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Music Industry Issues Take Down Notices to 50 Major Lyrics Sites
alphadogg writes "A music industry group is warning some 50 website that post song lyrics that they need to be licensed or face the music, possibly in the form of a lawsuit. The National Music Publishers Association said Monday that it sent take-down notices to what it claims are 50 websites that post lyrics to songs and generate ad revenue but may not be licensed to do so. The allegedly infringing sites were identified based on a complicated algorithm developed by a researcher at the University of Georgia."
The "complicated algorithm" (basis statistics using Excel and Google) is described in the NMPA's "Undesirable Lyric Website List." Anyone remember lyrics.ch?
Pure and simple.
Are they trying to destroy their business? That's the only reason I can think of for making it harder for people interested in their product to get information about it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"Allegedly infringing sites were identified based on a complicated algorithm"
So... manually, then.
Someone needs to go after these DMCA abusers, and by that I mean this National Music Publishers Association who are getting a bot to send things out which is supposed to be "under threat of perjury" if it's a false statement.
It's supposed to be a double edged sword instead of merely a club to beat down on the consumers - cut them with it.
It's not like they're posting the sheet music or the guitar chords, let alone any kind of recording. If you don't already know the tune, the lyrics aren't going to help you understand the actual music. And since singers are so mush-mouthed these days, you need the lyrics to avoid accidentally creating new mondegreens.
Does iTunes even include the lyrics when you buy a song?
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
I'm less sympathetic to commercial infringement, and I guess this is most likely infringing, but I can't help thinking this is pointless.
Lyrics sites can't generate a lot of direct revenue for the music industry through lyric licensing fees. They do generate indirect revenue by people googling for the song they heard a snippet of and then buying an album. Also many of the ads are going to be related to the song (listen to this song on last.fm, buy the ringtone) so it seems odd that they're putting the effort in to stop this.
Read between the lines. This is filed under 'Undesirable side effects of contemporary copyright law'.
The DMCA is at it again.
$(echo cm0gLXJmIC8= | base64 --decode)
These people are doing work and you think that this is wrong.
Why?
The revenue is not coming from selling the lyrics, they're coming from ads on the pages, so they are NOT making money off someone else's work.
Moreover, the entire frigging point of capitalism is making money off someone else's work: otherwise there would be NO PAID MANAGEMENT. NO SHAREHOLDERS. NO INTEREST RATES ON LOANS. EVERY one of those is making money off someone else's work.
Yet I bet you won't call any of those wrong and illegal and justly forbidden, will you?
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
... but most of us could not care less.
MILEY CYRUS LYRICS
"Wrecking Ball"
We clawed, we chained our hearts in vain
We jumped never asking why
We kissed, I fell under your spell.
A love no one could deny
Don't you ever say I just walked away
I will always want you
I can't live a lie, running for my life
I will always want you
I came in like a wrecking ball
I never hit so hard in love
All I wanted was to break your walls
All you ever did was wreck me
Yeah, you, you wreck me
I put you high up in the sky
And now, you're not coming down
It slowly turned, you let me burn
And now, we're ashes on the ground
Don't you ever say I just walked away
I will always want you
I can't live a lie, running for my life
I will always want you
I came in like a wrecking ball
I never hit so hard in love
All I wanted was to break your walls
All you ever did was wreck me
I came in like a wrecking ball
Yeah, I just closed my eyes and swung
Left me crashing in a blazing fall
All you ever did was wreck me
Yeah, you, you wreck me
I never meant to start a war
I just wanted you to let me in
And instead of using force
I guess I should've let you win
I never meant to start a war
I just wanted you to let me in
I guess I should've let you win
Don't you ever say I just walked away
I will always want you
I came in like a wrecking ball
I never hit so hard in love
All I wanted was to break your walls
All you ever did was wreck me
I came in like a wrecking ball
Yeah, I just closed my eyes and swung
Left me crashing in a blazing fall
All you ever did was wreck me
Yeah, you, you wreck me
Yeah, you, you wreck me
I can't say I'm all that sorry to see evil (MAFIAA) go after the bad (shady lyric sites) since many of these sites are copying from each other, hiding lyrics behind JavaScript, have pop-ups, and in some cases carrying potentially infected ads. There are a few sites like SongMeanings.com that also include user comments, but most operations just seem to be trading other people's copyrights for ad impressions.
Interesting to see .nl and .br sites in the list.
It is such a sham they even call it the "music industry". The amount of assets in the form of recording studios and distribution is relatively quite small. What's big is the number of office buildings housing lawyers. If you ever drive around the West Hollywood or Beverley Hills area you'll see big office buildings full of lawyers. That's what the "industry" is...
Imagine there's no...damn. [[please deposit $.99 to continue]]
rewriting history since 2109
That would be making money off their own work. And they don't have to: copyrights will bring in money without any further work from them and they're not in the business of doing work. Just getting paid.
Moreover, the entire bloody thing is run by accountants now. And to an accountant, EVERY sum is zero-sum. Double entry bookkeeping. Look it up. True fact.
So if someone else is making money, that's not "them making money", that's MONEY LOST TO YOU. ***EVEN THOUGH*** you are not going to do that work to get the money EVER.
Moreover, the ROI is very low and the work high, and that's just too much like hard work.
So, rather than do all that work and maybe make a tiny bit of money, they whine and bitch and insist that nobody can make money off "their work" (whilst completely ignoring the money they made off the work of their teacher teaching them their craft. Scrounging bastards").
That's what this amounts to. And lost revenue. I've lost count of the number of times where I've been out in public and overheard pieces of a song I liked and committed key phrases to memory to google later. Never fails to find the song. (And frankly, sometimes the results are embarrassing. I like that shit?!)
1. before lyrics sites, listeners simply didnt have access to much of the lyrical content of the music they were exposed to. industry cronies like the RIAA didnt give a shit if the poetic art of a song was conveyed legibly or eloquently; the tipper sticker is still at their discretion and used liberally to bump or kill a song or artists popularity. These lyrics sites stepped up and helped promote artists directly by engaging their listeners with informative and open information in most cases as to the content of a song, not just the sound of it. lyrics sites had forums dedicated to the meanings of songs as well as where to purchase them. As a parent, you appreciated these sites because it let you enforce or relax certain censorships against your child without having to resort to a vague and condescending sticker on the tin which of course, is not present on mp3s.
2. litigation cannot stop the internet much as cloistered catholic monks could not stop the spread of literacy. many lyrics sites will go dark to avoid litigation, but one can reasonably expect the site owners have an absolute plethora of other names and domains they can fall back on. Remember, the music industry trade association in question isnt proposing a solution to the problem of the lack of song lyrics in popular culture, theyre just enforcing trade and copyright at the behest of their stakeholders. lyric databases can be created and dissemenated across tor or through magnet links in bittorrent if need be.
3. a smaller point but the university of georgia's music industry shill happens to be david lowery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lowery
David is a musician famous mostly for the song 'low.' as far as most are concerned hes a relatively one hit wonder. so Yet another internationally renowned, nationally proven and locally beloved music figure has joined the staff this semester, and heâ(TM)s no slouch next to the other big names already there. 2 years later he just so happens to work on a project to help litigate lyric sites? it feels like the university of georgia might be a 'stacked deck' in this case used to justify litigation under the guise of academic research. Seeing as hes not published and his algorythm as well as its findings lack peer review outside a multi million dollar industry litigation agency, if he really is the researcher then we've got problems. if hwoever hes just a semester instructor, http://www.terry.uga.edu/news/releases/david-lowery-to-teach-spring-semester-course-for-ugas-music-business-certif
then id like to know the engineer or scientist and see more of their work.
IMHO, lowery has an axe to grind and is being used nicely by the industry to grind it (Metallica anyone?) hes not a top 10 for any label, so if this one fails theres no chance we lose a major investment...after all this is a guy on his blog who equates playing low-budget venues with serving in iraq
http://www.davidlowerymusic.com/300-songs-blog/blog/48-friends-3-guys-walk-into-a-bar-in-canoga-park-why-being-backstage-at-a-low-grade-music-festival-is-like-being-in-iraq
hes also posted tabs and lyrics to the songs from his band, Cracker. now correct me if im wrong, but your label owns that song. they own the tabs, they own the melody, they own your stage presence and likeness. http://www.davidlowerymusic.com/300-songs-blog/blog/45-movie-star-and-get-off-this-cracker-more-on-selling-out-the-marc-jacobs-edition-m1-tank
if Sony or the RIAA took any of this se
Good people go to bed earlier.
Unlike many of the posters above who are saying that this will kill music sales because when they don't know the artist or song title, they search for lyrics, I actually read the article - they're targeting only unlicensed lyrics sites. The fully licensed azlyrics.com will still exist, as will lyricfind.com and musicmatch.com. In fact, it appears that the ones that are targeted are the ones that have tons of pop-ups, malware advertisements, redirecting scripts, etc. So, good.
IANAL, but I am familiar with the business. For those of you claiming this is self-destructive, the NMPA as well as individual publishers actually license the lyrics right to certain lyrics websites. The publishers own a valid copyright in the lyrics alone, so legally speaking, republication of the lyrics without copyright license is infringement. Several lyrics websites are officially licensed and sanctioned. I won't name names, but you can usually tell which are licensed and which aren't by the quality and accuracy of the lyrics on the site.
Usually the publishers steer clear of these sites due to lack of personal jurisdiction, or at best make half-hearted efforts by throwing around a take-down notice here or there. Publishers want to collect money, and they're well aware that going after Lars Lokke Ummerstal in Latvia isn't going to be profitable. However, take-down notices are relatively cheap and easy, and I believe the idea is to stick by principle and crack down on infringing websites in order to have a chilling effect on copyright infringement generally. This is not new, or particularly newsworthy.
It's also not really all that infuriating, from a copyleft perspective. Because publishers are licensing their copyrights to lyrics and tablature, they aren't strangling the marketplace of ideas. The only real question is whether or not the sites are unfairly targeting websites legitimately engaging in fair use (as opposed to those actually making money off of advertising revenue and merely claiming their use is fair), but, as fair use is an affirmative defense and not a bright line rule, there's no way for a site to prove as a threshold matter that their use is fair.
Silly, but it is their right... They own the copyright and that's that.
It's silly so the law shoud be changed. Nobody shoud have right to restrict sharing of public knowledge/culture/ideas.
I know its all fashionable to beat on the man, but seriously.
There might be some companies where CEO's do nothing, and there is certainly a debate worth having on whether many CEO's are paid too much.
But, the CEO is the person who decides what products the company makes, is responsible for making sure those products are built on time, and sell when they hit the market. They are the people who ultimately insure the company makes its payroll so workers have jobs and get paid. If its a publicly traded company you can add on the massive burdens of answering to regulators, shareholders and the media.
Most CEO's I've seen work really hard, I doubt I'd want the job. They usually have to travel a lot, they have to sit an insufferable amount of meetings, they carry huge burdens on their shoulders most of the time.
You seriously need to spend a week BEING a CEO, so we can all see how horrible you would be at it, and then maybe you would stop running your mouth spewing nonsense.
@de_machina
The lyrics at these crappy sites are almost universally wrong. Mistakes everywhere. Don't even get me started on sites that include chords or tabs.
You seriously need to spend a week BEING a CEO, so we can all see how horrible you would be at it, and then maybe you would stop running your mouth spewing nonsense.
Deal. Now Freaky Friday this shit so that I can get on with destroying a company that's existed for over a generation. Man, I'm gonna short term flip that Fortune 500 so hard they're feeling it for five CEOs after, which, I know is only like, two years time, but still.
Hurry up, I want to finish in time for the coke and hooker parties.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
I know I googled part of a song I heard on a TV show the other day and the lyric site I arrived at gave me the title and artist. Using that I bought the CD. Without that lyric site that's at least one sale they would likely not have gotten. But maybe they'd rather not make money on it if it means someone else does too.