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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."
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
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.
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.
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 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
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.
uh couldn't you apply this logic to force muscians to supply their music sheet.
Or for programs to supply the source code of programs so people without computers can admire the programs..
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.
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
no,no,no. You're not toeing the RIAA line: It is pay per use. You there! In the shower! Stop that! Now look what you made us do. We have to install microphones in your homes to talley all this theft! Imagine the gaul of these people! Singing our songs!
I mean isn't this fair use?
It's only fair use if you're citing part of the lyric for a paper or an article. Copying the whole thing, for the sole purpose of having a copy of the whole thing, is simple infringement. Poetry is protected the same way, and you'll find that there are in fact several popular poets (or their estates) who aggressively protect their work from online reproduction.
Music is heard, but the words are still copy and are fairly copyrighted.
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 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!
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 |
Once you sing a song in public, the lyrics are now "out there".
For that matter, so is the music.
What's next? Is the RIAA going to send snitches out in public to rat on local bands for playing cover tunes? What is the difference between posting lyics to a copyrighted song on your website versus actually playing the song live in a club to a large group of people and singing those copyrighted lyrics over a PA system? Seems to me both constitute broadcasting the lyrics to the public. So is the RIAA going to sue us for playing cover tunes in clubs?
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
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.
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?
"illegal tab arrangements on your website."
This is an interesting concept. They're actually illegal tab arrangements?
What's the figure on the number of possible variants that can exist?
Some people might remember that the Fields of the Nephilim 'reused' the rhythm guitar section from 'Ace of spades' by Motorhead...I wonder if anything happened there?
OD
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
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.
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
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.
It would seem that you are saying that "property rights" are sacrosanct. To be held above reason, common sense, the general good of society, and not to be questioned under any circumstances.
No, I'm using the concept of property rights to illustrate that all "rights" are "invented" by someone, so that is an irrelevant argument against intellectual property rights.
Prior to Europeans coming to the US, Indians did not have the concept of "land ownership". Everyone could use the land.
In Feudal Europe, the Kings owned the land. Individuals did not.
Does that mean that land ownership in North America is "invented", and therefore should be ignored? Does that mean that if I want to use your pool, I can, because property rights are an invention perpetuated those who profit from it? Of course it doesn't.
So how can the author of the post I'm replying to claim that "idea that copyright infringement is theft was invented by copyright holders and those who profit from strong copyright protection.", implying that it's a fake concept and therefore should be ignored?
And how can the author portray "profit" in such a one-sided way? Party A creates something. Party B wants to use it for free, in essence "profiting" from the work of Party A, and denying Party A the ability to "profit" from something he created himself.
Why is it evil for the creator of a work to profit, but not evil for the user of that work to profit?
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!
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Darryl Ballantyne
http://www.darrylballantyne.com