lawyers.
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??
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?
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 (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.
----------
Darryl Ballantyne
http://www.darrylballantyne.com
try this
End of passion play, crumbling away
I'm your source of self-destructionVeins that pump with fear, sucking darkest clear
Leading on your deaths construction
Tate me you will seeMore is all you need
You're dedicated to
How I'm killing you
Come crawling fasterObey your master
Your life burns faster
Obey your master
Master
Master of puppets I'm pulling your strings
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
Blinded by me, you can't here a thing
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear your scream
Master
Master
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear your scream
Master
Master
Needlework the way, never you betray
Life of death becoming clearerPain monopoly, ritual misery
Chop your breakfast on a mirror
Taste me you will see
More is all you needYou're dedicated to
How I'm killing you
Come crawling fasterObey your master
Your life burns faster
Obey your master
Master
Master of puppets I'm pulling your strings
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
Blinded by me, you can't here a thing
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear your scream
Master
Master
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear your scream
Master
Master
Master, master, where's the dreams that I've been after ?
Master, master, you promised only lies
Laughter, laughter, all I hear or see is laughterLaughter, laughter, laughter at my cries
Hell is worth all that, natural habitat
Just a rhyme without a reason
Neverending maze, drift on numbered daysNow your life is out of seasonI will occupy
I will help you dieI will run through you
Now I rule you too
Come crawling fasterObey your master
Your life burns faster
Obey your master
Master
Master of puppets I'm pulling your strings
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
Blinded by me, you can't here a thing
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear your scream
Master
Master
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear your scream
Master
Master
OMG I am such a lawbreaking rebel!
Does this mean I have to turn in my karaoke machine loaded with displayed lyrics?
IANAL (fortunately), but, is it not possible to turn the MPA's reasoning against them? Since there is no central body for controlling copyright to lyrics, and it would be impractical to contact each copyright holder individually, would it not suffice to place the following disclaimer on each lyric:
"The following lyric may be subject to copyright. If you are (or represent) the copyright holder of this work, and you do not want it made publically available on this web site, please let us know, and we will remove it immediately."
Surely this disclaimer would be legally sufficient if it is not practical to contact each author individually?
Also, isn't the performance of the song the "work" which is copyrighted? Something tells me that I'm not likely to lose a court case in which I am being charged for READING lyrics in public without permission. But what do I know? IANAL and don't understand things that go contrary to logic and common sense.
Yeah, but they're deflected easily by two little words... BLOW ME. ;)
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
The purpose of copyright protection is to keep artists from being hurt financially by other people using their works. Since people by music to listen to, complete with instruments, not lyrics to their favorite song to read, there is no financial damage to the artist from sites like lyricfind.com, and it has a strong potential to increase sales.
As many Japanese companies have found out, a strong fan base supports and increases sales of a product. Because of this, they allow the publishing of fan-based derivitive works, often at a lower price that the real material, and their sales do not suffer. Instead, they rise. This is because the publishing of unofficial, non-cannon works means more people who haven't read the series are more likely to come across & read a copy of either the original or the derivative work, which means another potential fan is introduced to the material, who will then want to buy both the 'cannon' stories and some of the fan art. While the publishing of lyrics on the web is not a direct correlation, it is true that if some one can only remember a snatch of song they want to own, they are more likely to be able to purchase that song if they can find out it's name and who the artistis, and more likely to buy it if they find other interesting looking songs by the same artist. Lyric sites aid in this endeavor.
Therefor, it is financially to their benifit to leave these sites in place.
"It takes a very long time to count to 2 in binary." ~'Fourlegged'
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.
I was beginning to think that no one remembered lyrics.ch. Has it really been that long ago?
Lyrics.ch was a great site, and I have yet to see it's equal. It used to be the place to get song lyrics. I can remember printing out all the lyrics to several CDs because the artists had thoughtfully not provided them inside the jewelcase.
Then the Harry Fox agency came along and was horrified that someone could actually download lyrics to songs without paying for them. Not that they had a good mechanism for you to pay for them, or that they were losing money -- they just wanted their pound of flesh from a site that wasn't even profitable.
As a result, lyrics.ch died. Sure, they brought it back, but they were so worried about what people might do if they could easily copy the lyrics that they made it unusable. The applet sucks balls, and only displays about five lines of the song at a time. Worse, it "pages" through the lyrics at a rate that doesn't synch with the song. So, even if you are a Windows user, the site is so hostile as to be unusable. But of course, copying the lyrics is nearly impossible. Meanwhile, the artists aren't making any more money, the Harry Fox agency isn't making money (who would pay for that crippled shite?), and the end user is deprived of a valuable resource.
Copyright has certainly gone way too far.
-------------------------------------------------
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.
Except its not stealing, its a copyright violation since you aren't necessarily depriving someone of something.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
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 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.
Does MPA Happen to stand for,
My Pussy Aches?
Just seems that way, "Waaagh"
Sorry, this joke *is* in bad taste.
Computational Madness in a round package.
just put the lyrics in the little booklet that comes with the cds like was done back in the day? or if they are still trying to cling to their old distribution method still, then advertise cd's with a new feature! lyrics! for only $2 more you can have the version that includes the lyric license that allows the holder to read the lyrics but not write them down because that is too much.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
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.
While knowledge about point the first is amusing, point the second is the ace up my sleeve.
-Waldo Jaquith
That just summed up the entire article. Every time I dont think I can see a bigger pile of BS and stupidity than I already have, it strikes again.
However, look on the bright side. Even the teens who have been brainwashed into thinking that they are stealing when they download MP3's (even though they still do) will probably finally figure out SOMETHING is wrong when they are going after their favorite lyric sites.
Come on, you can't possibly tell me that posting lyrics to songs is unlawful. If it is, when will it stop? Will we get in trouble for singing them out loud in public? This bullshit has GOT TO STOP!
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
So if I am in the elevator and I'm signing a song that I don't own the lyrics too I could be arrested for breaking copyright laws? Its basically the same thing, just a different medium.
Just one more way they are alienating their customers. Pretty soon they won't have any customers left to complain about.
None of these sites make money for publishing lyrics. They are all money holes, essentially. They run on donations, advertising, and the money earned by the contributors elsewhere.
There are books with music and lyrics to a good many songs, but very often they are badly written, and it is hard to find any more than a very small selection of the most popular bands, if they have deigned to publish one. They often cost as much as the CD whose songs they contain.
If all you are looking for is lyrics, there is no reason in my mind you should not be able to get that much on the internet, for free. Many bands do publish their lyrics on their site, but most do not publish the real lyrics to their songs (like some other posters have pointed out, the misheard lyrics or amateur fans' renditions are often used).
The whole situation is rather frustrating, honestly.
The MPA never went after us. They mostly ignored us, saying we had to contact the publishers directly and that they couldn't do anything for us.
----------
Darryl Ballantyne
http://www.darrylballantyne.com
What makes you think the Dave Matthews Band's knowledge and acceptance matters? It doesn't matter. The only question is who holds the copyright on the lyrics... and if you have the permission of the copyright holder, even that's not a sure thing.
... etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And what have you done? You've just taunted them, dared them, "please, please, Mr. MPA Attorney, break out all the dirty and foul tricks you can to get even with me".
After all, the MPA's lawyers can, if they so choose, make an argument that you're not acting in accordance with the permission granted to you by the copyright owner. They can make an argument that the person who you think holds the copyright really doesn't. They can
You're an idiot. Stop reading Slashdot. Get a lawyer. NOW.
If you've been part of two lawsuits already, then by God, you ought to know this already without being told.
What are they going to ban next? How about reproduction of song titles. :-)
In other words: "If something is not explicitly allowed by the law, it must be illegal".
Hmm, I think I've heard of that before. Isn't it called fascism?
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
The only arguement I can think of that the MPA can make is that song lyrics are actually a form of poetry. The publishing of someone else's poetry without the author and/or owners permission infringes their copyright. IMO, of course. I'm not a law professor or anything.
There have been quite a few posts asking why artists don't include the lyrics with their albums. Any republishing of the lyrics, including in the liner notes of the album they came on, requires paying royalties. Sure, the artist will get some of that (sometimes as much as 15%), but the vast majority of it goes to the Harry Fox Agency or someone comparable. A lot of artists quite rightly view this as paying HFA for the privilege of including their own lyrics on their own album. The whole music industry should go down in flames and I hope it does. The more scumfuck music "executives" who lose their jobs, the better the world is. I feel sorry for all 5 people at the labels who actually care about music and try to help the artists out, but there are other jobs out there that are less demeaning, like urinal cake replacement technician.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
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.
IANAL... But I play one on
I've heard a good songs on the radio lately where I only know they lyrics and not the artist or title. As more radio stations switch to automation, you don't have DJ's talking after every song telling you who it is. Often I've had to look at the Billboard charts and experiment with downloads to find it.
I was beginning to think that no one remembered lyrics.ch. Has it really been that long ago?
This happened in 1999, if I recall correctly. The past repeats itself.
Ok, so they can give sites some trouble for unauthorized lyric publications and still have the law on their side. But why do they do it?
By all means, go for artists that use others lyrics/music as a base for their own music, but why do they wish to stop webmasters from listing some lyrics?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
This sounds like an issue on our campus between some professors and a company that farms students to take notes on classes and sells them. Even though the professors work is usually copyrighted through the university, the students version of the notes is their own and they can use their notes however they want, including selling them to the company (and the company selling them to other students).
So if the text is your interpretation of the lyrics, i.e. you listened to the song and wrote what you heard, I'd say you have a pretty fair chance you can have fair use of them. Of course that gets a little black and white once you start performing songs with those lyrics or selling them.
The cheaps A$$ ba$tards won't include the bloody lyrics in their ALREADY overpriced cd's, so now when I go print up a addendum to my jacket from some site, THAT IS ILLEGAL ?!?! If they were selling the lyrics that would be one thing but to display them for download WITHOUT profiting, HOW DOES THAT HURT ANYONE ???
That is the final straw, I give up buying music. Does anyone know a good list of NON-RIAA affiated band/labels ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Damnit - I can't quote from songs anymore either... Guess I'll have to find a new way to provide insight on life...
The joy of how money-hungry we have allowed the people running industry to get
What's next? Is the RIAA going to send snitches out in public to rat on local bands for playing cover tunes?
Public performance of cover songs is not RIAA's jurisdiction but rather BMI's, and BMI does exactly that
Will I retire or break 10K?
a piece of paper and a 29 cent stamp!
You mean a 37 cent stamp.
Oh wait...37 cents is too low. We better raise it to 39 cents. After all, that has been the price for nearly a whole year now!
Reminiscing: ah, remember days when a sending an envelope through the USPS stayed the same price for YEARS instead of months?
Jory
If she used correct grammer, I'd give her some credit.
What are these guys upset about?
That we find out the dirty secret we have been suspecting all these years - half of these songs don't even HAVE real lyrics!!!!!
There's a lady I know
If I didn't know her
She'd be the la-tay I didn't know.
And my lady, she went downtown
She bought some ber-ra-ccoli
She Brought it Ho-ome...................
She's chop'in broccoli
Chop'in brocco-li
Chop'in brocco-la
Chop'in Brocco-laa-aa
SHE'S CHOP'IN BROCCO-LAY
CHOP'IN BROCCO-LAY
SHE'S CHOP-EAH-UN!
Chop'in brocco-loco -lay -eaa -eaa -eaa--eeee
She's chopin broccoli
she chopin she chopin she chopin she chopin she chopin
ch ch ch ch ch ch ta ta ta ta the bra-co-li-i
She's chopin Brrrrraaaaiiiii
She's chop she's chop broccoli
She's chopin Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I spoke with Darryl Ballentyne regarding this issue. You can find it here.
tinfoilmedia
That really sucks for people that buy CDs from artists that DONT include their lyrics (I can think of quite a few). A lot of those artists, on top of that, don't even sing clearly. You end up with a CD where you never actually know what the fuck the guy is saying.
"La nah rah now, itzch me anus, here we are now, entertain us."
With out actually looking up Teen Spirit, how many of you would have actually figured out that first part?
Mrs. Sarah Faulder of the MPA should be aware that on many occasions, I've remembered a fragment of the lyrics of a song I liked. I didn't know the title, the artist or any other information. I was then able to search lyric sites with the fragment I had to determine the song.
Several times, that has been followed by purchasing the CD.
If the MPA is going to force me to pay to search lyrics, they can f*ck off, and I'll be relagated to humming the fragments that I know... never buying the CDs after I figure out who they are by.
It seems rather unusual that people would actually pay money just to verify song lyrics (which quite a few on the Internet are wrong). What are the record labels really trying to prove with this one? That they really can rape consumers at will by not only gouging CD prices but charging us for song lyrics too?
I say everyone puts up the lyrics to one song on every site they administer. If 40% of all the web sites in the world have to remove content it might be too daunting of a task for whoever wants to clean this up.
Or... we can just sit back and do nothing...
What's next? Is someone going to sue the public school systems for demanding that the students site other works and research in there essays and reports with out having contacted the publishers to secure the rights first.
This is moronic there are not claiming the work as there own, they aren't making any money, hell half the time the lyrics aren't even correct.
We all better be careful or they will sue Slashdot because some of it users have unlicensed quotes in there sig files.
Allow me to take this even further, to illustrate a point.
I posted comments on Slashdot, and you reproduced it in your post. I didn't give you permission to repost it, yet you did anyway. You redistributed it for the world to read. By your reasoning, what you did was redistribute my works without my permission. What I write is copyrighted, and only I own the rights to it. I decide how it can be distributed, and I didn't give you permission to quote it in your response.
My lawyers will be in contact with you...
(kind of ridiculous, huh?)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Refusing to sell a license may be held against a copyright owner under the market value clause of the fair use law.
Will I retire or break 10K?
My understanding from the article is that you or someone from your company were somehow contacted by Sarah Faulder or a representative of the MPA and told that your site was breaking the law hence the "went after" remark.
Copyrights are similar to patents in the sense that the copyright holder has the right to sue. Infringement is not theft
On a side note, how are we expected to figure out what Kurt Cobain was saying if these sites are eliminated?
I just bought a couple of CD's from CDBaby.com. FWIW, CDBaby will sell your CD online for $4 per copy. You send them the CDs, they put up a web page and handle all the transaction stuff( credit cards, etc) and send you a check (and hopefully a request for more of your hot selling CDs). the artist I was looking at had 3 FULL LENGTH mp3s that I could play at will. It was painless, cheap, and I know the artist got $8 per CD that I bought. BTW, the artist sets the selling price. Fuck the RIAA, MPA, etc. They are obsolete.
They don't want you to find out that nervana and other shity bands are mumbling.
people who hum along in their heads.
Forget humming in my head - I have perfect recall for music, once I've heard it 3 times or so I can replay it in my head. The only way to clear it out would be with SnowCrash - Stephenson had the right idea as to what copy-protection fanatics were capable of, but wrong motiviation.
I was about to tell a friend of mine about this great artist, then I realized the name was trademarked and I couldn't repeat it without getting in trouble with the MPA. The album title was copyrighted so I couldn't use that either. Another artist lost in oblivion, like so many teardrops in the rain.
Not by the MPA. We were contacted by Copyright.net for that reason, though. We also proactively contacted the CMRRA to try to obtain licensing.
As a side not, Sarah works for the UK arm of the MPA - so even if we spent lots of time with the MPA it wouldn't have been with her!
----------
Darryl Ballantyne
http://www.darrylballantyne.com
This isn't right. I think consumers should be able to find out wtf the artists are trying to say. "Mumbling" singers are the best example of why we need lyrics to their music. And "excuse me, while i kiss this guy" is a prime example.
.smell my feet.
Is linking to songs redistribution?
Some lyrics sites (like Chordie) just links to the songs without hosting it themselves. Is that redistribution?
I was kinda hoping that it might rank a little higher than a "bad" joke... perhaps a clever pun. Maybe I was just doing a parody.
Oh well... either way, I think I got my point across.
Oh, and don't ever quote me again. (Just kidding)
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
"Oh well... either way, I think I got my point across."
You know, it wouldn't suprise me at all if some asshat tried something like that. Everyone seems to be on the gravy-grab these days.
Patent this, copyright that. Gimme, gimme, gimme!
When I stand back and look at all this crap of late, I am reminded of the saying from Highlander, "There can be only one!" in that they seem to be all in a power struggle to control every aspect of our lives. I saw where someone or some corp. was trying to patent HUMAN GENOMES.
Could this be the ultimate struggle to become "god" ???
I'm waiting for the day when some other organization with a three or four letter acronym decides as well that singing along while I'm sitting in rush hour traffic is also a violation of the DMCA.
Hey, I'm vocally copying the song! Circumvention of copy protection! eeep! I'm sure they'd nail me extra hard if I had a passenger; I'd get it once for copyright violation and once for publically displaying illegally copied works!
They're lyrics! Only lyrics! People like to know lyrics so they can sing along, right? I've got a directory on my computer called "Lyrics" and I break out the files therein whenever *I* want to sing along. By saying that the lyrics cannot be freely distributed to any and all persons who desire them, it seems to me that they're putting a restriction on singing along as a concept. Kind of like making ammonium nitrate fertilizer harder to get to discourage people from making bombs.
But singing along with a song does not equate to levelling a federal building in Oklahoma state; and the intended purpose for having the lyrics generally is to enable a fun little sing-along. Sing alongs used to be great fun; around the campfire, on long car rides, and etc. But now? Now it's becoming more and more difficult to find lyrics to enable that singing along.
What could be more innocent than a sing-along? Why must I be persecuted for desiring to imitate an artist but not being able to remember all the words to a song?
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
This is ridiculous. If you walk up to me and start singing a song, and I want to write down what you said and tell my friends, you're out of your mind if you think you have ANY right to stop me.
I'm getting tired of everyone putting up with shit and trying to justify our copying of music, data, etc within the framework of "copyright law".
When it leaves your mouth and enters my ears, it becomes just as much mine as yours. If you don't like that fact, don't speak to me. When you sell me a CD full of music and I play the music, the music is mine and so is the CD. If you don't like that, don't sell your music on a CD.
Musicians used to wander the countryside on horseback singing for food. I'm one of those people who would have fed them generously, maybe even offered some money to help them out.
But if that musician had then tried to extract from me a promise never to do my own performance of what he had sang, I would have told him he was insane. You do NOT own that which you perform.
And you can't make a law that says otherwise because it's impossible for the law to be enforced or even complied with.
When I pay for a tape or CD, I am NOT paying for the right to listen to the music. I'm only paying for the convenient distribution of the music to me via a little plastic disk. The net has made that form of distribution obsolete, and the distributors are no longer profitable. So what - let them die.
The MPA, RIAA, and MPAA have no inalienable right to be profitable, and I don't give a crap if they go under completely. The pony express was a great, cost-effective distributor in its time too, but Congress didn't make a bunch of laws to keep the post riders going by blocking other distribution mechanisms or letting the post riders claim that once the mail was given to them they were the only ones who were licenced to read it, just so they could charge recipients for it.
The whole notion that musicians should be highly paid, widely aclaimed people is just a side effect of the distribution company's business practices, and I for one will be very happy to see lots of music distributors file bankruptcy and lots of musicians performing for their dinner again.
If you're a musician who thinks you have some right to be paid every time your music is performed, fuck you - I work every day, all day, for enough to cover my family's basic needs. It's time for you to do the same and forget the idea that you "deserve" million-dollar houses.
Hear a Song on the radio and think yea I want to get that song - now what IS it called?
Option 1
Remember the Lyrics
open google
search for the lyrics - Find them on a Lyrics site - get the song's name and who sung it.
open www.allmusic.com and find which album the song was on
Buy the Album
Option 2
Kazaa
those sites are a sales tool
Don't these people want customers ?
Type unto others as you would have them type unto you.
The Music industry has gotten way to much control... The copyrights should be held by the band and the writers of the music... not the companies that devolop and distribute the mediums... I think that is what needs to happen... That the Artists retain Copyrights and licence to the diffrent medium vendors... then suddenly alot of problems will go away. Music will be cheap once again instead of priced to extract every little penny possible out of your pocket with a miniscule ammount trickling into the artists hands.
:)
If you want the MP3 rights to the music.. pay for em on what ever licencing arrangement you can come up with.. How many Bands would dive in for 1 million flat rate per song for MP3 format/medium rights.. Then you would truely see 1 hit wonders
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
Everytime something like this comes up, I happily ignore it. As other people have mentioned, Google is the beset tool for finding lyrics. Not only is its ranking system good enough that "I Feel Lucky" works, it's also faster. I'd rather load a google page (fast) followed by the lyrics page (slow) than go to that person's home page (slow), enter the same search query, and then load the same lyrisc page (slow).
That's the solution for users like us: just use Google. Always.
The solution for the MPA and related organizations is to use Google. Just five times.
Search for the lyrics of artists you claim to represent. See how you get many relevant links? In fact, for each such search, you might end up with thousands of relevant results. And that's per song. Are you going to attempt to sue them all? I think not. Threatening e-mails are cheap to send, but following up on them all is like trying to charge all users licensing fees for GIFs (or Linux).
So now that you, the MPA, has learned that Google exists and that you cannot get rid of all the lyrics on the web, what's the next step? Offer your own lyrics database! Free of errors and typos, supported by you and your artists, and possibly the start of a groundbreaking revenue stream. Get people to your site instead of others' sites. Use the web instead of fighting it.
If you want to thank me, just agree to stop throwing lawyers at technological issues. To quote George Carlin: "Who knows, it might work. It certainly hasn't been tried."
--
"Extra Anus Kills Four-Legged Chick" -- Headline
When you actually buy the CD, and the fucking lyrics AREN'T INCLUDED AT ALL because some monkey designer couldn't find a way to make them fit in with his fucking CD cover design.
And then you have to go to some unofficial lyrics place on the web to find them.
What makes you think the Dave Matthews Band's knowledge and acceptance matters? It doesn't matter. The only question is who holds the copyright on the lyrics...
:)
Dave Matthews does, although some of the songs are held by him in collaboration with other band members.
You're an idiot. Stop reading Slashdot. Get a lawyer. NOW.
And you're a rude bastard. It's swell that your daddy is a judge, and I'm sure that's given you a whole lot of exposure to this, but I've got a legal firm that I've paid a whole lot of my company's money to ensure that everything's A-OK. If it's not, then their E&O will cover me.
See, all of this makes a lot more sense when you stop assuming that I have the IQ of water fowl.
-Waldo Jaquith
All this should have been in the article.
My mistake.
Sorry.
Excitable, aren't we? Try reading the actual letter our pal Waldo received.
How are you going about achieving your goal? By tweaking lawyers.
What lawyers? Name one. No, all I see is a "Sales Manager" being tweaked. And if you'd bother to actually read the body of the letter, you'd find that it contains no assertion that Hal Leonard actually holds any rights to any of the music referred to on the website! The letter is a troll. When Mr. Jaquith starts getting serious letters from serious people, I'm sure he'll respond to them appropriately. His response to David Hall was perfectly appropriate, and makes no difference to his legal position.
Who's an idiot now?
that one person's definition of "evil" is most people's definition of "succesful capitalist." what a screwy world we live in
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
What will be next?
;-)
;-)
Will humming a tune be illigal, unless you do it in your own house?
Will singing a song, which you just heard on the radio, become illigal?
Will you be convicted for writing a letter to your mom containing phrazes used in a song?
It might be a good idea to get a pattent on every word you write/say
What's this world comming to. I live in Belgium, and over here EMI started a video commercial to make people aware that downloading music is stealing.
Well, let me tell you this, back in 1985 the price for a CD was about 17.5 and it still is now, in 2003. Somehow i don't believe that production costs etc haven't dropped like 70-75%. So where does the rest of my money go? Actually i don't care, i only care about the 17.5 I have to pay.
You can hear it everywhere, profits have dropped by 30, 40, even 50% because of downloading from the net. Well, my guess is, if the prices had dropped alongside the production costs, they'd be at about the same point.
The only mistake they made was thinking the well wouldn't dry out
Seems like the well has some leaks after all.
Just in case these greedy bastards are succesful in shutting these sites down, I give you the lyrics to "Land of A Thousand Dances", by Picket Wilson:
I said na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na. Na na na na.
Seriously, the fact that someone is able to copyright that just blows my mind.
Also, why doesn't someone just dump all of the lyrics on USENET. Then who are they going to go after?
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." -- Lord Acton